Sean O'Sullivan - Founder of SOSventure

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- So we have with us Sean O'Sullivan,

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and first I'll give you
all a little background

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on the Khan Academy connection.

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About three years ago, we get an e-mail

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from you saying that
you wanted to help us.

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And we're like, uh, okay.

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And so you show up, and then you know,

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we spend more...

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it was at 277 Castro, I
think we were probably

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what, a five person organization then?

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Maybe, three person
organization at the time.

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You spend a half an hour with...

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half a day with me and Shantanu,

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and you leave essentially one of our

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biggest supporters ever.

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So, you know, thank you,

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and that was a big vote of confidence

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in what we've done.

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It was a phase of the organization where

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we didn't know what it would become,

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and all the rest, so
that was a, you know...

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- Well, you were already
so far down the road

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it was obvious that you
were on to great things.

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And here, look at the team
you've got around you.

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You've built an amazing set of products

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and capabilities and
affecting many millions

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of people's lives.

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It's something that anyone is lucky

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whether you're working
here or supporting Khan,

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lucky to be a part of such a great

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social movement for good.

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- I knock on wood every morning. (laughs)

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So let me introduce everyone to you.

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So you have actually
several claims to fame

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that I knew about you before,

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but then this morning I started doing

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some research about you,

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and you have lived a full life.

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So I guess right now you're most famous

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especially in Ireland for
being on the Dragon's Den,

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which is essentially like
the Shark Tank of Ireland.

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- Yep, that's right.

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(talking over each other)

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It's actually the third most
popular show in Ireland,

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after like the Late
Late Show, and the news.

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So it's super...

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like, nobody really knows
the Shark Tank here,

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but it's, I don't know,
it's probably the 50th

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or 100th most popular show
in America, I don't know.

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But in Ireland, you know, I
can't walk down the street

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without people recognizing me.

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- [Sal] Or giving you a business plan,

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and you have to be...
- Yeah, exactly, all that.

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- And it's one of these
premises where it's

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a bunch of investors,
and they have to pitch,

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and you all have like
money on your coffee table.

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- Yes, that's the one.

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That's the show.

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- And we have some footage of it.

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- [Voiceover] Who is prepared to enter

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the Dragon's Den?

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Inside could be the money to turn

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business dreams into reality.

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But only the bravest and the best

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contain the dragons who guard the prize.

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Those dragons are five of the country's

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most wealthy and
successful business people.

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And the budding entrepeneurs who dare

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to face them in the den
need to convince them

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to invest in their dreams.

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The dragons all know what
it takes to be successful

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in the fiercely competitive
world of business

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having built their companies the hard way.

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Technology pioneer Sean O'Sullvian

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runs Avego, a world leading
transportation software

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company headquartered in Cork,

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and operating globaly
while investing millions

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in start-up businesses.

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- My vision is to mix style
and fashion with wonderful

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music engineering, and this is it.

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It's called Ig Guitars.

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The electric guitar industry has been

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dominated by products which have

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not been innovated for 50 years.

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I'm conscious of style.

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I like to wear clothes that represent

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what I stand for, and
so do all my generation.

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This is what they want.

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It's new, it's cool,
it's highly functional

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and they will love it.

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I am doing for guitars

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what Steve Jobs has done for phones.

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- You know one of my fellow dragons

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was in a rock band, a rock star,

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and old recording studios as well.

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- He was only the piano player.

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- [Gavin] Janet Speaks French.

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If you Google, it was big in the '50s.

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- Before I was born.

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But not before Gavin was born.

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What's the market for guitars?

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How many sell a year?

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- Yeah, so, like this approximately

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between the States and Europe,

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you've got about a million
electric guitars per year.

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- What is the revenues
that you're projecting?

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- I'm aiming to sell 2,000
guitars in the first year

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at 160 euros per guitar, so that's working

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out at 320,000.

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I wanted to retail at
349, but I want to bring

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that back to 299 after
you know, I'm getting

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more efficient with production
and stuff like that.

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- Rob, I think you're potentially a

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really great entrepeneur, and I think

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you're probably going to need more money

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to do this than the 35,000.

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So I'd like to give
you a little more money

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than you asked for and take a little more

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equity than you asked for.

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So I propose to give you 50,000 euro

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for 25% equity in your company.

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- Okay.

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- Also, we have a hardware
accelerator program

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in China that takes
designers like yourself

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from anywhere around the world,

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puts them in situ, in the environment.

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We can put you into a program like that,

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and get you working
directly with the factories

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and getting more electronics.
- Oh, that would be absolutely awesome.

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- These are all things I'd love to work

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with you on future
generations of products.

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- Um, you know, if I
was working with you...

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I'd really like to work
with you, but 25 percent.

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Would you do anything where

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you could pare that back,

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you know if we hit targets to 20 percent?

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- If you sell 2,000
guitars in the first year,

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I'll give up from 25
and down to 20 percent.

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- Okay, cool.

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Yeah, done deal.

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- Great, congratulations.

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- [Voiceover] A deal, and a last minute

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reduction in equity.

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Now that's worth getting out of bed for.

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- Take it easy.

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- [Sean] Take care.
- [Rob] Good luck.

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- Was it him you were looking at?

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Because I didn't see the differentiation

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of the product.

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- The product is...

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- [Ramona] No, his product's good.

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- the product is different.

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It's absolutely different.

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- Sean, that sales model
that he's gonna sell,

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pay as much as you think
you feel a guitar is worth,

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I think that would work.

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(all laugh)

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- All right, that's it.

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That's Rob O'Reilly.

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And that deal closed,

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and Rob has actually
since come out with some,

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a second generation of products.

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- So it worked out well?

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- Oh yeah, it worked out, yeah.

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- This is like a real thing.

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Cause you see this on TV shows,

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you don't think...

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- Yep, no.

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It's actually, a lot
of times, half the time

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the deal doesn't go through,

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even after it seems like it goes through.

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In my case, probably they go through

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around 80, 85% of the time.

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But some of the other dragons or sharks

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don't actually...

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You know, they don't
come to terms at the end.

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- And so this is actually a venture

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that you're still working
on and still is... - Yeah.

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- You know, it's...

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They're producing, you know,

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it's got some rave reviews.

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It's a very unusual guitar.

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It has several unique
features that, you know,

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it has a midi output, as
well as the sound out.

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It has, it's cut out in the center,

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it has a balance beam, it's got plectrum.

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It's a nicely designed guitar.

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- We'll talk about it because,

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as we'll see, that is part of your past.

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Is in the music industry.

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- Yes.

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Invest in what you know.

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- Exactly.

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So we'll start at the beginning,

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because I mean obviously
it's an interesting

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life so far you've had.

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You were born in New York,

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you're of Irish descent.
- [Sean] New York City.

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New York City, Irish descent.

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You eventually end up back in Ireland.

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But how did it start?

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I was reading about,

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I mean you are one of nine children?

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- Yes, I was one of nine children.

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So I was born in New York City.

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I actually had a deadbeat dad, actually.

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So, my mother and my father got separated

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when I was three.

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We were raised in poverty
in upstate New York

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on the welfare system.

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So for five or six years, my mom

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was raising the nine kids who were

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all under the age of 10.

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I was three.

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- Nine kids under the age of 10?

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- Yeah, at one point.

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But then we got older, and after, you know

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six or seven years of that,

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she was able to get a job and we sort of

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worked our way out of
poverty over the years.

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But that was the start of it.

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You know, it's, New York
state is not a great place

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to be growing up poor,

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because the weather is
actually quite severe

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compared to California, so it could be,

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with wind chill or
whatever, minus 40 degrees.

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And so when we would go to sleep at night,

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in the dead of winter,

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we'd gather in one room with a wood stove

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with the wood that we cut down

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from trees ourselves and just try to,

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you know, all of us, sometimes

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a couple people in one bed,

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just the six or seven people say,

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in one room sleeping with a wood stove.

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It's probably different
than how you grew up.

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But maybe not. (laughs)

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It wasn't that bad, actually.

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- And how did you, given that start,

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which is a hard beginning,

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how did you get into technology?

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How did you get into computers,

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which was kind of your first passion,

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or one of your first
passions, that and music?

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- Yeah, so my first passion probably

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would have been computers.

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Somehow saw my older
brother went to college

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and he, this was back in the day

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when they still had punch cards,

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and I saw some print outs
of work that he was doing

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as a computer science program himself.

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So I said wow, I really...

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It was just fascinating, it
was really appealing to me.

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You know when you grow up poor,

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you don't have that much control

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over your environment,

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and to actually be able
to control a computer

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is an incredibly powerful thing.

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It does whatever you tell it to do.

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That's really remarkable.

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So it was a way of
getting some control over

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the situation and being
able to develop myself

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and support myself.

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- And you even support,

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even when you were in high school?

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- Yeah, actually I had
my first professional

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job programming was when I was 14.

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So I had learned some programming,

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and there's, in America, for the poorest

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of the poor there's a program called

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the Civilian Employment Training Act,

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I'm not sure if it's still around,

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but they basically give you jobs

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that are supposed to prepare you for

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a long time career.

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So they gave me a job being

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a janitor in my high school.

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And I said, well jeez,
that's not the greatest

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career potential, and I don't understand

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why it's a training act if I don't

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really need that much training to push

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a broom around or a
vacuum cleaner or whatever

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in the first place.

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But I found a county agency that was

00:11:16.807 --> 00:11:19.250
a couple miles from my house,

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so I asked the person who ran that agency

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if I could just have a job basically

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changing data tapes or printing out things

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just to get started, and
then when he discovered

00:11:32.274 --> 00:11:33.950
I could program, and I could program

00:11:33.950 --> 00:11:37.914
better than several of
the other programmers

00:11:37.914 --> 00:11:40.520
that were older professionals,

00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:43.810
that I ended up getting started that way.

00:11:43.810 --> 00:11:44.560
- Wow, wow.

00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:44.873
I didn't even appreciate...

00:11:44.873 --> 00:11:46.340
I mean, this wasn't that long ago.

00:11:46.340 --> 00:11:47.876
This was like the early '80s?

00:11:47.876 --> 00:11:48.953
- This was the...

00:11:48.953 --> 00:11:50.500
yeah, early '80s.

00:11:50.500 --> 00:11:51.881
- Early '80s that they
would recommend for a

00:11:51.881 --> 00:11:55.773
14-year-old to be the janitor
at his own high school?

00:11:55.773 --> 00:11:57.138
- Yeah, like it's better than nothing

00:11:57.138 --> 00:11:59.129
because you still get to...

00:11:59.129 --> 00:12:01.979
It's a minimum wage job,
but you still get some...

00:12:01.979 --> 00:12:03.868
You're working, and you're contributing

00:12:03.868 --> 00:12:07.781
to your family's situation.

00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:09.713
So it's not a terrible program,

00:12:09.713 --> 00:12:13.493
although they're obviously, they could

00:12:13.493 --> 00:12:15.813
have aimed a little higher than janitor.

00:12:15.813 --> 00:12:17.341
So I did work as a janitor,

00:12:17.341 --> 00:12:22.341
and as a groundskeeper
and things like that

00:12:22.637 --> 00:12:25.120
for maybe a year before I'd found

00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:27.592
a way to get myself out of it.

00:12:27.592 --> 00:12:30.291
- And obviously you got that job,

00:12:30.291 --> 00:12:31.884
and you kept developing it,

00:12:31.884 --> 00:12:33.406
and you go to Rensselaer.

00:12:33.406 --> 00:12:38.406
- Yeah, so I got into
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

00:12:38.527 --> 00:12:40.540
which is in Troy, New York.

00:12:40.540 --> 00:12:42.466
The oldest English
speaking engineering school

00:12:42.466 --> 00:12:46.524
in the world, continuously
running or whatever.

00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:51.751
The claim to fame is the
inventor of the television,

00:12:51.751 --> 00:12:54.343
the inventor of the semiconductor process,

00:12:54.343 --> 00:12:56.953
the first microprocessor,
and all these other...

00:12:56.953 --> 00:12:58.376
you know, the Brooklyn Bridge, all those

00:12:58.376 --> 00:12:59.794
other sort of things.

00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:04.229
And as a, I grew up like
an hour southwest of there,

00:13:04.229 --> 00:13:07.750
so I was always hearing about how they

00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:09.995
were in the Mars Rover project,

00:13:09.995 --> 00:13:11.809
and all this when I was growing up.

00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:13.254
And I just said, wow, that just sounds

00:13:13.254 --> 00:13:15.156
like the kind of thing I want to do.

00:13:15.156 --> 00:13:18.775
Do really impactful, amazing things.

00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:20.663
So that's what got me into engineering.

00:13:22.096 --> 00:13:23.956
And never looked back.

00:13:23.956 --> 00:13:25.715
You know, I think that engineers have a

00:13:25.715 --> 00:13:29.142
disproportionate power in the planet

00:13:29.142 --> 00:13:33.169
to affect the world in massive ways.

00:13:33.626 --> 00:13:37.948
So, we were just talking
about this a little earlier,

00:13:38.225 --> 00:13:40.699
that a lot of the brightest students

00:13:40.699 --> 00:13:43.842
unfortunately choose to major in areas

00:13:43.842 --> 00:13:45.759
which are basically service industries.

00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:47.199
Like one-to-one service industries,

00:13:47.199 --> 00:13:50.031
like the brightest kids
in high school sometimes

00:13:50.031 --> 00:13:52.648
end up choosing to become
doctors or lawyers.

00:13:52.878 --> 00:13:54.618
And those are things that are one-to-one

00:13:54.618 --> 00:13:57.170
service industries, verses becoming

00:13:57.170 --> 00:14:00.726
an engineer, where you have the capability

00:14:00.726 --> 00:14:03.342
to affect millions and
billions of people's lives

00:14:03.342 --> 00:14:05.800
with products that you design,

00:14:05.800 --> 00:14:06.467
and impacts that you have on the planet.

00:14:06.467 --> 00:14:09.953
Which I've also been
lucky to have been able to

00:14:09.953 --> 00:14:11.960
have been part of teams and leading teams

00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:14.827
that have had those kinds
of changes over the years.

00:14:14.846 --> 00:14:16.493
- And that's your first experience

00:14:16.493 --> 00:14:17.345
coming out of college.

00:14:17.345 --> 00:14:19.213
And especially growing up poor,

00:14:24.443 --> 00:14:27.236
my background wasn't as dire as yours,

00:14:27.236 --> 00:14:29.710
but not that different as well.

00:14:30.441 --> 00:14:32.320
One of the things when
you come out of college

00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:33.835
is that fear of,

00:14:33.835 --> 00:14:36.754
well do I be an entrepreneur
and kind of risk it all,

00:14:36.754 --> 00:14:38.812
or do I at least just
go for the middle class

00:14:38.812 --> 00:14:41.995
you know, pay the bills, get a car.

00:14:41.995 --> 00:14:44.179
You went entrepreneurial.

00:14:44.983 --> 00:14:47.150
- Yeah, from the beginning days like,

00:14:47.150 --> 00:14:51.658
I mean, it's really easy to go living like

00:14:51.658 --> 00:14:53.531
from living like a college student

00:14:53.531 --> 00:14:54.863
where you don't have any money,

00:14:54.863 --> 00:14:57.529
you don't have any
possessions or whatever,

00:14:57.529 --> 00:14:59.580
to living like an entrepreneur,

00:14:59.580 --> 00:15:01.192
which is the same exact,

00:15:01.192 --> 00:15:03.387
you haven't changed anything.
(both laugh)

00:15:03.539 --> 00:15:04.542
You don't have any money,

00:15:04.542 --> 00:15:07.401
you don't have any needs
or things that would

00:15:07.401 --> 00:15:09.429
prevent you from doing it.

00:15:09.442 --> 00:15:10.542
So I was lucky enough.

00:15:10.542 --> 00:15:12.240
I had worked my way through college

00:15:13.916 --> 00:15:16.894
for IBM and a couple of other smaller

00:15:16.894 --> 00:15:20.332
tech companies during
summers and what-not,

00:15:20.332 --> 00:15:24.283
so I was able to know that I also,

00:15:24.283 --> 00:15:26.303
I also knew before I graduated college,

00:15:26.303 --> 00:15:30.161
that I didn't really want
to work for a large company.

00:15:30.161 --> 00:15:33.596
Because I saw, like IBM's a great

00:15:33.596 --> 00:15:35.720
company and everything,
but I saw some of the

00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.879
best engineers that I was
working with in research,

00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:42.666
Triangle Park at one
point, North Carolina,

00:15:42.666 --> 00:15:46.684
that they were working on
this video phone project

00:15:46.684 --> 00:15:49.363
back in 1984 or something,

00:15:49.363 --> 00:15:54.149
and then IBM the company bought ROHM,

00:15:54.149 --> 00:15:56.920
which is a key systems phone provider,

00:15:56.920 --> 00:15:58.337
for like a billion dollars.

00:15:58.337 --> 00:16:01.461
And so this team of
super dedicated engineers

00:16:01.461 --> 00:16:02.904
that had been workign like eight years

00:16:02.904 --> 00:16:05.170
on this amazing product,

00:16:05.170 --> 00:16:08.030
just got exed off because of some big

00:16:08.030 --> 00:16:10.234
corporate decision that had been made

00:16:10.234 --> 00:16:11.727
10 levels above them.

00:16:11.730 --> 00:16:14.670
And they'd worked their
bones off to produce

00:16:14.670 --> 00:16:19.670
this unbelievable break,
ground-breaking product

00:16:20.223 --> 00:16:21.452
and it never saw the light of day.

00:16:21.452 --> 00:16:23.248
And I said, you know, I'd rather not

00:16:23.248 --> 00:16:24.418
have that happen to me.

00:16:24.418 --> 00:16:27.109
I'd rather be working
in a smaller environment

00:16:27.109 --> 00:16:28.878
where I can have a lot more control

00:16:28.878 --> 00:16:30.377
over my destiny.

00:16:30.554 --> 00:16:33.305
And so that's why I
chose to start a company.

00:16:33.305 --> 00:16:34.976
That's why I think it's
always great to work

00:16:34.976 --> 00:16:39.430
in smaller organizations
that do have big impact.

00:16:39.430 --> 00:16:41.235
Like you have here at Khan Academy.

00:16:41.498 --> 00:16:43.267
- And at first, it was Mapinfo.

00:16:43.267 --> 00:16:45.697
This was, I mean you, it was kind of

00:16:45.697 --> 00:16:46.505
a pioneering company.

00:16:46.505 --> 00:16:48.458
Now everything, you know, Google Maps

00:16:48.458 --> 00:16:49.741
and you have all these, you know...

00:16:49.741 --> 00:16:50.937
- Yeah, so if you've ever...

00:16:50.937 --> 00:16:51.917
Has anyone ever done this?

00:16:51.917 --> 00:16:53.323
Has anyone ever typed an address

00:16:53.323 --> 00:16:55.577
into a computer and seen a street map?

00:16:55.895 --> 00:16:56.763
Can I see a show of hands

00:16:56.763 --> 00:16:58.285
if anyone's done that before?

00:16:58.285 --> 00:16:59.508
So we invented that.

00:17:00.129 --> 00:17:02.434
And that was a long long time ago.

00:17:02.434 --> 00:17:05.806
Because I'm approaching 50 like

00:17:05.806 --> 00:17:08.608
a bullet train to that wall over there.

00:17:08.977 --> 00:17:10.896
Before you can say oompa loompa,

00:17:10.896 --> 00:17:12.998
I'm gonna be 50 years old.

00:17:13.321 --> 00:17:16.721
So, um, like, it was a long long time ago.

00:17:16.721 --> 00:17:19.806
It's 30 years ago that we did this.

00:17:19.806 --> 00:17:24.530
And you know, it was a big idea back then,

00:17:24.530 --> 00:17:26.349
and it pioneered and set the groundwork

00:17:26.349 --> 00:17:28.872
for all the technology that has since

00:17:28.872 --> 00:17:30.700
developed from it.

00:17:31.170 --> 00:17:33.354
I have a total huge respect for what

00:17:33.354 --> 00:17:38.354
Google's, you know, the street view thing.

00:17:39.743 --> 00:17:41.435
They've really, you
know, a lot of companies

00:17:41.435 --> 00:17:44.270
have done a lot with the technology.

00:17:44.270 --> 00:17:46.295
But we pioneered it.

00:17:46.295 --> 00:17:48.361
The first million or so people that used

00:17:48.361 --> 00:17:51.180
street mapping on computers were,

00:17:51.180 --> 00:17:53.918
99% of them were using Mapinfo.

00:17:54.109 --> 00:17:55.815
It became a couple hundred
million dollar company.

00:17:55.815 --> 00:17:56.924
It became a public company.

00:17:57.238 --> 00:17:59.705
It was licensed by a lot
of the bigger companies

00:17:59.705 --> 00:18:02.126
to do it, but more importantly,

00:18:02.126 --> 00:18:05.781
the thousands of re-sellers
and the thousands

00:18:05.781 --> 00:18:08.578
of local countries that
were using our product

00:18:08.578 --> 00:18:10.606
digitized all the street
maps using our product

00:18:10.606 --> 00:18:12.729
or made it available to their customers

00:18:12.729 --> 00:18:14.800
using our product,

00:18:14.800 --> 00:18:15.400
which sort of set the groundwork

00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:19.113
for all the mapping that happens today.

00:18:19.365 --> 00:18:20.507
So it's pretty cool.

00:18:20.631 --> 00:18:23.445
So that was my first company.

00:18:23.445 --> 00:18:24.829
I was there for seven years,

00:18:24.829 --> 00:18:27.987
and I was the president and chairman of it

00:18:27.987 --> 00:18:30.148
for then, and then I left.

00:18:30.386 --> 00:18:32.780
- It goes public, and you leave,

00:18:32.780 --> 00:18:34.599
and the classic Silicon Valley thing is

00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:39.094
oh, I've had one exit,
let me go do my next one,

00:18:39.094 --> 00:18:41.362
or let me become a partner at a VC firm.

00:18:42.553 --> 00:18:44.187
You start a rock band.

00:18:44.350 --> 00:18:45.490
- Yeah, yeah.

00:18:45.490 --> 00:18:46.301
(audience laughs)

00:18:46.301 --> 00:18:49.150
That was an unconventional choice.

00:18:49.150 --> 00:18:51.993
I think I've made several
unconventional choices.

00:18:51.993 --> 00:18:53.382
- I was listening earlier this morning

00:18:53.382 --> 00:18:54.532
to "Love is Pain."

00:18:54.532 --> 00:18:55.548
- Oh my god.

00:18:56.580 --> 00:19:01.496
That's from our first EP, five song EP.

00:19:02.611 --> 00:19:06.783
Some copyright violators
put it up onto the Internet.

00:19:06.783 --> 00:19:07.634
- Which you were happy about.

00:19:07.634 --> 00:19:08.720
It was funny, because I saw..

00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:12.642
The name of the band
was Janet Speaks French.

00:19:13.872 --> 00:19:16.612
You actually got on the radio?

00:19:16.612 --> 00:19:19.858
- Yeah, we were Top 40
in 80 radio stations

00:19:19.858 --> 00:19:20.758
or something like that.
- [Sal] Top 40?

00:19:20.758 --> 00:19:21.404
- Yeah, yeah.

00:19:22.757 --> 00:19:25.322
But you know, 80 radio
stations in the United States

00:19:25.322 --> 00:19:28.159
is 2800 radio stations or whatever,

00:19:28.159 --> 00:19:30.827
so none of you would have heard it

00:19:30.827 --> 00:19:35.827
if you were even alive back in 1994,

00:19:35.855 --> 00:19:36.650
whenever it was.

00:19:36.650 --> 00:19:37.964
- [Sal] I was there in 1994.

00:19:37.964 --> 00:19:38.344
- You were alive?

00:19:38.344 --> 00:19:39.196
- [Sal] Yeah, yeah, I was alive.

00:19:39.196 --> 00:19:40.622
I was going through high school.
(Sean laughs)

00:19:42.334 --> 00:19:44.943
And, I mean, what was
going through your mind?

00:19:44.943 --> 00:19:47.300
Obviously music was a love of yours.

00:19:47.300 --> 00:19:49.172
You had, I guess you were comfortable

00:19:49.172 --> 00:19:50.891
at this point financially.

00:19:50.891 --> 00:19:53.860
- Actually, I wasn't quite
comfortable at that point

00:19:53.860 --> 00:19:56.313
because the company was in
the registration process,

00:19:56.313 --> 00:19:58.670
but it hadn't actually
gone public at that point.

00:19:58.670 --> 00:20:02.149
So for awhile I was just doing it,

00:20:02.149 --> 00:20:04.846
and that was all right.

00:20:05.700 --> 00:20:08.190
I don't live like in a
really extravagant way,

00:20:08.190 --> 00:20:09.254
I don't need that much money.

00:20:09.254 --> 00:20:13.306
Cause you know, it always,
it's good grounding

00:20:13.306 --> 00:20:14.757
to remember where you came from.

00:20:14.757 --> 00:20:17.365
Because you could be
right back there any time.

00:20:17.918 --> 00:20:21.770
You never know what's in front of you.

00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:25.980
So I've never needed that much to get by.

00:20:25.980 --> 00:20:26.964
So being a struggling rock musician

00:20:26.964 --> 00:20:29.775
wasn't that big of an adjustment for me.

00:20:29.775 --> 00:20:31.772
- And you do that for how many years?

00:20:31.772 --> 00:20:32.570
- Two years, actually.

00:20:32.570 --> 00:20:33.261
- Two years.

00:20:33.261 --> 00:20:35.699
- And then I started a technology company,

00:20:35.699 --> 00:20:37.105
an internet company.

00:20:37.105 --> 00:20:42.105
It was 1995 or something, end of 1995.

00:20:42.600 --> 00:20:45.387
And so that was back when Netscape

00:20:45.387 --> 00:20:47.800
wasn't called Netscape, it was called

00:20:47.800 --> 00:20:48.469
Mosaic Communications.

00:20:48.475 --> 00:20:49.751
And probably none of you even heard

00:20:49.751 --> 00:20:51.144
of Netscape even.

00:20:51.704 --> 00:20:53.693
(talking over each other)

00:20:53.693 --> 00:20:56.394
- We hire people older than 16.

00:20:56.394 --> 00:20:57.781
(both laugh)
- [Sean] Okay, good.

00:20:59.780 --> 00:21:00.135
I forget who I'm talking to.

00:21:00.135 --> 00:21:01.250
An engineering crowd.

00:21:01.250 --> 00:21:03.772
How many of you are engineers out there?

00:21:03.772 --> 00:21:04.432
A handful.

00:21:04.432 --> 00:21:05.490
Oh, half.

00:21:12.689 --> 00:21:14.503
So, yeah, and we came up with this concept

00:21:14.503 --> 00:21:18.214
of network services over the Internet,

00:21:18.214 --> 00:21:20.672
and software for inside the Internet,

00:21:20.672 --> 00:21:23.653
which we then called Cloud Computing.

00:21:23.911 --> 00:21:25.683
So we came up with that term,

00:21:25.683 --> 00:21:27.210
I co-coined that term,

00:21:27.210 --> 00:21:29.756
myself and George Favaloro
from Compaq Computer.

00:21:30.510 --> 00:21:32.166
- We should take pause there.

00:21:32.166 --> 00:21:34.381
Coined Cloud Computing.

00:21:35.111 --> 00:21:37.264
- There you go, for what it's worth.

00:21:38.628 --> 00:21:39.739
- And "Love is Pain."

00:21:39.792 --> 00:21:41.127
(laughter)

00:21:41.192 --> 00:21:43.247
- It's not my favorite song, actually.

00:21:43.247 --> 00:21:45.888
You have to probably
go to the second album

00:21:45.888 --> 00:21:47.697
before you hit my favorite song.

00:21:48.897 --> 00:21:50.415
What's good on that album?

00:21:50.415 --> 00:21:51.109
"It Isn't Love".

00:21:51.109 --> 00:21:52.379
That's probably my favorite.
- "It Isn't Love."

00:21:52.379 --> 00:21:54.608
You were going through some hard times.

00:21:54.608 --> 00:21:55.487
- Yeah, absolutely.

00:21:55.487 --> 00:21:57.667
I was not popular with ladies.

00:21:57.667 --> 00:21:59.620
(both laugh)

00:22:03.350 --> 00:22:05.230
- Our next company gathering,
we'll have a little bit of...

00:22:05.230 --> 00:22:06.768
- We can talk about that offline.

00:22:08.476 --> 00:22:09.853
- And so you start the next company,

00:22:09.853 --> 00:22:12.828
and that was another...

00:22:14.963 --> 00:22:16.336
- It was called NetCentric.

00:22:17.390 --> 00:22:19.433
And that grew to like,
say 10 million in sales.

00:22:19.433 --> 00:22:21.270
It wasn't a huge thing,

00:22:22.470 --> 00:22:25.440
and it got sold off basically in pieces

00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:28.868
to Cisco, or somebody else,
I can't even remember.

00:22:28.868 --> 00:22:30.890
Like I blocked that whole part of my...

00:22:30.890 --> 00:22:33.987
it wasn't a great success at all.

00:22:34.572 --> 00:22:37.650
The investors, like
myself, I invested in it,

00:22:37.650 --> 00:22:39.810
didn't make their money back on it.

00:22:39.810 --> 00:22:40.702
So it was a lesson in life.

00:22:41.270 --> 00:22:42.378
- And maybe I'm skipping,

00:22:42.378 --> 00:22:44.187
I found this fascinating,
I didn't know about this.

00:22:44.187 --> 00:22:46.920
i mean, we've known each
other for three years,

00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:47.973
but I didn't know this
whole chapter in your life,

00:22:47.973 --> 00:22:49.270
you then go to Iraq.

00:22:49.724 --> 00:22:52.810
- No, actually, then I became a filmmaker.

00:22:52.810 --> 00:22:52.932
- Then you became a filmmaker.

00:22:52.932 --> 00:22:54.519
Oh yeah, you went to film school.

00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:56.960
You became a filmmaker.

00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:01.422
- Yeah, so I went to
USC film school in LA,

00:23:01.422 --> 00:23:03.330
which is awesome.

00:23:03.834 --> 00:23:06.725
And I was making films, and made

00:23:06.725 --> 00:23:09.331
like 100 films in five years.

00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:12.300
- [Sal] Sounds like me, I just kind of...

00:23:13.650 --> 00:23:14.497
Yours are probably better.

00:23:14.497 --> 00:23:17.800
- Well, like they were
little three minute videos,

00:23:17.800 --> 00:23:19.575
and music videos, and you know, lots of

00:23:19.575 --> 00:23:20.606
other things like that.

00:23:21.700 --> 00:23:22.697
But I was looking for a project,

00:23:22.697 --> 00:23:25.939
and the Iraq war was about to start

00:23:25.939 --> 00:23:30.939
in 2003, so it was March 2003

00:23:32.354 --> 00:23:34.970
when I finally, I started working

00:23:34.970 --> 00:23:35.854
on trying to get into Iraq,

00:23:35.854 --> 00:23:38.310
get permission to get into Iraq

00:23:38.310 --> 00:23:40.200
in the end of 2002.

00:23:41.705 --> 00:23:43.740
- [Sal] Cause you saw the war was coming.

00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:44.604
The drumbeats.
- The drumbeats were going,

00:23:44.604 --> 00:23:47.500
there were all these protest
all over New York, LA,

00:23:47.500 --> 00:23:48.346
I filmed all that.

00:23:48.743 --> 00:23:51.910
And then I got myself in
with a peace activist group

00:23:51.910 --> 00:23:52.944
called the Christian Peacemaking Team,

00:23:52.944 --> 00:23:56.275
which I was just gonna be documenting

00:23:56.275 --> 00:23:59.205
their struggles.

00:23:59.848 --> 00:24:02.436
And they were allowed into Iraq

00:24:02.436 --> 00:24:03.821
under the Saddam regime,

00:24:03.821 --> 00:24:05.760
and so I went in there.

00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:08.723
I was in Iraq when the, you know...

00:24:10.307 --> 00:24:11.965
in Baghdad when what was it called?

00:24:11.965 --> 00:24:14.138
Shock and awe began.

00:24:16.110 --> 00:24:17.306
It was actually quite an amazing time

00:24:17.306 --> 00:24:21.806
to be there and see it both pre and post.

00:24:21.806 --> 00:24:26.442
But as a filmmaker, you know, I also

00:24:28.903 --> 00:24:31.939
when you go into dictatarian regimes,

00:24:31.939 --> 00:24:34.798
they have followers called...

00:24:36.245 --> 00:24:38.131
oh jeez, I'm forgetting everything.

00:24:39.507 --> 00:24:41.173
Minders, yeah, but the minders...

00:24:41.942 --> 00:24:43.904
Oh yeah, that's what
they're called, minders.

00:24:43.904 --> 00:24:44.492
Thank you very much.

00:24:44.492 --> 00:24:46.000
So they have government,

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.853
like the industry of information...

00:24:50.283 --> 00:24:53.121
i'm forgetting what the name of

00:24:53.121 --> 00:24:54.530
the ministry of information was.

00:24:54.530 --> 00:24:56.380
But anyway, the Ministry of Information

00:24:57.730 --> 00:24:59.799
said we'll attach a minder to you,

00:24:59.799 --> 00:25:01.994
to make sure you didn't
take photos of anything

00:25:01.994 --> 00:25:03.582
you were not supposed to take photos of.

00:25:04.822 --> 00:25:07.821
They will take you to a place where maybe

00:25:07.821 --> 00:25:12.222
a bomb went wrong, or they claim a bomb

00:25:12.222 --> 00:25:13.860
went the wrong way,

00:25:13.860 --> 00:25:14.317
or they'll take you to hospitals

00:25:14.317 --> 00:25:15.884
and show you pictures
of women and children,

00:25:15.884 --> 00:25:17.665
but they won't actually let you

00:25:17.665 --> 00:25:18.954
photograph anything else.

00:25:19.379 --> 00:25:21.585
So I was ejected from the country,

00:25:21.585 --> 00:25:24.594
because I've never taken
very well to rules.

00:25:26.402 --> 00:25:28.970
And so, that's where I
met my wife actually,

00:25:28.970 --> 00:25:32.184
she was also a rule breaker.

00:25:32.184 --> 00:25:35.801
She was arrested by the Syrians

00:25:35.801 --> 00:25:38.132
when she was trying to cross the river

00:25:38.132 --> 00:25:40.880
into Iraq illegally.

00:25:43.951 --> 00:25:46.125
But she was in Jordan, and then when

00:25:46.125 --> 00:25:51.125
Baghdad fell, the border fell,

00:25:51.574 --> 00:25:54.533
and we were able to go
back into the country.

00:25:54.653 --> 00:25:57.468
So I was there for the
next 18 months or so.

00:25:57.855 --> 00:25:58.717
- Wow.

00:25:58.717 --> 00:26:00.027
This is like, you could make a movie.

00:26:00.027 --> 00:26:02.410
I'm already imagining the casting for...

00:26:04.117 --> 00:26:05.475
- Who would they cast as me?

00:26:05.475 --> 00:26:06.960
- Well, I'll think about that.

00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.285
I have some ideas, but
I'll tell you after.

00:26:10.564 --> 00:26:12.301
And then you go back into...

00:26:13.178 --> 00:26:13.891
And I was even reading,

00:26:13.891 --> 00:26:15.942
I mean, one of your partners in this.

00:26:15.998 --> 00:26:17.525
- Yeah, Mohayman Al Safar probably,

00:26:17.525 --> 00:26:19.158
is that what you're referring to?

00:26:19.158 --> 00:26:22.980
I worked a little bit for CNN and Reuters

00:26:22.980 --> 00:26:26.120
and just doing a lot of
freelance work at that point,

00:26:26.120 --> 00:26:30.954
and then after a while I got fed up

00:26:30.954 --> 00:26:35.564
with the US government's
ability to execute.

00:26:37.471 --> 00:26:40.678
They couldn't get anything
done, it didn't seem.

00:26:41.570 --> 00:26:44.081
So I started a humanitarian organization

00:26:44.081 --> 00:26:45.843
called JumpStart International,

00:26:45.843 --> 00:26:48.239
and we went in and we cleaned up

00:26:48.239 --> 00:26:49.985
a whole bunch of...

00:26:49.985 --> 00:26:53.388
we employed 3500 people in the end.

00:26:53.388 --> 00:26:55.975
It started with just myself and 30 guys,

00:26:55.975 --> 00:27:00.867
and then we grew it up over the time

00:27:00.867 --> 00:27:03.031
to about 3500 people.

00:27:03.031 --> 00:27:04.547
So we were actually the largest

00:27:04.547 --> 00:27:08.119
humanitarian organization
after the UN pulled out

00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:09.231
pretty early.

00:27:11.394 --> 00:27:13.334
They were bombed and what not,

00:27:13.334 --> 00:27:15.031
so in Iraq--

00:27:15.031 --> 00:27:16.323
- [Sal] This was during the war.

00:27:16.323 --> 00:27:17.393
What time period is this?

00:27:17.393 --> 00:27:18.847
- This is, well actually, there was

00:27:18.847 --> 00:27:22.310
sort of a postwar period which was

00:27:22.310 --> 00:27:25.856
from say around April May of 2003

00:27:25.856 --> 00:27:27.409
to when the civil war started,

00:27:27.409 --> 00:27:30.650
which was April of 2004.

00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:31.378
- I see.

00:27:32.677 --> 00:27:35.365
You were kicked out,
and then you come back.

00:27:35.365 --> 00:27:37.161
- I came back almost immediately.

00:27:37.161 --> 00:27:40.231
Because Baghdad just lasted
for another nine days

00:27:40.231 --> 00:27:42.105
or something like that before it fell.

00:27:42.267 --> 00:27:43.416
Or five days or something.

00:27:43.447 --> 00:27:46.220
And then I went back, and I was

00:27:46.220 --> 00:27:48.052
running this humanitarian organization.

00:27:48.052 --> 00:27:48.987
And then the civil war...

00:27:48.987 --> 00:27:51.993
and I built that up, and
the civil war started

00:27:51.993 --> 00:27:55.682
in April of 2004, and
then I was still there

00:27:55.682 --> 00:27:57.428
until the end of that year.

00:27:58.026 --> 00:27:58.385
- Wow.

00:27:58.385 --> 00:28:00.426
And your partner in this...

00:28:00.426 --> 00:28:02.143
- Yeah, my co-founder of JumpStart

00:28:02.143 --> 00:28:04.469
was Mohayman Al Safar who was an Iraqi,

00:28:04.469 --> 00:28:07.032
and he was assassinated

00:28:08.415 --> 00:28:11.683
because we were just
driving around all the time,

00:28:12.915 --> 00:28:14.202
you know, just us,

00:28:14.580 --> 00:28:15.900
visiting all the projects.

00:28:15.900 --> 00:28:18.192
So we would have 80 projects at a time.

00:28:19.284 --> 00:28:22.544
Hospitals and universities,

00:28:22.544 --> 00:28:25.630
and we'd be cleaning up or taking down

00:28:25.630 --> 00:28:28.210
skyscrapers that were bombed or burned.

00:28:28.631 --> 00:28:32.159
And then just, it was just a big manpower

00:28:32.159 --> 00:28:35.290
and engineering effort to
try to clean up the city

00:28:35.290 --> 00:28:39.122
and we built a lot of
housing, thousands of homes.

00:28:39.310 --> 00:28:43.045
- You must have seen some jarring...

00:28:43.045 --> 00:28:46.336
- Yeah, so both during the war and...

00:28:46.336 --> 00:28:48.123
The civil war was actually the worst part.

00:28:48.123 --> 00:28:49.715
If you think about American history,

00:28:49.715 --> 00:28:52.648
the civil war is where more Americans

00:28:52.648 --> 00:28:55.422
have died I'm sure by many factors.

00:28:55.422 --> 00:28:56.368
- [Sal] Like half a million, yeah.

00:28:56.368 --> 00:29:01.368
- You'd have 250,000
or something like that

00:29:01.569 --> 00:29:05.305
would die, verses in World War II

00:29:05.305 --> 00:29:07.041
over six years, I think we lost

00:29:07.041 --> 00:29:09.078
a million people, or less than that.

00:29:09.078 --> 00:29:13.531
So the American civil war is the worst.

00:29:13.531 --> 00:29:15.863
In Iraq it's the exact same thing.

00:29:17.466 --> 00:29:19.449
When that started in April of 2004

00:29:19.449 --> 00:29:21.227
all the way to recently,

00:29:21.227 --> 00:29:24.282
it's been the bloodiest sort of period.

00:29:24.282 --> 00:29:25.470
- And you all were inserting yourselves

00:29:25.470 --> 00:29:29.384
in kind of the, just
where there was carnage...

00:29:29.384 --> 00:29:31.775
- Yeah, so we would clean up after

00:29:31.775 --> 00:29:32.985
a terrorist bombing.

00:29:32.985 --> 00:29:34.974
And there'd be body parts, and we'd

00:29:34.974 --> 00:29:37.602
be stepping over body
parts or stepping on them

00:29:37.602 --> 00:29:40.250
or cleaning up things.

00:29:40.250 --> 00:29:43.844
A lot of my workers would be injured,

00:29:43.844 --> 00:29:46.061
and I was just living...

00:29:46.061 --> 00:29:47.364
I wasn't living in the Green Zone,

00:29:47.364 --> 00:29:50.174
which is the American occupied, or the

00:29:51.004 --> 00:29:53.043
coalition occupied territory.

00:29:53.043 --> 00:29:56.015
I was living in the Red Zone.

00:29:56.015 --> 00:29:58.270
The other area, the
other parts of the city.

00:29:58.270 --> 00:30:01.567
So we would just go around all the time.

00:30:01.845 --> 00:30:03.905
- I guess it was a question,

00:30:03.905 --> 00:30:06.077
what was driving you to do...

00:30:07.353 --> 00:30:08.775
- I was frustrated.

00:30:08.775 --> 00:30:12.491
What does any entrepreneur
feel like, you know,

00:30:12.491 --> 00:30:14.357
when you see a market
that's not being served.

00:30:14.357 --> 00:30:15.326
Or when you...

00:30:16.172 --> 00:30:17.620
just like, this needs to happen.

00:30:17.812 --> 00:30:21.326
It's so stupid the work
wasn't getting done.

00:30:21.326 --> 00:30:25.280
- But you didn't think
especially as a American

00:30:25.280 --> 00:30:26.469
or someone who looks European--

00:30:26.469 --> 00:30:27.507
- Especially as an American.

00:30:27.507 --> 00:30:29.587
- Not being in the Green
Zone, were you afraid?

00:30:29.587 --> 00:30:31.065
I mean, you could be a target.

00:30:31.065 --> 00:30:32.086
You could be abducted.

00:30:32.086 --> 00:30:33.121
- For sure.

00:30:33.121 --> 00:30:36.890
But there were Americans
there risking their lives

00:30:36.890 --> 00:30:40.320
that had suits and guns and what not.

00:30:40.320 --> 00:30:43.253
But why shouldn't an
American who's unarmed

00:30:43.253 --> 00:30:46.267
be out there risking their life

00:30:46.267 --> 00:30:49.164
for the same cause,

00:30:49.164 --> 00:30:51.538
to hopefully liberate the country

00:30:51.538 --> 00:30:54.036
and set them on their course,

00:30:54.036 --> 00:30:55.294
and leave them alone.

00:30:56.080 --> 00:30:57.874
But you know, it's...

00:30:58.769 --> 00:31:01.566
I was in danger.

00:31:01.566 --> 00:31:03.356
- [Sal] Were there a
lot of folks like this?

00:31:03.356 --> 00:31:04.591
- No, there weren't many.

00:31:04.591 --> 00:31:07.079
- Yeah, cause my impression
just through the news

00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:09.098
and whatever else is that
you had the Green Zone

00:31:09.098 --> 00:31:10.515
that's where the civilian,

00:31:10.515 --> 00:31:12.261
the western civilians lived,

00:31:12.261 --> 00:31:13.287
and every now and then might with

00:31:13.287 --> 00:31:15.937
a huge military escort,
kind make an excursion

00:31:15.937 --> 00:31:17.609
outside of the Green Zone.

00:31:17.609 --> 00:31:19.178
So were there...

00:31:19.178 --> 00:31:20.108
- And there's actually,

00:31:20.108 --> 00:31:21.927
USA Today called me at one point,

00:31:21.927 --> 00:31:25.118
I think it was around September 2004,

00:31:25.118 --> 00:31:29.031
and they said, "We think
you're the last one there."

00:31:29.031 --> 00:31:30.065
(laughs)

00:31:30.065 --> 00:31:32.117
And I said, "No, the
Christian Peacemaking Team."

00:31:32.117 --> 00:31:35.216
I kept in contact with,
they're still around.

00:31:35.216 --> 00:31:37.195
Then they got, you know,

00:31:37.195 --> 00:31:39.650
they got kidnapped and tortured,

00:31:39.650 --> 00:31:40.921
and some of them killed as well.

00:31:40.921 --> 00:31:43.636
There were not that many people.

00:31:44.431 --> 00:31:47.592
- I mean, I'm just trying to un...

00:31:48.571 --> 00:31:49.999
- It's admirable, it's amazing to kind of

00:31:49.999 --> 00:31:52.082
go in and do this stuff,

00:31:52.082 --> 00:31:54.695
but especially, you're
like the last one...

00:31:54.695 --> 00:31:55.899
Even the people who are...

00:31:55.899 --> 00:31:58.177
- Turn off the lights when you leave.

00:31:58.177 --> 00:32:00.214
- They're getting
abducted, getting tortured.

00:32:00.214 --> 00:32:04.176
- I had probably most of the people I knew

00:32:04.176 --> 00:32:05.823
probably got either kidnapped or...

00:32:05.823 --> 00:32:07.640
- But I mean, in your
mind, did you view this

00:32:07.640 --> 00:32:09.066
as a rational...

00:32:09.385 --> 00:32:12.089
Weren't you afraid, weren't you...

00:32:12.397 --> 00:32:13.499
You know, there's being brave,

00:32:13.499 --> 00:32:14.454
and then there's...

00:32:15.534 --> 00:32:17.372
- Well actually, what finally sent me from

00:32:17.372 --> 00:32:20.169
the country when I did leave,

00:32:20.169 --> 00:32:22.161
is because they thought actually,

00:32:22.161 --> 00:32:27.161
and I'm not that religious of a person.

00:32:28.151 --> 00:32:31.151
But what finally sent me from the country

00:32:31.151 --> 00:32:33.085
is I was blinded in my left eye,

00:32:33.085 --> 00:32:34.200
and I had cancer.

00:32:36.567 --> 00:32:38.567
Those two indicators.

00:32:38.717 --> 00:32:40.364
If it was just the cancer by itself...

00:32:40.364 --> 00:32:41.827
(both laugh)

00:32:43.365 --> 00:32:45.365
So I got skin cancer, actually.

00:32:45.365 --> 00:32:47.308
And if you look closely,

00:32:47.308 --> 00:32:51.183
they actually cut out an
inch, a two inch patch.

00:32:51.183 --> 00:32:52.439
And it just kept getting worse,

00:32:52.439 --> 00:32:53.711
and I couldn't...

00:32:53.711 --> 00:32:56.509
you know, and actually the US...

00:32:56.509 --> 00:32:59.042
- [Sal] And what was your family
telling you? - [Sean] The US
Military hospital was very good.

00:32:59.042 --> 00:33:01.383
- They didn't even charge
me anything to dig it out.

00:33:01.383 --> 00:33:02.438
- Well they shouldn't.

00:33:02.438 --> 00:33:04.040
(Sean laughs)

00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:08.411
- And then I went blind in my left eye,

00:33:08.411 --> 00:33:11.082
and that was becauase I got some infection

00:33:11.082 --> 00:33:13.902
and then the Iraqi doctor that I went to

00:33:13.902 --> 00:33:17.107
gave me a steroid, but
it was a viral infection

00:33:17.107 --> 00:33:18.756
and so a steroid and a virus,

00:33:18.756 --> 00:33:20.483
it makes it a supervirus.

00:33:20.483 --> 00:33:22.247
And it basically ate my eye.

00:33:22.247 --> 00:33:24.074
And so it ate the skin off my eye,

00:33:24.074 --> 00:33:25.651
and I didn't have any skin on my eye.

00:33:25.651 --> 00:33:27.882
It was bad.

00:33:28.372 --> 00:33:29.781
At that point I said, you know,

00:33:29.781 --> 00:33:31.664
God is trying to give me a message.

00:33:32.129 --> 00:33:35.901
Because in Irish
actually, O'Sullivan means

00:33:35.901 --> 00:33:38.380
the one-eyed giant or something.

00:33:38.994 --> 00:33:42.572
So there I was with one eye left,

00:33:42.572 --> 00:33:45.222
and actually amazingly,

00:33:45.222 --> 00:33:50.222
I got treatment for it afterwards,

00:33:50.222 --> 00:33:53.660
and they take your blood, and they make

00:33:53.660 --> 00:33:55.751
some sort of special
potion out of your blood,

00:33:55.751 --> 00:33:58.687
and you can put it into your eye,

00:33:58.687 --> 00:33:59.956
and my eye grew back.

00:34:00.218 --> 00:34:02.068
And my vision got better

00:34:02.068 --> 00:34:04.375
than it was before.

00:34:04.619 --> 00:34:08.329
So actually, my vision's now better

00:34:08.329 --> 00:34:11.419
than it was before.
- Than it was pre being eaten by

00:34:11.419 --> 00:34:14.141
a steroid induced virus.

00:34:14.316 --> 00:34:15.380
Eye eating virus.

00:34:15.380 --> 00:34:16.594
- If you have eye trouble,

00:34:16.594 --> 00:34:18.123
I recommend going to Iraq.

00:34:19.614 --> 00:34:21.396
I'll set you up with this Iraqi doctor.

00:34:21.845 --> 00:34:23.496
(laughter)

00:34:24.699 --> 00:34:27.638
- I didn't even know half of this stuff.

00:34:27.638 --> 00:34:28.875
I thought I'd done my...

00:34:28.875 --> 00:34:30.954
This is mind blowing.

00:34:31.262 --> 00:34:33.736
I want to talk more,
we don't have a lot...

00:34:33.736 --> 00:34:36.171
- At the end of it, I said, you know,

00:34:36.171 --> 00:34:38.251
I am getting enough messages here.

00:34:38.284 --> 00:34:39.566
I mean, everybody's telling me.

00:34:39.566 --> 00:34:42.609
I mean, freaking NBC News followed me

00:34:42.609 --> 00:34:45.327
around for a day to do my obituary.

00:34:46.652 --> 00:34:47.292
- [Sal] Seriously?

00:34:47.292 --> 00:34:47.961
- Yeah.

00:34:47.961 --> 00:34:51.724
They didn't tell me they were
doing my obituary. - [Sal]
Like the guy who wants to die?

00:34:51.724 --> 00:34:52.597
No, no, no.

00:34:52.597 --> 00:34:53.864
I didn't want to die.

00:34:53.876 --> 00:34:54.677
I didn't want to die.

00:34:54.677 --> 00:34:56.435
- It looks like someone
who almost has a...

00:34:56.435 --> 00:34:57.984
You know, like the guy in World War I who

00:34:57.984 --> 00:34:59.086
always wants to be at the front.
- No, you know what, like...

00:34:59.086 --> 00:35:01.063
- Americans had to do something.

00:35:01.170 --> 00:35:03.223
And it was very very very frustrating

00:35:03.223 --> 00:35:07.561
to just go and do, to let the situation

00:35:08.545 --> 00:35:09.553
be what it was.

00:35:09.652 --> 00:35:11.760
And I'm proud of America, actually.

00:35:12.088 --> 00:35:15.108
I think Americans try to do the most

00:35:15.108 --> 00:35:18.475
incredible things for the planet.

00:35:19.160 --> 00:35:20.405
Their intent, what separates

00:35:20.405 --> 00:35:22.103
their intent and their execution

00:35:22.103 --> 00:35:23.459
sometimes is awful.

00:35:23.798 --> 00:35:26.739
And everyone says oh yeah,

00:35:26.739 --> 00:35:28.536
there was some ill intent in all this.

00:35:28.536 --> 00:35:30.533
And yeah, maybe a little bit.

00:35:30.533 --> 00:35:34.542
But it was mostly just
misconceived in my view.

00:35:34.826 --> 00:35:37.292
And so to just let that go,

00:35:38.363 --> 00:35:40.159
it was speaking to my core

00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:41.405
that I needed to do something.

00:35:41.405 --> 00:35:42.581
And I was in a place to do something.

00:35:42.581 --> 00:35:44.754
I had some money, and actually gave,

00:35:44.754 --> 00:35:47.357
you know I started it myself.

00:35:47.833 --> 00:35:49.388
And then I got some UN funding

00:35:49.388 --> 00:35:51.961
and some other funding to keep it going.

00:35:51.961 --> 00:35:53.097
- Now was your wife with you?

00:35:53.097 --> 00:35:54.010
- Yeah.

00:35:54.010 --> 00:35:59.010
Well, she was a war reporter.

00:35:59.429 --> 00:36:02.851
So she's a little bit accustomed to it.

00:36:03.120 --> 00:36:04.890
But it was time for both of us to get out.

00:36:04.890 --> 00:36:06.139
So we got married.

00:36:06.139 --> 00:36:11.139
And I was actually then
working in the Gaza strip,

00:36:11.301 --> 00:36:15.918
we built a university, Gaza Polytechnic,

00:36:17.052 --> 00:36:20.046
and I was on that trip.

00:36:20.046 --> 00:36:23.483
You know, we got married on New Years Eve,

00:36:23.483 --> 00:36:25.433
and nine months and seven days later,

00:36:25.433 --> 00:36:27.942
Charlotte, our first daughter was born.

00:36:28.614 --> 00:36:30.747
So I think that's God's other signal,

00:36:30.747 --> 00:36:33.782
was that I was not supposed

00:36:33.782 --> 00:36:35.303
to be in war zones anymore.

00:36:35.688 --> 00:36:40.015
So I was in the Gaza
strip when I found out

00:36:40.015 --> 00:36:40.871
my wife was pregnant,

00:36:40.871 --> 00:36:42.545
and that was basically at the end of it,

00:36:42.545 --> 00:36:44.177
I said screw it, I'm not going

00:36:44.177 --> 00:36:45.288
to do this anymore.

00:36:45.392 --> 00:36:47.623
So I didn't.

00:36:48.004 --> 00:36:49.798
And now I've gone back and I've thrown

00:36:49.798 --> 00:36:51.373
myself at the technology.

00:36:51.373 --> 00:36:52.820
- And then you go back to Ireland.

00:36:52.820 --> 00:36:54.480
Why Ireland as opposed to...

00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:56.214
- I was using my Irish passport

00:36:56.214 --> 00:36:59.329
when I was going in and
around in the Green Zone

00:36:59.329 --> 00:37:01.194
to get into the Green Zone.

00:37:02.270 --> 00:37:03.481
- As opposed to your Amer--

00:37:03.481 --> 00:37:04.138
Why the Irish?

00:37:04.138 --> 00:37:07.207
- Well I was under the pretense

00:37:07.207 --> 00:37:10.475
that Iraqi Arabic speakers

00:37:10.475 --> 00:37:13.592
couldn't tell the difference
between Irish sounding

00:37:13.592 --> 00:37:15.813
accents and American sounding accents.

00:37:15.813 --> 00:37:17.447
And actually, um..

00:37:17.583 --> 00:37:18.898
- [Sal] And it would just be better if you

00:37:18.898 --> 00:37:20.699
were abducted with an Irish passport

00:37:20.699 --> 00:37:21.758
verses an American one?

00:37:21.758 --> 00:37:23.821
- Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:23.861 --> 00:37:25.131
It would have been better.

00:37:25.131 --> 00:37:28.397
The admission fee to get in for a visa

00:37:28.397 --> 00:37:30.572
is like 1/10 as much if you have

00:37:30.572 --> 00:37:32.020
your Irish passport verses if you

00:37:32.020 --> 00:37:33.816
have your American passport.

00:37:33.816 --> 00:37:35.584
Costs you 100 dollars
or something to get in

00:37:35.584 --> 00:37:37.610
as an American, or five dollars.

00:37:37.610 --> 00:37:39.146
- So then you go back to Ireland,

00:37:39.146 --> 00:37:41.186
you, I guess because you
were using the passport

00:37:41.186 --> 00:37:42.426
you started to feel, I guess

00:37:42.426 --> 00:37:44.689
you always kept some type
of a joint citizenship.

00:37:44.689 --> 00:37:46.850
- Yeah, I had through my grandparents,

00:37:46.850 --> 00:37:48.795
I had Irish citizenship.

00:37:48.795 --> 00:37:50.463
So I started a company in Ireland,

00:37:50.463 --> 00:37:52.374
and now I live...

00:37:52.374 --> 00:37:54.073
The quality of life in Ireland is great.

00:37:54.073 --> 00:37:57.673
I love, it's great being there.

00:37:58.016 --> 00:38:00.455
And we've just sort of started a company

00:38:01.470 --> 00:38:03.138
a couple of companies that...

00:38:03.192 --> 00:38:04.086
- You started a couple companies,

00:38:04.086 --> 00:38:05.813
and even in your current SOSVentures,

00:38:05.813 --> 00:38:09.106
you all have backed some
of the fairly well known...

00:38:09.607 --> 00:38:10.603
Guitar Hero.

00:38:10.841 --> 00:38:12.965
- Oh yeah, well so, Guitar Hero

00:38:12.965 --> 00:38:15.964
would have been a great win for us.

00:38:16.826 --> 00:38:20.492
I backed pretty heavily
a company called Netflix.

00:38:20.492 --> 00:38:21.944
- Yes, we've heard of it.

00:38:22.087 --> 00:38:23.289
- It's done well.

00:38:23.289 --> 00:38:28.289
And a number of, we
have about 160 companies

00:38:28.724 --> 00:38:29.554
in the portfolio.

00:38:29.554 --> 00:38:30.737
Elite Motion is one of the ones

00:38:30.737 --> 00:38:32.266
I was just talking about,

00:38:32.266 --> 00:38:34.906
is a great big one that we were the first

00:38:34.906 --> 00:38:37.004
VC in on that as well.

00:38:37.004 --> 00:38:37.956
That's a recent one.

00:38:39.083 --> 00:38:40.558
So this week in San Francisco,

00:38:40.558 --> 00:38:42.493
we're actually launching
20 different companies.

00:38:42.493 --> 00:38:44.740
On Monday we launched 10 from HAXLR8R

00:38:44.740 --> 00:38:47.380
and today, later today we're launching

00:38:47.380 --> 00:38:51.927
the Leap Accelerator
program in San Francisco

00:38:51.927 --> 00:38:53.331
with 10 new companies.

00:38:53.373 --> 00:38:57.020
So we do a lot,

00:38:57.020 --> 00:39:01.850
and I manage a couple
hundred million dollar fund,

00:39:01.850 --> 00:39:04.270
and we believe in accelerating companies.

00:39:04.572 --> 00:39:06.638
We're the accelerator VC.

00:39:06.638 --> 00:39:08.971
So we do a lot to try to

00:39:08.971 --> 00:39:11.931
start as many good companies as we can.

00:39:11.962 --> 00:39:13.815
Because ultimately you can try to

00:39:13.815 --> 00:39:18.157
go in and you can try
to change people's lives

00:39:18.157 --> 00:39:20.623
by building a house or something lke that.

00:39:20.623 --> 00:39:22.809
But if you can change their lives

00:39:22.809 --> 00:39:25.467
by for example enabling cloud computing,

00:39:25.467 --> 00:39:28.056
or enabling street mapping on computers,

00:39:28.056 --> 00:39:30.201
or any of these new technologies

00:39:30.201 --> 00:39:31.971
that we're launching,

00:39:31.971 --> 00:39:35.040
these are really
transforming tens of millions

00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:38.239
if not more of people's lives.

00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:39.330
This is what I was speaking to,

00:39:39.330 --> 00:39:42.181
in terms of the disproportionate power

00:39:42.181 --> 00:39:46.124
that engineers have to
impact the quality of

00:39:46.124 --> 00:39:47.494
life of mankind.

00:39:47.662 --> 00:39:50.712
And we can, you know, that's the most

00:39:50.712 --> 00:39:52.826
impact you can have as a person.

00:39:52.826 --> 00:39:54.597
Even as a venture capitalist,

00:39:54.597 --> 00:39:56.789
that's what I look to.

00:39:57.047 --> 00:40:00.186
Is this adding good to
the planet to do this?

00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:03.253
And what you're doing in Khan Academy,

00:40:03.253 --> 00:40:06.812
it was a five million dollar
commitment that we made,

00:40:06.812 --> 00:40:09.267
which is a reasonable size commitment.

00:40:09.267 --> 00:40:12.645
- Huge, it continues to
be one of our largest

00:40:12.645 --> 00:40:13.813
gifts ever,

00:40:13.813 --> 00:40:16.526
but especially at that
phase of the organization.

00:40:16.718 --> 00:40:18.656
It was a big deal for us.

00:40:18.736 --> 00:40:19.282
- Well, thank you.

00:40:19.282 --> 00:40:24.282
But I feel honored to be
a part of your success,

00:40:24.340 --> 00:40:27.349
because what you're doing
is so transformative

00:40:27.349 --> 00:40:29.096
and potentially so transformative.

00:40:29.096 --> 00:40:31.579
I know you're only part of the way there,

00:40:31.579 --> 00:40:32.647
so none of you engineers

00:40:32.647 --> 00:40:35.315
need to rest on your laurels. (laughs)

00:40:35.315 --> 00:40:37.849
Because there's a lot more
that needs to be done.

00:40:38.164 --> 00:40:41.996
But life is like that.

00:40:41.996 --> 00:40:43.672
You try to get up every day

00:40:43.672 --> 00:40:45.628
and do something amazing,

00:40:46.470 --> 00:40:49.348
and try to make the world a better place.

00:40:49.483 --> 00:40:52.125
That's all the guiding
philosophy is about.

00:40:52.125 --> 00:40:53.243
- And what's been incredible,

00:40:53.243 --> 00:40:54.344
obviously you helped support us,

00:40:54.344 --> 00:40:56.360
but you've also turned into
something of an advisor,

00:40:56.360 --> 00:40:57.635
and you've been driving some pretty neat

00:40:57.635 --> 00:41:01.242
initiatves in Ireland
that we're actually hoping

00:41:01.242 --> 00:41:03.690
to eventually replicate.
- Yeah, so Ireland's a little petri dish,

00:41:04.793 --> 00:41:06.524
and we've got this thing going,

00:41:06.524 --> 00:41:08.026
I don't know if Sal or any of the gang

00:41:08.026 --> 00:41:09.830
has talked about it called Mathletes.

00:41:11.087 --> 00:41:13.262
And it's an experiment that we try,

00:41:13.262 --> 00:41:14.658
and it is super cool.

00:41:14.805 --> 00:41:15.760
It is just super cool.

00:41:15.760 --> 00:41:18.446
I was just looking over some
of the stats this morning.

00:41:18.966 --> 00:41:22.014
You know, we came up with this idea

00:41:23.644 --> 00:41:28.336
to try to duplicate the
passion that people have

00:41:28.336 --> 00:41:29.737
about athletics,

00:41:29.737 --> 00:41:33.671
and the pride that people
have about their school

00:41:33.671 --> 00:41:36.723
or their individual performance.

00:41:37.629 --> 00:41:40.689
And try to have people be as dedicated

00:41:40.689 --> 00:41:43.460
to their schools through mathletics

00:41:43.460 --> 00:41:45.315
as they would to athletics.

00:41:45.660 --> 00:41:49.552
And this is something that
seems like it's working.

00:41:49.964 --> 00:41:54.223
It's early days, but in just the age range

00:41:54.223 --> 00:41:57.831
that we're talking about, from 11 to 15,

00:41:57.831 --> 00:42:01.326
evidently by running this
Mathletes competition

00:42:01.326 --> 00:42:02.865
over two and a half months,

00:42:02.865 --> 00:42:05.482
the web traffic for Khan Academy

00:42:05.482 --> 00:42:08.053
is something like three
and a half times as many.

00:42:08.053 --> 00:42:08.789
- For all of Ireland.

00:42:08.789 --> 00:42:09.725
- For all of Ireland.

00:42:09.725 --> 00:42:11.876
- And you all were essentially
just getting started

00:42:11.876 --> 00:42:12.888
these last few months.

00:42:12.888 --> 00:42:14.941
- Yeah, and so we launched the idea.

00:42:14.941 --> 00:42:17.308
One and a half percent of
all the kids in Ireland

00:42:17.308 --> 00:42:21.180
in that age range are now
competing in Mathletes.

00:42:21.328 --> 00:42:23.030
If you did that across the United States,

00:42:23.030 --> 00:42:26.500
I think it would be like 70,000 schools

00:42:26.500 --> 00:42:27.889
would be competing.

00:42:28.509 --> 00:42:33.509
And it's competing at a very very very

00:42:33.933 --> 00:42:35.238
significant level.

00:42:35.238 --> 00:42:38.422
Like the top one percent of kids

00:42:38.422 --> 00:42:39.767
in the last two and a half months

00:42:39.767 --> 00:42:41.663
have spent, I don't know,
we just looked at the stats.

00:42:41.663 --> 00:42:43.504
- It was 20 something hundred.

00:42:43.504 --> 00:42:45.191
- 2700 or something like that?

00:42:45.191 --> 00:42:46.908
Minutes of study.

00:42:46.908 --> 00:42:48.612
Several grade levels.
- In two months.

00:42:48.612 --> 00:42:49.490
In just two months.

00:42:49.490 --> 00:42:51.187
- Several grade levels of math

00:42:51.187 --> 00:42:52.803
in just two and a half months.

00:42:52.803 --> 00:42:54.255
Now that's the top one percent.

00:42:54.255 --> 00:42:55.832
But if you take it to
the top five percent,

00:42:55.832 --> 00:42:57.426
or top 10 percent,

00:42:57.426 --> 00:43:00.118
they've done several grade levels of math

00:43:00.118 --> 00:43:04.084
within 700 minutes or 580 minutes.

00:43:04.196 --> 00:43:05.953
- It's really turned
into a national thing.

00:43:05.953 --> 00:43:07.993
The prime minister's involved...

00:43:07.993 --> 00:43:11.499
- The An Taoiseach, which is the Irish

00:43:11.499 --> 00:43:13.483
for prime minister.

00:43:13.483 --> 00:43:15.553
It's a ministerial form of government

00:43:15.553 --> 00:43:16.485
rather than....

00:43:16.485 --> 00:43:19.450
the president in Ireland is not

00:43:19.450 --> 00:43:21.279
the same as the president here.

00:43:21.279 --> 00:43:24.233
So the An Taoiseach is the
head of the government.

00:43:24.233 --> 00:43:28.612
And so he's given away
the Mathletes prizes.

00:43:28.612 --> 00:43:30.416
We have little trophies that he gives

00:43:30.416 --> 00:43:32.059
that have been given to the schools

00:43:32.059 --> 00:43:34.009
for their competition.

00:43:34.009 --> 00:43:37.482
It started in February, the finals,

00:43:37.482 --> 00:43:41.313
and it works up like
the NCAA sort of thing,

00:43:41.313 --> 00:43:44.300
where there's a whole press coverage,

00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:46.382
and there's leader boards
that go out every week.

00:43:46.382 --> 00:43:47.993
People know where their schools are

00:43:47.993 --> 00:43:50.215
on the leader boards on a county level,

00:43:50.215 --> 00:43:51.722
on a regional level,

00:43:51.722 --> 00:43:54.024
and on a national level.

00:43:54.364 --> 00:43:55.908
So there's a tremendous amount of pride

00:43:55.908 --> 00:43:57.886
that people are taking
in their accomplishments

00:43:57.886 --> 00:43:59.391
and the accomplishments of their school.

00:43:59.621 --> 00:44:01.968
And the teachers are
getting sucked into this

00:44:01.968 --> 00:44:04.039
because they're passionate about it,

00:44:04.039 --> 00:44:06.895
and because it's exciting.

00:44:07.035 --> 00:44:08.491
And because the kids are excited.

00:44:08.882 --> 00:44:11.969
And it's potentially
a really really really

00:44:11.969 --> 00:44:14.929
interesting way of, you know...

00:44:14.929 --> 00:44:19.671
We've seen that something like 350%,

00:44:19.950 --> 00:44:23.504
you know the number of people that

00:44:23.504 --> 00:44:25.820
are participating in Ireland

00:44:25.820 --> 00:44:29.877
is only doubled, even though
it's just this age range.

00:44:31.192 --> 00:44:32.707
On Khan Academy now.

00:44:33.041 --> 00:44:37.932
But the engagement is like four times.

00:44:39.415 --> 00:44:41.960
So the number of page views

00:44:41.960 --> 00:44:43.400
and the number of time.

00:44:43.429 --> 00:44:46.875
So if we could duplicate
that for the world,

00:44:47.571 --> 00:44:48.919
or for the United States,

00:44:50.004 --> 00:44:52.987
then you're talking about a lot of impact.

00:44:53.444 --> 00:44:55.464
I'm super excited about this.

00:44:55.464 --> 00:44:57.198
And another thing I'm excited about

00:44:57.198 --> 00:44:58.424
is there's been this fallacy

00:44:58.424 --> 00:45:00.114
that women aren't good at math.

00:45:00.114 --> 00:45:03.663
And this proves, you know, we've got

00:45:03.663 --> 00:45:07.179
an exactly 50/50 gender split

00:45:08.008 --> 00:45:12.749
for the top performing
Mathletes in the country.

00:45:13.386 --> 00:45:16.442
And then even at the national competition,

00:45:16.442 --> 00:45:18.204
which is taking place next Saturday,

00:45:19.496 --> 00:45:21.498
there is a slight discrepancy

00:45:21.498 --> 00:45:23.483
but we don't know if there's gender bias

00:45:23.483 --> 00:45:26.502
in how parents, we don't know,

00:45:26.502 --> 00:45:28.227
we have to look at the
data a little bit more,

00:45:28.227 --> 00:45:30.302
but it's still incredibly similar.

00:45:30.302 --> 00:45:33.719
It's 54% to 46% boys to girls

00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:35.571
at the national level.

00:45:35.810 --> 00:45:37.680
Which when you think about your day, Sal,

00:45:37.680 --> 00:45:38.985
when you were in math competitions,

00:45:38.985 --> 00:45:39.946
how many women were

00:45:39.946 --> 00:45:42.098
in the competitions verses men?

00:45:43.296 --> 00:45:44.544
- There weren't many.

00:45:44.820 --> 00:45:46.005
There were...

00:45:46.005 --> 00:45:47.957
- It's like an engineering school.

00:45:47.957 --> 00:45:49.971
One in 10 or one in six or something.

00:45:50.068 --> 00:45:51.573
It's awful.

00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:54.745
So we need to as they say women hold up

00:45:54.745 --> 00:45:57.277
half the sky, so we have to

00:45:57.277 --> 00:46:00.738
use all of our talent, all of our people

00:46:00.738 --> 00:46:03.604
to advance the planet.

00:46:03.692 --> 00:46:05.292
And more women should become

00:46:05.292 --> 00:46:07.648
more technically capable.

00:46:08.033 --> 00:46:09.147
- Yeah, awesome.

00:46:09.411 --> 00:46:11.368
Well thank you, I could go on for hours

00:46:11.368 --> 00:46:12.945
because actually (mumbling)

00:46:12.945 --> 00:46:14.470
I have a million questions about Iraq.

00:46:14.470 --> 00:46:16.259
But anyway, I mean thank you so much,

00:46:16.259 --> 00:46:18.474
this was a bigger treat
than I even expected

00:46:18.474 --> 00:46:20.040
the more I got to even know you,

00:46:20.040 --> 00:46:21.408
who I've known for three years.

00:46:21.408 --> 00:46:22.969
But the more your background,

00:46:22.969 --> 00:46:24.547
my respect for you has gone

00:46:24.547 --> 00:46:26.505
to even a whole other level.

00:46:26.505 --> 00:46:28.847
So thank you for being an early supporter

00:46:28.847 --> 00:46:30.609
and continuing to do incredible things.

00:46:30.609 --> 00:46:32.025
And pushing us into the direction

00:46:32.025 --> 00:46:33.512
frankly we should be going in,

00:46:33.512 --> 00:46:35.175
which is getting more community buidling

00:46:35.175 --> 00:46:36.238
and more people to kind of

00:46:36.238 --> 00:46:38.061
really feel invested in learning.

00:46:38.244 --> 00:46:39.626
- Yeah, we're all learning here,

00:46:39.626 --> 00:46:42.714
and so each day is a joy

00:46:42.714 --> 00:46:44.181
if we just take it that way.

00:46:44.181 --> 00:46:45.792
We don't know what the future is.

00:46:45.792 --> 00:46:47.466
We can't predict what the future is.

00:46:47.466 --> 00:46:50.087
But we can measure, we
can go in a lean way,

00:46:50.087 --> 00:46:51.818
and we can adapt our course on the way.

00:46:51.818 --> 00:46:53.867
And hopefully some of
the learnings we're doing

00:46:53.867 --> 00:46:56.306
our little petri dish in Ireland can apply

00:46:56.306 --> 00:46:58.793
to the overall mission,

00:46:58.793 --> 00:47:01.475
which I love about what
Khan Academy is doing.

00:47:01.739 --> 00:47:02.428
So great.

00:47:02.957 --> 00:47:04.208
- But thanks so much, Sal.
- Thank you.

00:47:04.208 --> 00:47:06.640
(applause)


How to grow your brain

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:03.560
We know that our brain is what makes us “us”.

00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:05.120
It's what does all of our thinking.

00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:08.480
It's what processes all the sensory input from the outside world

00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:13.320
and creates this reality in our brain that we experience.

00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:15.160
It is “us”.

00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:16.000
So the question is

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:18.520
What is the brain actually made up of?

00:00:18.520 --> 00:00:22.960
And it's primarily made up of neurons.

00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:26.680
And these are depictions of neurons right over here.

00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:31.720
And the current view
on how the brain processes information,

00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:33.920
it’s by these different neurons

00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:37.840
triggering, by getting excited
and stimulating other neurons

00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.800
and as the signals go through this huge neural network

00:00:42.800 --> 00:00:49.280
that has 80 to 100 billion neurons.

00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.480
That electrochemical signal
going through this neural network

00:00:53.480 --> 00:00:54.960
is essentially our thought.

00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:56.600
It's essentially our intelligence.

00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.840
It's arguably essentially “us”.

00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:03.000
So given that, a question arises.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.360
What determines our ability to do things?

00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:09.360
What determines our intelligence?

00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:10.760
and one school of thought is that

00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:14.880
“okay maybe you’re either just born with it
or either have it or you don't

00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:17.720
some people are smart
some people are less smart

00:01:17.720 --> 00:01:19.480
or maybe you can change it"

00:01:19.480 --> 00:01:22.160
And it turns out there's actually been
a lot of research on this

00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.800
in the last few decades.

00:01:23.800 --> 00:01:26.920
And the answer is pretty clear

00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.400
that your intelligence can actually be changed.

00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:33.000
What we've learned
what researchers have taught us

00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.400
is that our brains are actually a lot like a muscle.

00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:37.720
We know that you can grow your muscles

00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:40.680
by going into the gym and doing exercise

00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:41.800
and straining your muscles.

00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:44.600
You don't just work on things
that are easy for your muscles to do.

00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:46.880
You do things that your muscles
have to struggle with

00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:48.640
that your muscles have to strain with.

00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.200
And then they rebuild themselves
and they come back stronger.

00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.840
By struggling it's a signal to your body

00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:57.840
to devote more resources to that part of the body.

00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:01.520
And we see that exact same thing with the brain.

00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:04.000
And here just a couple of examples of it.

00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.600
This first one,

00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:11.360
this shows how the human brain develops in early childhood.

00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:17.720
This is a depiction of the neurons
in the brain at birth.

00:02:17.720 --> 00:02:20.320
And then over as a child develops

00:02:20.320 --> 00:02:23.120
it interacts with its environment

00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:24.200
It tries things out

00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:27.760
it struggles to talk to converse

00:02:27.760 --> 00:02:30.400
to interact with folks
to understand the world around it.

00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:33.800
and as it struggles, you see that by age 6

00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:37.280
you have a much deeper and much stronger connectedness

00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:40.080
between the different neurons

00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:43.400
Similarly...similarly, I can never say that word,

00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:48.880
these are depictions of the neurons
of two different scenarios.

00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:53.120
This is the the nerves of animals

00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.120
that were in unstimulating environments

00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:57.760
where they're not around other other animals

00:02:57.760 --> 00:02:59.120
They’re in a bare cage.

00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:01.640
and then this is the brain of an animal

00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:03.640
that is in a stimulating environment

00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:05.440
that is constantly being challenged

00:03:05.440 --> 00:03:08.960
that is constantly looking at stimulating new things

00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:12.480
and so the big takeaway
from this whole area of research is

00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:15.320
you absolutely can change your intelligence

00:03:15.320 --> 00:03:16.880
that your brain is like a muscle

00:03:16.880 --> 00:03:19.440
The more you use it, the stronger gets

00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:21.440
and that the best way to grow it

00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:23.880
isn't to do things that are easy for you

00:03:23.880 --> 00:03:25.320
that might help a little bit

00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:27.240
But what really helps your brain

00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:28.800
is when you struggle with things

00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:30.120
and actually research shows that

00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:32.840
your brain grows the most
not when you get a question “right”

00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:35.520
but when you get a question “wrong”

00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.840
So at least for me this is incredibly exciting

00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:39.280
because it lets me know that

00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:40.880
when I'm going through something

00:03:40.880 --> 00:03:42.480
and I'm facing those times of

00:03:42.480 --> 00:03:45.560
maybe a little bit of adversity or a little bit of frustration

00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:48.360
I can feel good about the fact

00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:49.480
that those are actually the times

00:03:49.480 --> 00:03:50.840
that I am growing the most.

00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:53.120
And this isn’t just something that I'm saying nice words

00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:54.320
research tells us

00:03:54.320 --> 00:03:55.600
when you get something wrong

00:03:55.600 --> 00:03:56.600
when you challenge your brain

00:03:56.600 --> 00:03:58.240
when you review why you got it wrong

00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:00.120
when you really process that feedback

00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:02.200
that's when your brain grows the most

00:04:02.200 --> 00:04:04.200
and that if you keep doing that

00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:07.420
you're well on your way to having a stronger more able

00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:08.480
and I guess you could say

00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:10.020
smarter brain.


Volume with cross sections: semicircle

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.503 --> 00:00:02.375
- [Voiceover] This right
over here is the graph

00:00:02.375 --> 00:00:05.104
of x plus y is equal to one.

00:00:05.104 --> 00:00:10.104
Let's say the region
that's below this graph

00:00:10.446 --> 00:00:13.633
but still in the first
quadrant, that this is the base

00:00:13.633 --> 00:00:15.617
of a three dimensional figure.

00:00:15.617 --> 00:00:19.381
So this region right over here is the base

00:00:19.381 --> 00:00:22.126
of a three dimensional figure.

00:00:22.126 --> 00:00:24.186
What we know about this
three dimensional figure is

00:00:24.186 --> 00:00:28.314
if we were to take cross
sections that are perpendicular

00:00:28.314 --> 00:00:32.379
to the x axis, so cross
sections I guess we could say

00:00:32.379 --> 00:00:34.771
that are parallel to the y
axis, so let's say we were

00:00:34.771 --> 00:00:36.938
taking a cross-section like that,

00:00:36.938 --> 00:00:39.976
we know that this will be a semi-circle.

00:00:39.976 --> 00:00:41.648
If we take a slightly different view

00:00:41.648 --> 00:00:43.814
of the same three-dimensional,

00:00:43.814 --> 00:00:44.830
we would see something like this.

00:00:44.830 --> 00:00:47.234
I've laid the coordinate plane down flat

00:00:47.234 --> 00:00:48.845
and I'm looking at it from above.

00:00:48.845 --> 00:00:52.303
This cross-section, if we're
looking at it at an angle,

00:00:52.303 --> 00:00:54.878
and if the figure were transparent,

00:00:54.878 --> 00:00:58.439
it would be this
cross-section right over here.

00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.309
It would be that
cross-section right over here,

00:01:00.309 --> 00:01:05.309
which is a semi-circle.

00:01:05.771 --> 00:01:07.770
If we were to take this cross
section right over here,

00:01:07.770 --> 00:01:11.290
along the y axis, that
would be this cross section.

00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:15.574
This larger semi-circle.

00:01:15.574 --> 00:01:18.617
Given what I've just told
you, I encourage you to pause

00:01:18.617 --> 00:01:21.203
the video and see if you can figure out

00:01:21.203 --> 00:01:26.203
the volume of this thing that
I've shaded in a little bit.

00:01:27.039 --> 00:01:29.776
The volume of this thing
that I've just started.

00:01:29.776 --> 00:01:31.180
This three dimensional figure

00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:35.869
that we are attempting to visualize.

00:01:35.969 --> 00:01:38.456
I'm assuming you've had a go at it.

00:01:38.456 --> 00:01:39.983
One way to think about it
is, well let's just think

00:01:39.983 --> 00:01:42.766
about each of these,
let's split up the figure

00:01:42.766 --> 00:01:46.200
into a bunch of discs.

00:01:47.352 --> 00:01:51.148
If you figure out the volume
of each of those discs,

00:01:53.393 --> 00:01:55.312
and sum them up then that would be

00:01:55.312 --> 00:01:56.686
a pretty good approximation

00:01:56.686 --> 00:01:58.370
for the volume of the whole thing.

00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:00.776
Then, if you took the limit
as you get an infinite

00:02:00.776 --> 00:02:03.777
number of discs that are infinitely thin,

00:02:03.777 --> 00:02:06.641
then you're going to get the exact volume.

00:02:06.641 --> 00:02:10.245
Let's just take the
approximating case first.

00:02:10.245 --> 00:02:14.102
Let's say that right over here at x,

00:02:14.102 --> 00:02:19.102
what is going to be the
diameter of the disc at x.

00:02:22.309 --> 00:02:24.644
Well, to think about that
we just have to re-express

00:02:24.644 --> 00:02:26.112
x plus y is equal to one.

00:02:26.112 --> 00:02:28.512
That's the same thing as
saying that the function

00:02:28.512 --> 00:02:33.512
that F of x or y is equal to F
of x is equal to one minus x.

00:02:36.279 --> 00:02:40.306
The diameter of this
circle right over here,

00:02:40.306 --> 00:02:44.643
let me make it clear, the
diameter of this circle

00:02:44.643 --> 00:02:47.310
is going to be this height,
is going to be the difference

00:02:47.310 --> 00:02:49.090
between one minus x and the x axis,

00:02:49.090 --> 00:02:52.172
or between one minus x and x equals zero.

00:02:52.172 --> 00:02:55.833
This is just going to
be, as a function of x,

00:02:55.833 --> 00:02:59.108
the diameter's going to be one minus x.

00:02:59.108 --> 00:03:03.362
Now, if you want to find the
surface area for a circle,

00:03:03.362 --> 00:03:06.304
or if we want to find
the area of a circle,

00:03:06.304 --> 00:03:08.711
we know that area is pi r-squared.

00:03:08.711 --> 00:03:11.108
For our semi-circle, you're
going to divide by two.

00:03:11.108 --> 00:03:13.174
So what's the radius going to be?

00:03:13.174 --> 00:03:15.383
Just let me zoom in a little bit.

00:03:17.229 --> 00:03:22.229
What is the radius of one of
these semi-circles going to be?

00:03:22.377 --> 00:03:24.843
The radius I could draw it like this.

00:03:24.843 --> 00:03:27.078
My best attempt to draw
one of these things.

00:03:27.078 --> 00:03:28.413
It's gonna look something like this.

00:03:28.413 --> 00:03:30.309
I'm trying to draw it at an angle.

00:03:30.309 --> 00:03:32.700
The radius, what's gonna
be half the diameter?

00:03:32.700 --> 00:03:34.447
The diameter is one minus x.

00:03:34.447 --> 00:03:39.441
The radius is going to
be one minus x over two.

00:03:39.441 --> 00:03:41.237
Right, that distance is
one minus x over two.

00:03:41.237 --> 00:03:43.042
That distance is one minus x over two.

00:03:43.042 --> 00:03:45.369
That distance is one minus x over two.

00:03:45.369 --> 00:03:50.369
So, that is one minus x over
two is equal to the radius.

00:03:52.998 --> 00:03:57.998
What would be the area of of
this side right over here?

00:04:02.645 --> 00:04:04.901
Well, if it was a full circle,
it would be pi r-squared,

00:04:04.901 --> 00:04:08.743
but it's a semi-circle so
it's pi r-squared over two.

00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:13.840
Let me write this, so the
area is equal to pi r-squared

00:04:15.774 --> 00:04:19.939
over two 'cause it's a semi-circle.

00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:24.585
In terms of x, our area as a
function of x right over there,

00:04:24.585 --> 00:04:26.909
let me write it that way,
our area as a function of x,

00:04:26.909 --> 00:04:29.108
is gonna be pi over two.

00:04:30.615 --> 00:04:32.843
It's gonna be pi over two

00:04:32.843 --> 00:04:36.907
times one minus x over two squared.

00:04:36.907 --> 00:04:41.907
It's one minus x over two squared.

00:04:44.578 --> 00:04:49.578
If I wanted a volume of just
this disc right over here,

00:04:50.570 --> 00:04:53.574
I, then, multiply that
area times the depth.

00:04:53.574 --> 00:04:58.213
I just multiply the area
times this depth here.

00:05:00.589 --> 00:05:05.040
We could call that d x or
we could call that delta x.

00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:10.040
We could call the depth there delta x.

00:05:13.971 --> 00:05:17.040
Actually, let me be
clear, that's the area.

00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:22.040
The volume of one of those
shells is going to be equal

00:05:22.704 --> 00:05:24.110
to, and I'll just write this in one color,

00:05:24.110 --> 00:05:27.777
is gonna be pi over two times one minus x

00:05:27.777 --> 00:05:30.963
over two squared, times the depth.

00:05:30.963 --> 00:05:32.902
The area times the depth.

00:05:32.902 --> 00:05:37.902
This is volume of one of these half discs.

00:05:41.046 --> 00:05:43.768
The volume of the whole thing
we can approximate is the sum

00:05:43.768 --> 00:05:47.177
of these, or we can take the
limit is our delta x's get

00:05:47.177 --> 00:05:49.646
much, much, much, much,
smaller and we have an infinite

00:05:49.646 --> 00:05:52.106
number of these things,
which is essentially,

00:05:52.106 --> 00:05:53.181
if we're taking that limit,

00:05:53.181 --> 00:05:55.175
we're gonna take the definite integral.

00:05:55.175 --> 00:05:56.511
We could take the definite integral,

00:05:56.511 --> 00:06:00.443
so the volume that we care
about, the volume of this figure,

00:06:00.443 --> 00:06:03.975
is going to be equal to
the definite integral

00:06:03.975 --> 00:06:06.576
from x equals zero to x equals one.

00:06:06.576 --> 00:06:08.900
That's where we intersect the x axis.

00:06:08.900 --> 00:06:13.254
X equals zero to x equals
one of, we're integrating

00:06:13.254 --> 00:06:18.254
an infinite number of these
things that are infinitely thin.

00:06:18.513 --> 00:06:23.513
It's going to be pi over two times,

00:06:26.066 --> 00:06:27.373
what's one minus x-squared?

00:06:27.373 --> 00:06:29.510
Let me just expand it out
for fun right over here.

00:06:29.510 --> 00:06:32.302
That's the same thing
as x minus one squared.

00:06:32.302 --> 00:06:37.302
So it's going to be x
squared minus two x plus one,

00:06:37.576 --> 00:06:42.576
and then two squared is four, over four.

00:06:43.074 --> 00:06:46.042
Instead of delta x, I'm
going to right d x now.

00:06:46.042 --> 00:06:48.039
I'm gonna write d x because
I'm taking the limit

00:06:48.039 --> 00:06:49.773
as these become infinitely small

00:06:49.773 --> 00:06:50.770
and I have an infinite nine.

00:06:50.770 --> 00:06:53.578
I'm summing an infinite number of them.

00:06:53.578 --> 00:06:55.178
The volume is just going
to be, we just have

00:06:55.178 --> 00:06:57.166
to evaluate this definite integral.

00:06:57.166 --> 00:07:01.034
If you feel so inspired,
feel free to pause

00:07:01.034 --> 00:07:04.435
and try to evaluate
this definite integral.

00:07:04.435 --> 00:07:06.371
Let's just take some
of these constants out.

00:07:06.371 --> 00:07:09.108
Let's take pi over eight out.

00:07:09.108 --> 00:07:14.108
Our volume is going to be
equal to pi over eight times

00:07:18.574 --> 00:07:21.443
the definite integral from zero to one

00:07:21.443 --> 00:07:26.443
of x-squared minus two x plus one d x,

00:07:31.303 --> 00:07:36.303
which is equal to pi over eight.

00:07:36.435 --> 00:07:41.435
The antiderivative of this
is x to the third over three

00:07:42.310 --> 00:07:46.772
minus x-squared plus x.

00:07:46.772 --> 00:07:51.772
We're going to evaluate
that at zero and one.

00:07:51.798 --> 00:07:56.526
This is going to be
equal to pi over eight.

00:07:56.526 --> 00:07:58.314
When you evaluate it at one,

00:07:58.314 --> 00:08:01.035
you get one third minus one plus one.

00:08:01.035 --> 00:08:02.839
It's going to be one third.

00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:03.966
When you evaluate at zero,

00:08:03.966 --> 00:08:05.707
you get zero minus zero plus zero.

00:08:05.707 --> 00:08:08.267
It's going to be minus zero so
it's just pi over eight times

00:08:08.267 --> 00:08:12.267
one third which is equal to
pi over 24 and we are done.