First Time Founders with Ed Elson – Reed Hastings: Life After Netflix

Ed speaks with Reed Hastings, co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix. They discuss the company's path from dvd rental to streaming, the importance of company culture, what it was like to leave Netflix, and the challenges and joys of Reed's newest venture: a ski resort in Utah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:29Ed Elson?

  Scott, imagine you'd built one of the most successful companies in American history. What would retirement look like? Chicks!

• 1:38Scott Galloway?

  I'm sorry. What would it look like? It'd look like my life right now, Ed. You don't need to build one of the most successful companies to have a wonderful back nine. I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. I hang out with impressive, intelligent young people such as yourself. We make good money. We have purpose.

• 2:07Scott Galloway?

  And I get to do amazing things with my friends and family that make me feel closer to them. I can't imagine doing anything differently. And the only lesson in this humble brag, or not so humble brag, is once you get to a certain level of economic security, you want to use money as a means to an ends. And that ends is great experiences that make you feel closer to your friends and family and recognize that you have an increasingly finite amount of time here.

• 2:44Ed Elson?

  Welcome to First Time Founders. Twenty-seven years ago, watching movies on demand meant making a trip to the rental store. But after a frustrating experience with a lost DVD and a hefty late fee, my next guest saw an opportunity for change. He envisioned a world where people could enjoy movies from the comfort of their homes without the hassle of late fees and without making a trip to the store. So in 1997, he launched a company with a groundbreaking idea: flat-rate movie rentals delivered by mail. That single innovation, followed by many more, laid the foundation for what would become the world's leading movie and television streaming service. With nearly 283 million subscribers and over $28

• 3:29Ed Elson?

  billion in revenue this year, this founder's vision has forever changed the way we consume entertainment. This is my conversation with Reed Hastings, co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix.

• 3:44Ed Elson?

  Welcome, Reed. Thank you so much for joining me.

• 3:47Speaker 06

  And what a treat. So excited to be called a first-time founder. It's like I'm young again or something.

• 3:54Ed Elson?

  Exactly. I'm just looking at the background behind you. I know that we were in talks about maybe doing this in person and I'm already just feeling huge amounts of regret. The background looks beautiful.

• 4:06Speaker 06

  It'd be lovely to have you out here. You gotta come see it. I mean, the fall colors right now are incredible, but of course, we're just waiting for the big snows to hit.

• 4:14Ed Elson?

  So our listeners know, where are you exactly?

• 4:17Speaker 06

  Powder Mountain, Eden, Utah, about an hour from Salt Lake City Airport.

• 4:21Ed Elson?

  And that is something that we will be getting into in this interview. That is sort of your newest project, but the title of this program is First Time Founders. You are not a first time founder right now, but you were at one point. So we're gonna start with that. We're gonna start back in the 90s, right after you had served in the Peace Corps and then you got your CS degree from Stanford and you decided to start a company, but it wasn't Netflix. It was actually a company called Pure Software. So let's start there. Could you tell us the story of Pure Software? What led you to that venture and how it all came about?

• 4:56Speaker 06

  You know, I would say that starting a company is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and you just assume a bird is gonna fly by. And so the people who start companies are unrealistically positive and optimistic. And then occasionally, some of the times it works, the bird flies by. And if I think about my own experience, I was excited about a particular product. It found errors in a class of C and C++ software that no one had been able to find before, these memory errors. And I was just hellbound on creating the product and I had to do a company to see the product come to light.

• 5:39Ed Elson?

  Was this something that you always knew you wanted to do? Did you think that you were gonna be an entrepreneur?

• 5:43Speaker 06

  No, I did take one sort of business school-like class and I had to learn how to use a spreadsheet to do that, but that was like my little tiny bit. And when I was a grad student, so mid 90s, I got super excited about the foot mouse. And you know, I was often with old hand mouse in the terminal, you know, it's just slow back and forth to the keyboard. And so, you know, of course, I thought of the obvious solution, which is you control the mouse with your foot.

• 6:16Ed Elson?

  This is the first I'm hearing of the foot mouse. I love it.

• 6:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, yeah, the foot mouse is was a great idea, I thought, uh, which just shows I'm not very good in the judgment category. I'm good in the passion category. Okay, so anyway, I spent six months. Luckily, I didn't drop out of Stanford to do it. And it turns out two things. One is it's a very dirty environment. And so after a day or two, um, the foot mouse was pretty gross. And then two, your leg cramps. Um, so it's just not used to that fine dexterity control. And those were both hard problems to solve, which is why there's still no foot mouse 30 years later. But I so I would say I've always had the product bug or the passion product bug. And then the first time I really did

• 7:01Speaker 06

  it, which was pure, it actually worked. So I spent a year at home writing the software. And then I had to figure out a company to, you know, figure out how to make it mainstream and distribute it. The company from 91 to 95 doubled every year. Uh, Morgan Stanley took us public in 1995. And so in many ways, it was a, you know, great success of that era. Um, but I was pretty miserable for a lot of it, because I didn't know how to do anything in running a company. And so it was just chaos. Uh, and that that felt bad.

• 7:33Ed Elson?

  Yeah. So this is what's so interesting to me is that you're not known for pure software, but it was a smashing success. I mean, it was your first company. As you said, you took it public in 95. Later, you merged it with Atria. And then in 97, it was acquired for nearly a billion dollars. And that's roughly 2 billion in today's dollars. So this was like a hit, hit success. And it's just so funny that you view it as kind of a, one, that it's sort of a footnote on your resume. Two, that you view it as sort of a miserable time. And so I'd love to just, as you reflect on pure software, you were a new entrepreneur, it's your first company. It was successful. What do you think you were getting right at that time?

• 8:16Speaker 06

  A product passion. Think of one extreme, which is Elon Musk, which is like all passion and envision. Um, and, you know, he manages quite successfully through inspiration purely, right? And then the day to day management of things is pretty chaotic and he's got tons of turnover. And yet he still accomplishes amazing things. So call that one end of the spectrum. Another end of the spectrum is the really well-run, you know, retail, something, I don't know, that, you know, not that inspiring, but very disciplined. And so you can achieve excellence through that, or you can achieve excellence at the other end. And my first

• 8:58Speaker 06

  end was more in the Elon style. It was all about a passion of, you know, software quality and what that could mean for the world and the problems of software errors. But the day-to-day management was pretty poor on my part. But we succeeded through kind of energy and passion, because then people forgive you a lot of things, or you just make mistakes, but you, you know, you charge ahead.

• 9:25Ed Elson?

  So we'll fast forward to 1997. You've just kind of scored pretty big on Pure Software. You sold the company. And I think for a lot of people at that point, you start thinking about maybe early retirement, maybe you move to, say, Barts, you do, live a life of arrested adolescence, as Scott likes to say. That's not what you did. You decided you wanted to start another company, and this idea was for movie rental delivery. Tell us what was going on in your head at that time, and why did DVDs by mail seem like such a good idea to you?

• 10:03Speaker 06

  You know, it was the time when Amazon was just going public. E-commerce was clearly going to be a big area. And there were a lot of foolish companies just saying, okay, I'm going to sell computers, or I'm going to sell lamps. And clearly, Amazon was going to crush them eventually. And DVD rental, or rental generally has those two-way logistics, you had to send them back. So it was very unique, city-specific logistics that we figured Amazon wouldn't bother with. It was too small a market, didn't leverage all their core, there weren't five other things for them to rent. So that would give us, we could ride the e-commerce explosion, and not have competition from Amazon, only have it from

• 10:44Speaker 06

  the incumbents being Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. And then if we succeeded, we said, okay, then we've got the pole position for converting to streaming. Thus, we named the company Netflix and DVDbymail.com, because that was always the ambition.

• 11:00Ed Elson?

  So you you mentioned that Netflix was partly inspired by Amazon, perhaps totally inspired by Amazon. I didn't realize this, but at one point Jeff Bezos actually offered to buy Netflix. And you declined it. Could you take us through what happened there?

• 11:17Speaker 06

  Let's think about the dates, late 90s and we went and talked to them. It never got to like a formal offer. It was sort of exploratory. And, you know, they were properly interested in all businesses that could show a profit. And here's the shocker. We said no, and then we worked our ass off for 20 years. Okay. And then if you compare the stock return, you know, if we had sold and then just ridden the Amazon stock up, it would have been the same outcome. 20 years of work and now of course I'm happy to create Netflix and that kind of thing.

• 11:50Ed Elson?

  Yeah, absolutely. And my favorite detail along those lines. So Netflix is growing. It's doing super well. It's on pace to go public. And then the dot com crash hits and it brings down all these companies and that includes Netflix. And you actually tried to sell the company to Blockbuster for $50 million and they rejected you. So I'd love to hear the story of how that went down.

• 12:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, that one was more avoiding a big fight with Blockbuster. We realized that if we're going to grow really big, we're going to have a big fight with them. And how about if we just give them 50% and then, you know, help them profit and not have that big fight with them. And so we were open to that, but you know, they're like a big, serious corporation. We were a bunch of scrappy Silicon Valley kids and they were like, you know, when we want to do online, we'll just do it. And so they didn't see any need, you know, or interest in buying us. And then they did compete like us with us like heck. And luckily that didn't start until 2004.

• 13:00Speaker 06

  So they they waited an awfully long time because they weren't sure of the market size. But then they got quite serious and it was a huge price battle in 2005 and 2006. And then they ultimately bankrupted themselves by 2007 or eight.

• 13:17Ed Elson?

  I feel like in the history of Video, the way that Blockbuster is remembered is they sort of dropped the ball. They weren't focused, they weren't managing themselves correctly and that you came in and ate their lunch. Do you think of their strategy that way? Do you think that they sort of slacked off and that's where you and you've basically picked up the slack? How do you view your takeover of Blockbuster in that story?

• 13:45Speaker 06

  High respect for their leadership, very smart, thoughtful people. They rolled up the business, beat all their direct competitors through kind of careful and good execution of store-based video rental. Negotiated great deals with the studios. When it came to looking forward, they were very forward looking and they did a deal with a broadband company in 2000, long before we were streaming. Okay, we didn't start streaming till 2007. Okay, so in 2000, they do a deal with a broadband company to be on the leading edge. Unfortunately for them, the name of that company was Enron.

• 14:26Speaker 06

  Okay, and it turned out to be this, you know, billion dollar loss that was a scam. So they kind of learned, you know, internet, you know, is a bunch of scam artists, you know? And so they were more scared off. So then we came in with DVD by mail and it seemed like, you know, an interesting little business. But again, they were looking for how to go direct to consumer and they didn't want to do this intermediate step. It's hard when you've got one business model you've done in their case for 25, 30 years. And then there's a once in a generation change, i.e. the internet. You know, like Netflix hasn't, I guess, streaming.

• 15:09Speaker 06

  I mean, we were born to do streaming and thought about streaming all the time. So it wasn't hard for us to let DVD go. But I think if DVD had been the vision, you know, it would have been a lot harder.

• 15:23Ed Elson?

  It was a long time before you actually started streaming. Were you constantly telling the team, you know, ultimately this is the goal? Ultimately, we're going to get into streaming. This is just phase one.

• 15:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, we launched in 97, 98 and 2007, a decade later, was our very first streaming. And that was just a Windows PCs with crappy content. Okay, so it wasn't until 2009, 2010 that we had the Xbox deal. So you could, you could watch Netflix on your TV if you had an Xbox. And we had the Starz online content, which is like a baby HBO. And so then it was like real content and on the television. And then it was like another five years before we were integrated into most televisions. You know, and then we got our button on the remote, the Netflix button. And then we started, you know, we did our original content first in 2012.

• 16:19Speaker 06

  So that was House of Cards. So yeah, there was a lot of steps in there that took to put together. So, you know, it's an unusual entry strategy to build a business to be the segue. You know, that is where we're going to build DVD rental and then be in position for internet streaming. But we were differentially confident that DVD by mail was the best solution for a decade. And then when it came in with streaming, you know, we were super hungry for it. And then of course with that, we could expand globally.

• 16:55Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back.

• 17:09Scott Galloway?

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• 18:09Scott Galloway?

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• 18:54Scott Galloway?

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• 19:38Scott Galloway?

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• 20:26Ed Elson?

  We're back with first time founders. Was it difficult to convince your team of all of this? I mean, it sounds obvious now. Yeah, of course, people will be streaming. But I feel like back then, you're sort of making a you're making a gamble, you're making a bet. I'm just interested, you say, you know, we were confident of all of this. Was it all of you or was it just you? How did you convince everyone this was the right way to go?

• 20:50Speaker 06

  No, it was pretty broad that. So YouTube started in 2005. We could start to use streaming. That was the first low quality, but high scale streaming. So, you know, there's like little things like, should we? How much should we invest? Should we invest, you know, 30 million or 300 million in streaming in a given year? So, you know, but I'll call those technocratic decisions. It wasn't, nobody thought we shouldn't invest. It was just how fast, how early, those kinds of things.

• 21:25Ed Elson?

  I feel like one of the things that makes Netflix so unique is that it's basically been on the forefront of pretty much every major secular shift that we've seen over the past several decades. And it's, you know, probably been on more of those than any other company in this generation. I can just go through the list. I think it's worth just listing for people. You know, you had the VHS to DVD shift. You had brick and mortar to delivery, one time purchase to subscription based, DVDs to streaming, and then more recently licensing to original content. And then even more recently, domestic content to international content.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  Crazy, crazy, isn't it?

• 22:07Ed Elson?

  So it's basically front running every single major shift in the industry. And that to me has been the differentiator with Netflix and the trend. What do you think you have done as a leader that has enabled that level of innovation over such a long time? I mean, a lot of people innovate, a lot of people do new things, but you've been consistent in every single one. What do you think you've gotten right?

• 22:36Speaker 06

  You know, I try to think through from first principles, why certain companies grow and thrive and, you know, when they get left behind or when not. So I've always been a fan of kind of studying, you know, when I was growing up, it was in the computer business, it was Sun and, you know, microsystems and it was HP and they were and digital equipment. These companies were dying right and left and they were major companies initially for a while. And so I, early on, got a very close study of major companies shift with the ground shifted out from under them and how unusual it was

• 23:21Speaker 06

  to be Microsoft or others that, you know, continued to pivot with the new landscape. And so I think I've always been a fan of that strategy thinking, learned mostly by watching other companies because if you learn it on your own companies, that's expensive. So it's better to look and see when you see a company do big pivots like Microsoft has, you know, over 40 years and they've missed some too, right? They're not, they're not perfect in it.

• 23:53Ed Elson?

  One of the pivots that you made, I mean, so from DVDs to streaming, I was just looking back through the, through the time machine. You decided to rebrand the DVD business to Quickster and the streaming service was going to remain Netflix. And I just pulled some headlines from that year. Quickster is dead. Quickster goes quickly. And here's my favorite from the Atlantic. Five Reasons Why Quickster Is Now Deadster. That to me is sort of like an example of where, you know, a pivot could kind of go wrong, but ultimately it was successful. I'd love to just get your reflections on pivoting to streaming.

• 24:37Ed Elson?

  An initial failure, it seemed, and then it worked out big time.

• 24:42Speaker 06

  So we, in studying other companies, we realized they're run by good people and they still miss the transition. So the, the average, smart and careful leadership team is too slow.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  And so we thought, okay, we've got to go faster than we're comfortable. Okay. And the phrase internally was, we got to be so aggressive, you know, that the hair in the back of our neck, you know, is raised up, you know, it's really scary. And that allowed us to say, okay, let's take all of the DVD rental business and shove it to the side into Quickster. And the only thing remaining, and we knew would be streaming. And but at that time, 2012, streaming was still not very good and still not very broad. And so we were very aggressive and it was too aggressive for the customers. Okay, we didn't, you know, they care about the here, I mean, I'm paying you 20 bucks a month.

• 25:38Speaker 06

  I want, you know, what, what I want. And so we were ahead of the customers. And then that cost us a lot, you know, the, the stock shrank by a lot, customers quit us, the press thought we were idiots. And so, and it was too fast in hindsight. Okay, but think of it as the aggressive spirit that allowed us to do all those transitions you referred to a few minutes ago, was the same aggressive spirit that makes us go a little too fast with Quickster. Okay. And then ultimately, you're right, it became DVD.com and we did the thing and, you know, and separated it in a more low key way. And then, you know, it was just last year, we finally closed DVD.com.

• 26:21Speaker 06

  So, you know, was the right idea too soon. But if you think about it, these things are uncertain. And so if you make five decisions a little bit late and one a little bit early, you know, you're sort of in the same area. So we didn't beat ourselves up too much on it because we were like, look, you've got to be aggressive, you've got to be able to recover if it's been too fast, but you can't be afraid of moving too fast.

• 26:47Ed Elson?

  Why is that exactly? Why do you think that it's so important to be aggressive? I think that, I mean, I agree in hindsight, I mean, I'm glad that you were aggressive. But I feel like it's very easy in business and in life to think, well, you know, Things are going well and we don't want to disappoint our shareholders and we don't want to disappoint the customers. And it's just so interesting to me that you were very, very sure that no, no, no, we have to move extremely quickly. Why was that so important to you?

• 27:16Speaker 06

  So some people are tall or short. Some people are risk sensitive or risk loving. Okay. Honestly, I think it's as it's built into people's biology. And I've always loved the fear and excitement of the going fast. I do think it's helpful if you take smart risks. Obviously, if if four or five of the big decisions we made were as bad as Quickster, then there's a problem. You know, you've tipped into being reckless. Okay. But if mostly you get it right, and if you can recover when you've been too fast, then that's just aggressive and not reckless. And so then, you know, you can get great returns like Netflix has been.

• 28:00Ed Elson?

  Cultural principles and company culture has been such an important part of what you built at Netflix. And now, many companies around the world have borrowed a lot of your principles. I'd love to just go over a couple of them and hear from you what they mean and why they're important. First one I've got here is farming for dissent.

• 28:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's one actually we brought in after Quickster. It means that dissent in a management team is not easy or natural, especially if the leader has a strong view and has often been right. And so it's important to farm for dissent and to stimulate mechanisms by which contrary views can be evaluated and heard. We're not trying to manufacture consent. Okay, we're trying to stimulate dissent, you know, up to a point, and then you make a decision, and then you want everybody on board to execute it like heck.

• 28:57Ed Elson?

  And what is that point? You said up to a point. Where do you cut it off?

• 29:03Speaker 06

  So for big decisions, it's a somewhat formalized process where we'll have a meeting and then everyone enters their view in a Google spreadsheet, you know, that's visible to everybody. And you vote on things negative 10 is like, it's going to be a disaster. To zero is like, I'm not really sure to 10 is this is the best thing we could possibly do. I'm very confident. And then whoever's making the decision then writes up, they give it like a Supreme Court decision. I mean, it's not as well written or formal and stuff, but you know, it's here, this what I heard, here are the different views. And ultimately, I think the balance of risk is this, and I think we should do why. And then that's the decision and then we move forward.

• 29:47Ed Elson?

  The other one I have here is extraordinary candor. What does that mean?

• 29:51Speaker 06

  Well, human beings, as we've lived in denser and denser groups, have learned to be more and more polite and indirect. So, you know, in China or in Japan, where it's very crowded, people are super polite. And, you know, it's an art form. The challenge in that in business is we come from a lot of different cultures and we're moving fast. And so it's better to enable people to be rude by conventional standards and to be very direct, at least about the workplace, not about your clothing or, you know, that you're attracted to someone or I don't know, you know.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  But again, on the work dimensions, we want high candor to get people to have more clear, effective and honest discussions about, you know, should we cut price in France or should we do this show or should we do this product feature?

• 30:47Ed Elson?

  So I'm going to move through one more cultural principle here, which is the keeper test. What is that?

• 30:53Speaker 06

  Um, the keeper test is if someone was going to quit, would you work hard to keep them, to change their mind? And so it's using that as the firing criteria rather than the traditional, have they screwed up so egregiously that we should fire them? Okay, that's kind of the default model. And we would say, no, we'd like to have a whole bunch of people that you would fight hard to keep. And you're responsible to all of your direct reports are people that you would fight hard to keep.

• 31:24Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back.

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• 33:50Ed Elson?

  We're back with first time founders. I'm going to move on to leaving Netflix. In January 2023, you stepped down as the CEO. Your co-CEO Ted Sarandos stuck around. He remained at the helm. Greg Peters was promoted. And when I look at what happened here, to me, this is kind of one of the greatest succession stories of this decade. Because, you know, I look at what happened to Disney, what's happening right now at Nike, what's been happening at Starbucks. I even look at what's happened in our government. And what I'm finding is that the transition of power is extremely difficult.

• 34:33Ed Elson?

  But if you look at what's happened with Netflix, Netflix has crushed it. The stock has, I think, roughly doubled since you left, which is actually a testament to your ability to formulate a plan. What makes a good succession plan? How does a leader such as yourself peacefully and successfully remove themselves from the helm?

• 34:54Speaker 06

  You know, it's something that we always have concentrated on, which is developing bench strength. And Greg and Ted, you know, been with me for 19 years or something. So it's like they were very ready and very excited to have the shot, you know, to lead. But again, I think that's, you know, again, similar to the Andy Jassy, you know, following Bezos. So I bring that up just to say, you know, there are other proof points of, I mean, Jassy's been at Amazon for 20 years, you know, and he's different than Bezos, but you know, there he's doing it his way. And, you know, there are those companies that struggle, you know, where the board and the CEO either didn't pick right or took a long time or, you know, a range of tricky issues.

• 35:38Ed Elson?

  And was it hard to let go of Netflix?

• 35:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, I'd done it for 25 years, every day, jump up early to check the metrics and be in charge. And it, you know, was a big shock at first, but, you know, I knew that this was a great time for them to take over because we had a great recovery path that they architected, you know, for the company. But on a personal basis, I missed it. I missed being in the center. I missed the, you know, the influence. I missed the intensity, missed the global travel. But, you know, three months later, I took over Powder Mountain and, you know, that's been an incredible adventure. And then, you know, doing a bunch of philanthropy and, you know, more active on that side. So I've been, you

• 36:25Speaker 06

  know, really blessed to continue to feel very invigorated.

• 36:28Ed Elson?

  It's so interesting to me because who would have thought that the entertainment, internet, software entrepreneur would decide, you know what, I'm gonna go start a ski resort.

• 36:42Speaker 06

  My wife and I had a home here, a powder already. So it's not like I searched 50 mountains and found the right one in some great strategic play. We had a house here. We could see the mountain was struggling. The opportunity to buy out the existing owners came up. And really, most ski mountains are real estate development projects. That's the, you know, skiing itself is, you know, very tough business, like restaurants, that kind of thing. And then it's creating the real estate play that's been so exciting.

• 37:16Ed Elson?

  I'd love to know if there are any similarities between operating a ski resort versus a streaming service. What are sort of the main differences in the experience? But more importantly, what are the main similarities? What's sort of carried over?

• 37:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, the similarity is really the subscription orientation, which is you've got a set of customers and your job, you know, is to keep them excited. And so you're not trying to get new customers all the time, like a transactional business. So it's really focused on, you know, those that own real estate or have season passes. And so that's the probably the biggest similarity in business model. Then there's a lot of similarities in culture now, where we're, you know, building up Powder Mountain to do keeper test and high compensation and, you know, all of the things that we've learned before. And then we've shaken up the model. So, you know, we've split the mountain in half,

• 38:15Speaker 06

  half for private, half for public. No one had done that before. We did a thing a couple of days ago where we said on February weekends, which are the busiest times, it's a season pass only days. You know, we're continuing to find ways to innovate. But I would say in the in the ski industry, the great popularizers have been the Epic and Icon passes. They're the ones that roll up, you know, 50 resorts. Think of them as the Costco or Amazon Prime. Okay, that's like a super high scale. I mean, I would have loved to invent that business, but I didn't. You know, it's been going on for 10 years and now we're competing now in the irony of ironies, you know, on the niche provider competing with the dominant

• 39:00Speaker 06

  firm and trying to come up as we have with something that's counter positioned. And Epic and Icon have made skiing more affordable, but they've made it really crowded. And so then we're the counter to that. We're more expensive, but we're like beautifully pristine and open and it's, you know, more like a heli skiing.

• 39:20Ed Elson?

  It sounds absolutely incredible. I mean, the real difference here is this is really about bringing yourself joy, it seems. You know, this is about spreading happiness and having a great time. It makes families happy. It makes you happy. And I think that's significant that that is what you've decided to zero in on and make a whole operation out of. So I'd love to get sort of your thoughts on on joy, on happiness and the extent to which that's played a role in your career and the decisions you've made throughout it.

• 39:56Speaker 06

  You know, I would say finding new angles on existing businesses, you know, whether that's rental or, you know, software error detection, or this one, you know, skiing is the exciting thing. Coming up with new business models that, you know, work really well. In our case, to have 600 families have the private skiing. And then use that to anchor the mountain and the public side with, you know, thousands of season passes. And it's got all the joy for me of Netflix, even though it's a fraction of the scale, a fraction of the profitability, a fraction of,

• 40:35Speaker 06

  you know, things that are important in many ways, but it's a fun problem to be engaged with. And yes, to create again, but the joy we create for our members is it's very visceral and, you know, we get to know them. And that's, you know, deeper than just, you know, someone writing you of how important this show was to see them. But that that was fun, too.

• 40:57Ed Elson?

  As you look back at this very wide ranging career, which parts were the most rewarding in your view?

• 41:05Speaker 06

  I'd have to say right now I feel most rewarding because again, it's it's my neighbors that are, you know, that we're saving the resort for and expanding and growing and putting in like this year, we're putting in four new lifts. And like, nobody goes that aggressive all at once. It's crazy in a way. And yet we're pulling it off, even though if I'm objective, it's not as much good in the world, you know, as say Netflix. It feels very intense because I know the people.

• 41:35Ed Elson?

  There's a community aspect, yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, I would say the personal satisfaction is highest now. You know, probably in terms of world impact, you know, then Netflix would be the highest.

• 41:47Ed Elson?

  And what about your philanthropy and your your ventures in education? What what has that brought you on a on a personal level?

• 41:55Speaker 06

  What I found like the year I did the politics is, you know, it's good for the world. And but I wouldn't jump out of bed to do it, you know, I jump even today with a philanthropy. I like it. It's important in doing a bunch on charter schools, a bunch on AI learning, a bunch on lower cost mobile phone access in Africa, home solar. So I I recognize it as important, but like if I have an hour, I jump into Powder Mountain stuff, you know, because it's just, it's such a great group of people, both, you know, on the staff and then in the membership.

• 42:32Ed Elson?

  It's it's funny hearing you talk about this because.

• 42:37Ed Elson?

  It's so clear to me that you get hyper, hyper obsessive and focused on very specific things. And right now, you know, it's the ski resort. This is what's dominating. It feels like that sort of gives insight into why you've been so successful in all of your ventures is that you pick a thing and that's your thing. I guess the other word for this is focus. How has that played into your career? And do you think that's something that other people who want to be successful should be embracing more of?

• 43:07Speaker 06

  Well, what I realized is there's other ways to be successful. Like my friends who are venture capitalists, they're the opposite. You know, they've got 30 deals contemplated, five deals they're in and, you know, and they're incredible at multitasking and, and, you know, the ones who are very good at it. And I realize it's just not my personality, you know? And so I think a lot of it probably for the young entrepreneurs figuring out what really are they differentially good at? So yes, I'm a focused person, but I wouldn't say that's the only way to be. You know, I would say in the investor class, they, they can't jump in and try to solve the problems of the company. There's different ways to

• 43:50Speaker 06

  contribute in different parts of the ecosystem.

• 43:53Ed Elson?

  There are a lot of young men who listen to this podcast. As a businessman, as a family man, and as a philanthropy man, what would be your number one piece of advice to a young man who's just getting started in his career?

• 44:10Speaker 06

  There's no one path to imitate. And sometimes people fall in the trap of like finding their role model and, you know, and I would say it's staying loose and flexible in learning and trying things. And it's always challenging yourself if you're growing in your skill set. Then you're going to have lots of opportunity, but it's, there's no predictable path. So it's more of an emphasis on growth and growth mindset than on preparation and having a plan.

• 44:47Ed Elson?

  It's interesting. Do you feel that you embodied that through your career as well?

• 44:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, it was being flexible and adaptable and it was a very, very unpredictable angles and where things veered. And, and then I, you know, was fortunate to latch into some big problems, whether that's software quality and, or whether that's, you know, streaming entertainment or now powder real estate.

• 45:15Ed Elson?

  And if there's one piece of advice that you could have given yourself when you were a young, young entrepreneur, before you started Pure Software, is there something that you would have told yourself?

• 45:28Ed Elson?

  That you'd like to tell him now?

• 45:30Speaker 06

  I didn't understand how to forgive myself when I made mistakes. So, you know, I was always going fast, taking chances, doing things. But, and now I'm able to see some mistakes as part and parcel of, you know, being aggressive. But at the time, anytime I made a mistake, I would berate myself endlessly and unproductively. So I didn't know how to forgive myself.

• 46:02Ed Elson?

  I mean, you said unproductively berating yourself. Is there a way to think of self criticism in a more productive way that is actually helps you move forward?

• 46:13Speaker 06

  My hunch is it just comes with age and there isn't really a shortcut. So, I mean, you can understand the intellectual theory, but in terms of the emotional release. And, you know, when you're younger, all those emotions are so intense, you know, about success and failure and esteem and humiliation and, you know, our, our systems are keyed up for that in ways that makes people very hungry. But I would say as you get experience, learning how to forgive yourself would be the little bit that I might be able to add to your audience. Cause I'm sure they're quite good risk takers and they're quite aggressive and they're good about learning and growth and lots of things.

• 46:55Ed Elson?

  Absolutely. I love that and I will take that moving forward for myself as well.

• 47:00Speaker 06

  Ed, when are we going to get you up skiing?

• 47:01Ed Elson?

  Oh my God, I will, I'll come tomorrow.

• 47:06Ed Elson?

  As soon as the ski season starts, I want to do it.

• 47:08Speaker 06

  Great to get you up this winter and we should do a little event maybe with you and Tim Ferriss, who's local too, he's Park City.

• 47:16Ed Elson?

  I would absolutely love that. I love Tim Ferriss. Reed Hastings is the co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix. He is also a majority owner in Powder Mountain and I hopefully will be skiing with him soon enough.

• 47:28Speaker 06

  Awesome.

• 47:29Ed Elson?

  Reed, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

• 47:31Speaker 06

  Thanks so much, Ed.

• 47:37Ed Elson?

  Our producer is Claire Miller, our associate producer is Alison Weiss and our engineer is Benjamin Spencer. Thank you for listening to First Time Founders from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tune in tomorrow for Prof G Markets.

• 48:01Speaker 10

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