EP #13 How To Think Like A Billionaire w/ Naveen Jain

In this episode, Naveen and Peter discuss the framework for building a moonshot company, how to raise a great family, and how billionaires think about new ideas. You will learn about: How to start a unicorn company Naveen’s framework for building ‘Moonshots.’ Why it’s important to let your kids be themselves The types of questions you should ask yourself Naveen is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist driven to solve the world's biggest challenges through innovation. As the founder of Viome, Moon Express, World Innovation Institute, TalentWise, Intelius, and Infospace, Naveen is an intensely curious entrepreneur who is focused on audacious ideas that push humanity forward. He is the author of the award-winning book, Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance, the creator of Mindvalley, Masterclass programs, and behind XPrize, a global future positive movement, and on the board of Singularity University. _____________ Resources Learn more about Naveen: NaveenJain.com Learn about Viome Levels: Real-time feedback on how diet impacts your health. levels.link/peter Consider a journey to optimize your body with LifeForce. Learn more about Abundance360. Learn more about Moonshots & Mindsets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Most people find, think that happiness is something you drive from something else. So they constantly chase something or someone that's going to make them happy. What they don't realize is happiness is their inside job. If you are happy inside you, you will find you can share that happiness with everyone you meet. That means you could, if you're a happy person, you could be sitting in a dark corner and still be happy. And if you're unhappy person, you could be sitting in a paradise and still be unhappy. So to me, the happiness comes when you find the true peace, the true purpose in life. Where every day when you wake up, you wake up with joy.

• 0:40Peter Diamandis?

  And a massive transformative purpose is what you're telling the world. It's like, this is who I am, this is what I'm going to do, this is the dent I'm going to make in the universe.

• 0:53Peter Diamandis?

  Welcome, everybody, to Moon Shots and Mindsets. I'm Peter Diamandis. I'm here with my brother from another mother, one of my dearest friends on the planet, a co-conspirator, a co-traveler on the spaceship Earth, Naveen Jain. How you doing, buddy?

• 1:05Speaker 00

  First of all, what an honor and a pleasure. Every time you and I talk, it is just unbelievable the amount of information and energy we together can bring to the table. So I'm just really looking forward to this conversation.

• 1:18Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, I am, I am as well. I mean, I hope almost everybody here knows who you are. First of all, you and I are on the board together of Singularity University and the X Prize Foundation. You have starred a number of super successful internet companies from InfoSpace that reached a multi-multi-billion dollar valuation during the days of the, of the dot-com explosions. You've gone after so many moonshots, really in areas we both are passionate about, space and, and health. You're the CEO, chairman of Viome. Full disclosure, I'm an advisor and investor in Viome. And I think more than anything, you and I both love inspiring people to take moonshots

• 2:03Peter Diamandis?

  and inspiring people to go bigger. And I think that's one of the things I want to talk about during this conversation is What are the mindsets that are required to go after and change the world? Before we get to that conversation, you were just in Israel at the Wellness Summit. I know my team from Fountain Life was there. What was going on there? What was the vibe at this Wellness Summit? It was a big deal.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  It was a big deal. And I think one of the things we are seeing is that the whole concept of wellness and longevity is fundamentally changing. It used to be people were reactive, that I do what I do. When I get sick, I want to go to the hospital. What COVID taught us is the last thing you want to do is to get sick and go to the hospital. So people are starting to take control of their own health. They're becoming the CEO of their own health. And what they're realizing is their actions have health consequences. So the whole idea of I don't want to wait until I get sick. And what can I do to tell me before I get sick, what's happening in my body? What can I do to prevent it? And I think to me, what Fountain is doing and what we're doing at WYL is really synergistic

• 3:10Speaker 00

  in a way that allows people to take control of their own health and understand what is going on in their body.

• 3:15Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, no, it's true. It's, I mean, the technology right now, I think ultimately, you know, and I think I coined the term be the CEO of your own health years ago. I think it's going to end up being AI is the CEO of your health. You're going to, you're going to upload all of the technology, all of the data into your AI and it's going to be, but we'll get, we'll get to that in a little bit.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Well, I'm going to push back on that one because I think AI, the reason is the part of the job of a CEO is a chief execution officer. And the only person who can execute what to do is you. So no one else, AI can't execute for you. AI can only tell you what to do and you need to execute for yourself.

• 3:55Peter Diamandis?

  Well, that's, that is true to a large degree. I think AI is going to be able to like decide what's in your food and your supplements. It's going to be able to decide.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  It's going to tell you what needs to be there.

• 4:06Peter Diamandis?

  Well, and then it might provide for you. So this is going to be, this is going to be interesting, but we'll, we'll get to that in a, in a bit. So listen, I'm, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, because we've talked about this on the stage at Abundance 360, at Singularity University, and I love your framework for moonshots. And I think this conversation for, for those listening is about inspiring you to think bigger and to feel.

• 4:36Peter Diamandis?

  Feel enabled to go for a moonshot. So here's my question for you, Naveen. And do you think any entrepreneur out there can in fact take on a moonshot? Or are there entrepreneurs who need to be taking it a step at a time?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, I mean, the definition of an entrepreneur is someone who solves a problem. Right? And now, if you're solving a problem, as you and I both agree, it is easier to solve something big than to do something small. And the reason for that, it's a counterintuitive. That people think the bigger problems are harder to solve. I say bigger problems are easier to solve than a small problems because when you have an audacious idea that is going to fundamentally change how humanity is going to live, it allows you to attract the best and the brightest talent around the world. Because the most successful people want to become significant. And the smartest people in the world want to work on the toughest problems.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  So give them a problem that actually they want to work on. And once you have that amazing team, you get all the financial resources you need because every VC wants to invest in the smartest teams, right? And now you have already a smart, audacious idea. And that becomes a magnet for everything you want to do. And that's why it's so much easier to do something audacious than to do something small.

• 6:01Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, I get that. And but, you know, you and I have both been parts of of space companies that haven't made it. I mean, you know, for me, it was planetary resources. I remember when, for those who don't know, years ago, I had co-founded a company called Planetary Resources that was going out to mine asteroids. I remember being on a conversation with Elon and saying, would you buy the rocket fuel we deliver in orbit? And he said, Peter, yes, of course, if it's cheaper, I would, but it's too early. It's too early. And I was like, no, we're gonna go make this thing happen. And it was too early. And Moon Express, which was your company. So listen, big, bold ideas are great, and I

• 6:42Peter Diamandis?

  love them. But there is a timing element, right? And it's like the kid who says, I'm gonna go and build a rocket, but they've never built anything in their life. So how do you, how do you actually, how do you balance between the audacity of where you are in the time cycle and where you are in your career?

• 7:02Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So I think this is where I think it'd be a good time for me to lay down the framework for creating a moonshot company.

• 7:09Peter Diamandis?

  Let's do it. I love your framework. I'm gonna add to it. But yeah, let's go ahead.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Let's go to that. So basically, anytime before you start some, any company, any project that is audacious, ask yourself three questions. Why this? Why now? Why me? And why this is really simple. Ask yourself, God forbid, I am actually successful in solving the problem that I set out to do. Would it help a billion people live a better life, right? So whether it is mining the moon, whether it is mining the asteroid, you say, okay, let's assume we are successful. How would that help a billion people live a better life? And if the answer to that is yes, then you say, okay. And the reason you do that is not because you're just philanthropic thing to do.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  It is a capitalist thing to do. Because anytime you can build any product, any service that helps a billion people live a better life, you can create a hundred billion dollar company. You don't wake up in the morning.

• 8:05Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, let me add to that. You know, it was the ethos around which I co-founded Singularity, right? If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people. The world's biggest problems, the world's biggest business opportunities. So yes, if you're gonna go for something, you know, can you go after something that has that potential level of scope?

• 8:27Speaker 00

  But also, it is the reason it is also easier is that if you have a product that helps a billion people, they become your loyal customers, right? So in a sense that do something that improves people's life and that's what creates a massive company. So to me, making money is a byproduct of doing things that improve people's lives. So every day you ask yourself, what can I do to improve people's lives? And this is how you create a business out of it, right? The second part is something that you were, we were just talking about, which is timing. Why now? And the why now actually has the two-part process in my, in my framework. One is ask yourself what had changed in the last one to two years.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  But more importantly, what do you expect to happen in the next three to five years? That will allow you to solve the problem at scale in the next three to five years. And this problem could not have been solved five years ago. That means you're fundamentally saying, is this, are you intersecting the exponential technologies of tomorrow to solve this problem? Or you're using yesterday's old technology to solve tomorrow's problem? And Peter, I want to get your thoughts on it because this to me is something very close to what you, you know, you and I chat about.

• 9:39Peter Diamandis?

  Hey, thanks for listening to Moon Shots and Mindsets. I want to take a second to tell you about a company that I love. It's called Levels and it helps me be responsible for the food that I eat, what I bring into my body. See, we were never designed as humans to eat as much sugar as we do. And sugar is not good for your brain or your heart or your body in general. Levels helps me monitor the impact of the foods that I eat by monitoring my blood sugar. For example, I learned that if I dip my bread in olive oil, it blunts my glycemic response, which is good for my health. If you're interested, learn more by going to levels.link backslash Peter. Levels will give you an extra two months of membership. It's something that is critical for the future of your longevity.

• 10:23Peter Diamandis?

  All right, let's get back to the conversation in the episode. I'm going to go back to a story. I, when, when starting Singularity University, I met the founders of Siri. And this was, yeah, this was just before they sold Siri to Apple. And I remember they said something that stuck with me, which was, I said, you know, Why are you doing this and why are you doing this now? And they said, they said something that was impressive. They said, listen, we think the technologies that are going to enable Siri to exist are going to be coming online in the next two to five years. And I said, do you mean that they don't exist right now? And they said, well, not really, but they're going to exist in the next two to five years.

• 11:07Peter Diamandis?

  And they said, the next thing they said was, listen, if you're building a company based on technologies that exist today, then by the time you bring it to market, it's going to be out of date. It's obsolete. And so you have to be skating to where the puck is going to be. And, you know, warning, I'm not a sports person, so. But that's a fascinating thing. And I, and I agree with you, the why now and the, and what is going to be possible in, in that timeframe of, of two, three, five years, I think is, is right, is right on.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, again, a lot of the times, people, when they look at these problems, and I think the second part, what I look at why now is to start to break down a big problem into smaller chunks of what are the things that need to be done for the big problem to be solved, right? So when people say, hey, I want to live on Venus, or I want to live in a different galaxy, instead of saying it can't be done, you simply say, what problems need to be solved for it to be done? So you say, hey, to live on Venus, what's the problems? Number one is you have to be able to leave Earth orbit. Great, so that's the one problem. Second is able to go from Earth orbit all the way to Venus. Second problem, to be able to live, to land on Venus.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Third problem, to be able to now find a way to live on Venus. That are fourth problem, right? And now you start to see which of these problems are incrementally is already solved or incrementally can be solved in the next two to three years? And what are the problems that you actually should be working on that really needs most attention?

• 12:42Peter Diamandis?

  Along that line, there's a, there's a part of this equation that I'm curious, that I've, I've gotten a strong opinion about, and I'm curious about your thoughts, which is when you're starting a company, even if something is just materialized that opens up that market and if technologies are enabling in it. The importance of generating early revenues, building a real business that has delivers a dollar. I remember when we're forming Singularity University. I went, we were at the end of the GSP, our summer graduate program. We were asking students to start a company. And, and the question was, should they start a company that's trying to build a, you know, impact a billion people or start a company that's real?

• 13:25Peter Diamandis?

  And I went to the, to the whiteboard and I drew an exponential graph. And I said, listen, what you want to do is build a company that in 10 years has the potential to impact a billion people, but today is actually generating revenue.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Solving a problem along the way.

• 13:43Peter Diamandis?

  Along the way, right? In other words, because the, the way I think about it is the billion person inspires the heart and gets people emotionally excited. The ability to generate revenue in the beginning and actually have a real business inspires the, you know, the critical mind.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  And I think you're absolutely right. And Peter, I mean, every company that, I mean, if you look at Viome, that is fundamentally what we said, hey, we can fundamentally understand the human biology at a molecular level and solve this massive problem of chronic diseases, cancer and aging. But what do we do today? We sell the ultimate test that you can understand what's happening in your body and to be able to know what foods to eat, what foods not to eat, what supplements you need, what supplements you don't need. But that allowed us to collect massive amount of data that in the next four, five, 10 years will allow us to solve that problem. But as you said, along the lines, we created these businesses that are not tangent. So one of the things you have to be very careful is not to simply go where the money is.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Make sure you're building the businesses along the curve of that will take you to the ultimate goal rather than keep getting distracted about doing things that make no sense. And I can give you an example, Peter, which I think might hit home. So you know, when COVID happened, it was pretty clear that as you know, at one we do mRNA uh mRNA testing to us doing a COVID testing with a no brainer. We do this every single day. And when that problem came along, we said, hey, by doing this, would it help us actually bring us closer to actually ultimate goal of understanding the human body and to be able to solve the problem? The answer was no, because it was simply a way of making money doing a test and I have no idea what's going on.

• 15:31Peter Diamandis?

  Uh that is incredibly useful, right? Because as an entrepreneur, it's so easy to get distracted. So easy. And in fact, you know, one of my lessons learned, my first space company was a rocket company. And we had this incredibly powerful, you know, massive transformative purpose to to build a vehicle that for a million dollars could launch fifty kilograms to orbit. And we had a plan and so forth. And and what happens is all of a sudden, we start getting attracted by the government and the Defense Department to build a launch vehicle. This was back in the early nineties, way before SpaceX. And and we ended up chasing after these government contracts.

• 16:13Peter Diamandis?

  And we ended up building a vehicle that was not a million dollars, but thirteen million dollars. And it was much bigger and it was not, and it became like all the other launch vehicles. And we lost our uniqueness. We lost our MTP. And so ultimately, not being distracted by get rich quick or near term opportunities, that balancing act, but at the same time, generating revenue along the way and not waiting for that, you know, insert a hundred million dollars in miracles here to get to a product.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  So we did that by this. So instead, we say, what can we do that will be along the lines of what we want to do? So we were only doing the gut test. And we said, hey, instead of doing the COVID testing, what if we can now launch a second test? That will include the gut test and a blood test. So we can see the interaction between the human host and the microbiome. And that will actually not only generate revenue, but also actually move a step further along the line. So what we want to do and to me it was like do we spend time building this test health intelligence test or go do the covert test? And we decided we're going to go do this, even though it may not be obvious. And we're giving up tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of revenue on covert testing.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  But to us, that was the right thing to do. And I think we made the right decision.

• 17:32Peter Diamandis?

  You you did. I mean, there's also hundreds of companies doing covert tests right now, right? And and and no one else in the same ballpark as Viome. So so that was the second moonshot advice. What's the third?

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Third is that probably the most important part, which is what questions are you asking? That are different from what everyone else in the industry is asking. Because the questions you ask is the problem you solve. And this to me is a very, very important part. And I think, Peter, you and I need to spend some time here and give examples of that. Because this is so critical to any entrepreneur who is thinking about doing an audacious idea. Because most people tend to believe that what everyone else is doing is what they need to do, then you become a commodity, right? So what is that you are asking that's different like you did with your space? I want to do something that's going to cost a million dollar. That is what's going to be different. It doesn't need to cost ten, twenty, hundred million dollars for you to be able to do something.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  And that was your way of actually asking a different question. Why does it cost ten million dollars to do something to go to this space, right? So I think now going to continue on the theme of space, we were talking about living on Venus. If somebody were to say, hey, if you want to live on Venus, how are you going to grow the food on Venus? And when you ask that question, what you fundamentally saying is the only way humans can live somewhere else is to actually have food to eat. And you know, it's not a bad assumption, except that when you ask a slightly different question, why do we eat food? And by asking that question, it opens up the possibility. The only reason we eat food is because we need energy and we need nutrition. And you can say, what are the different ways we can get energy?

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Can we get them from radiation like many bacteria who live in radioactive nuclear waste? What nutrition do we need? We need hydrogen, we need oxygen. Can we find water that'll give us hydrogen and oxygen, right? Suddenly, it opens up the possibility for the solutions that never would have come by simply asking how do we do the food? So Peter, your thoughts on that?

• 19:35Peter Diamandis?

  Listen, I, I say to kids and to CEOs, the most important thing for you to do is ask great questions. The quality of your questions determine the quality of your success in life. Especially in a world in which you can know anything you want, anytime you want, anywhere you want. Asking, asking great questions is, is key. Yeah, I mean, I, I think the, the thing that, and so Peter Thiel talks about what do you know that no one else knows? Is another way of asking that, asking that question.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Well, at least what do you believe that no one else believes?

• 20:08Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 20:11Peter Diamandis?

  That's the correct version of it. So I, I do think being distinctly different is important, but distinctly different, not for the hell of being different, but because you have an insight that is going to make you unique.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think that's one of the interesting part of the same question really is that the world used to celebrate problem solvers. I mean, if you go back and look at, you know, tens of years, I mean, everyone would say, oh my God, he's an expert. And people celebrated problem solvers. And I really think we are now going to be living in a society where problems are easy to solve. As you say, if you know what the problem is, you can Google and you'll find someone who can help you solve the problem. The question really is now what people are celebrating is the, actually the problem identifiers are really are going to become the needs.

• 21:02Peter Diamandis?

  I love that. You know, people say, what should my, what should my kids study? What should they go and, and I say, listen, the technology is going to be constantly changing. What you want to do is, is study the problem space. Understand fundamentally, you know, if you're the world's expert in a particular problem and the technologies for solving that problem are improving year on year on year. But you understand the problem, you're always going to be in need. If you understand the technology, it's going to become a passe.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  And I think that's really the thing is, and I think it's the non-experts that actually have the biggest asset is because they are able to challenge the foundation of what experts have taken it for granted. Like, how do you rethink and recreate and reimagine the foundation that every expert believes is there?

• 21:52Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, listen, let me echo on that. One of my Peter's laws that I love is an expert is someone who can tell you exactly how it can't be done. Right? An expert is someone really wants to talk to you.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:03Peter Diamandis?

  The challenge is if you disrupt an industry

• 22:08Peter Diamandis?

  and you are basically disrupting what a person is an expert in. And so they're completely incentivized not to have you disrupt the industry. It's like the entire process of peer review, it really is a challenge for me. I mean, I understand the value of having peer-reviewed science, so you don't have bullshit appearing on in journals, but the fact of the matter is that if you are successful in reinventing an industry, everyone who is an expert in that is now out of a job or a passe. It's a real problem.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, so coming back to just asking the right question, it applies to almost everything we do. Is that in terms of how do you look at the problem very differently? And I think to me, I think as you talked about, you know, most of the time, people who disrupt industry come from outside the industry. It's very rare that people in the industry actually come up with disruptive ideas, right? You look at the space industry, it's Elon who came from the internet actually solving that problem. Or, you know, start to look at the automotive industry, or you look at the taxi industry did not solve, Uber solved the problem. Airbnb solved the problem that hotels did not solve. So you look at these things, there are people coming from outside the industry. They're actually tend to be the disruptors.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  And there are probably two reasons that Peter, I'm sure I'm sure you know more of them. One is they don't have any baggage. In a sense, if today a current industry makes ten billion dollars keeping you sick, and they want to make sure that they can continue to give you a drug for the rest of your life. And if you know there is a solution that will only make a billion dollars, you as as an industry leader believe you're losing a nine billion here. An entrepreneur who's coming in, he's thinking, I got zero stake in that. If I make a billion dollars solve this problem, I got a big industry to solve here, right? To them, that billion dollars is a new money, and for you, it may be a nine billion dollar loss, right? And that's why I think one of the reasons why you have the new people.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  And sometime in the industry, people obviously look at what other people in their industry is doing, and that becomes everyone is becomes lemmings, they follow each other. And whereas the solutions lie in a completely different industry.

• 24:26Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, no, I I I agree, my friend. Um, you know, it's the example I love giving is Kodak that considered themselves to be in the paper and chemicals business because that was their profit center. And so when they invented the digital camera, they actually ignored it. And then you have Instagram, which comes along and and reinvents the photo industry. Though I happen to use photo sharing apps as the example of what not to do. Because there are enough photo sharing apps. My question is, what are you going to do with your time to actually uplift humanity? Uh, I I am curious, uh, from from your standpoint, coming in naively into an industry. Um, what makes you go into that industry?

• 25:08Peter Diamandis?

  I mean, you have to have a level of of passion and desire to uplift humanity. But then there you've got to bring in some level of research, some level of expertise to understand what's driving you. How do you think about that balance?

• 25:24Speaker 00

  I I think first of all, that, you know, that's the second part of why me. So you asked the why me, the first part was what questions you're asking. And the second part of this really is. Are you truly obsessed about solving this problem? In a sense that is this something you're willing to die for and then live for it? Is this something when you wake up in the morning, you jump out of the bed wanting to solve? And that to me is always be my way of living. That when I wake up in the morning at four AM and if I'm not jumping out of the bed, it's time for me to do something different.

• 25:56Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, and you talk about obsession versus versus passion and purpose. So, you know, go ahead, tell me, tell me your definition there.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think a lot of people talk about that. You need to be passionate about something you do. And I think the passion is for hobbies. Passion is for losers. The winners have a true obsession and obsession not for material thing. Obsession to solve the problem. Obsession to say, I want to dedicate my fifteen, twenty years of my life to solving this problem because it matters to me. Because I believe if I can solve this, it will matter to billions of people whose life will be different because of what I do.

• 26:38Peter Diamandis?

  So I'm going to turn the tables here a second because there's a, there's a topic which is the flip side of being over obsessed and over passionate, which is when it's time to actually kill a company. Where, where, you know, you, for all the right reasons, you entered the marketplace, you did your best and at the end of the day, it just isn't working and continuing to pour money in. And in particular, as an entrepreneur, your time is your greatest asset. Continue to put a time into this and raise money around it. You know, and I found myself a few times in life, you know, I'm on my twenty seventh company. You and I have, have done a number, a number together.

• 27:22Peter Diamandis?

  But there are a few that, you know, Where was I? I took in money. I hired people. I took money from my family, from my friends. And I feel this level of obligation and we're, we're working on this and it just isn't working. You know, we've gone down the wrong evolutionary path or the market has changed. And, and at some point, there needs to be a, you know, time of death.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  I think the better way of putting that is there is time to pivot. Remember, the company is just a shell. What it does can change, so your ideas may or may not work. And every idea that does not work is simply stepping this stone to a different idea and a bigger idea, right? You look at Twitter. Twitter didn't start out as Twitter. They were a, you know, different company. The company did not do well. They say, look, guys, current investors, we can return your money. Or we are going to pivot into doing this microblogging service. And some investors stayed with them and some said, give us our money back. But the point was, they pivoted and they created a different company. And in fact, you could argue that almost every successful company has gone through a near-death experience, right?

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Whether you look at Facebook, you look at Oracle, I mean, every one of them.

• 28:35Peter Diamandis?

  I agree, I agree with you.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Right. So, so point is, that's the time to pivot rather than give up. So the idea is, you said that path does not work and I'm going to go with a different path that may work. And your idea is to keep the same purpose alive. So you never give up on your purpose. You give up on the execution of that purpose and you move on to the next thing.

• 28:58Peter Diamandis?

  I, I, listen, I agree with you and I've seen and I've done just that where it's like, we're gonna, we're gonna shift to A, to B, to C. And my, my, my game, my, the way I describe this is, listen, you've got plan A, B, and C, and then D, E, and F, and G, H, and I, and when those don't work, there's J, K, and L, and, and you continue. But there is still a time. In some companies, right? For me, it was Planetary Resources. For you, it was Moon Express. There is a time where you say, okay, this isn't my time, my money, my reputation. And let's talk, let's go to that problem space right now because it is.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  And so first of all, again, when the company is not working, it is, you can't essentially die with that company. You have to say, okay, what mistakes we made that we can learn from? What can we do? Can we find a good home and essentially find another horse we can tie it to so our cart will continue? That means our purpose continues. The purpose never dies. It may be a new jockey for that horse. It may be a new fuel for that car. It may be something different. But the point is, you never give up on your purpose. And sometime you align with someone else who will continue to pursue that purpose, right?

• 30:17Peter Diamandis?

  So in fact, the two times where I've had to effectively kill a company, we sold it for pennies on the dollar to someone else that merged it into their operation.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  And I think the main thing, again, Peter, I think I want to shift the topic to maybe, how do you raise children with the same kind of thinking that you and I have had? And that, to me, has always been the most fascinating part that I find that it's easier for us who came from immigrant families and say, look, we have a tremendous amount of hunger to do it. And when we become successful, our kids watch us. And how do you raise children?

• 30:59Peter Diamandis?

  I want to, I want to. So those of you listening who have kids, this conversation is going to be a masterclass and something that is, I think, critically important. But before we get there, I want to contextualize this a little bit, Naveen. Tell me about your childhood and your coming over to the US from India. Just Give me a little bit of context and then we're gonna talk about your three incredible children, Ankur, Priyanka and Neil, and what we've learned about their success in raising them.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  So, I mean, obviously, Peter, I grew up in India and we were very poor. We had no food to eat, we had barely any place to stay, and we moved from village to village to village. And I came to United States forty years ago with five dollars in my pocket, barely spoke the language. And God has been very, very kind to us. I mean, they just know two ways of looking at it, everything that we could have possibly ever imagined. You know, the God's kindness have really showered on us, right? And with that, I always feel that there's a tremendous amount of obligation that I feel, that how do I give back to the society that actually uplifted me, embraced me and gave me everything that I have? How do I go back and contribute? And there are two ways of doing that. That at my age, I'm

• 32:19Speaker 00

  sixty-three now, I still continue to start companies that can actually help the people live better. So that's one way of contributing. And the second way of contributing is to actually raise children who continue to build these companies that are going to continue to uplift humanity. So it's not just leaving the better world for your children, but also to leave a better children for the world, and that's how you continue on that journey.

• 32:45Peter Diamandis?

  Love, love that, love that. So to contextualize this, let's talk about your three kids. How old are they? What are they up to? And then we'll talk about, how did you get them there?

• 32:55Speaker 00

  I think I'm really excited about the second part about that, you know, how parenting is so counterintuitive. But let's talk about the three children, because that is never the opportunity that I would pass upon. So the oldest son is Ankur. He's thirty-two years old, and he obviously went to Wharton, and he started the first company when he was seventeen years old, a nonprofit to help, you know, hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs around the world with Kairos, right? Now, today, just to give you an idea, he's on to his third unicorn. He's just in this market. Where no one can raise money, he raised hundred and fifty million at one point five billion pre-money valuation as a series A, series A, right?

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Now, what he's doing is fundamentally something that anyone could have done. But everyone says it was not possible to do. So he started looking at the things that people in his class like him are graduating. They can go get a job and when they get a job, they want to find a place to stay. So he said, look, I know I can afford this apartment. I have enough salary, but I don't have the money to give the first month rent, the last month rent, the security deposit. Now I've got to borrow that money from someone. And he says, every one of the college kids suffer through that. Can we do something? So the first company he did was Rhino, which said, hey, why can't I just do a five dollars a month insurance? So I don't have to pay a deposit. You can add five dollars a month into my monthly rent.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  And that was a brilliant concept of actually getting rid of security deposits. And essentially just giving a five dollars so kids can move into the rent. The second problem he saw was everyone who rents a place complained and said, I just keep wasting my money on renting the thing. I'm not building any equity. I'm not getting anything for it. How do I, you know, and it just sucks. And he says, it doesn't need to suck. So he created a credit card. It's called B I L T, Built Rewards. Literally, imagine everyone assumes that when you put something on a credit card, the merchant will just have to pay two and a half, three percent fee. Anytime you put something on a credit card, that somebody has to pay two and a half percent.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  So if you're putting a rent on a credit card, the landlord will get two and a half, three percent less money. Landlord doesn't want that. And it was just taken for granted that is how it is. And he says to himself, why does it have to be this way? And every credit card company, every bank says, this is how it is, take it or leave it. So he went to Mastercard and he says, look, you're number two, you'll always be number two. What if, what if you waive the credit card fees on rental and rental only? And that can now six hundred and fifty billion dollars of payment are made every single month. And you could have all that on a credit card and you could be the number one credit card.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  It could bypass Visa if you could take that risk. And he convinced the Mastercard to actually waive the thing. So today you can get a no annual fee credit card. You can put a rent on a credit card. You get the points on a credit card. Landlord gets a full money. You can use the points one to one on any airlines. You can use the point to pay the next month rent or you can use the point. He went to HUD and got them to agree the points can be used as a down payment on buying a home. I mean, amazing, right? The point was he took a problem that he saw affects massive amount of people and he went on to solving it. Not saying, what do I know about real estate? I've never heard of a credit card industry. What am I going to do about it?

• 36:37Speaker 00

  And he built the solution that actually made everyone's life better. Now what happened, Peter, is every single landlord wants their renter to not give them a check, but put the money on a credit card. So they pushing the credit card on any renter. And the reason is they bill it on first, they get the money on second. Renter loves it because they have a twenty one day float until they have to pay the rent. Everyone benefits and guess what now? He makes money on the transaction. He's money on every one of them for the credit card. So his cost of customer acquisition is zero.

• 37:12Peter Diamandis?

  Incredible.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Brilliant, right? Now, that's Uncle. Now, our daughter Priyanka went to Stanford and Peter, obviously, thank you for helping her, guiding her along the way. And so did Uncle, by the way, I'm gonna come back to you in a second here, but let me continue on. So Priyanka went to Stanford. She is a Stanford STEM fellow, Stanford Mayfield fellow. And she graduated from Stanford, and the first company she worked for was using AI to remove gender bias in hiring. She cares about women's issue. And now she is a founder and CEO of a company called EVVY, that essentially is focused on women's health. And what surprised me was, she tells me that until 1993, women weren't allowed to be on clinical research.

• 37:58Peter Diamandis?

  That's crazy.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  That is every single drug that we are taking, or women's are taking, are not designed for them, not tested on them, and no wonder they don't work on them. Because women were considered as a small man.

• 38:08Peter Diamandis?

  It's, by the way, for those who don't know, it is a travesty that, that all research was done on, medical research was done on men, because there was the inconvenience of menopause or menstruation. And now, I think it numbers like, 70% of all drugs that taken, are taken off the market, are taken off the market because of their impact on women, which were never tested on in the first place.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  It's even further, even when we are testing them on rats and mises, it's only on the male, male rats. Think about that percent, right? It's just insane, right? So she went on to solve that women's health problem using vaginal microbiome, which to me was another big audacious idea. Only impacts 50% of humanity, but at least that 50%, I would say actually impacts 100% of humanity, because every one of us have wife or a daughter whose life, we would rather give up our life for them. So it really impacts every one of us around us, right? The third one, who is, so by the way, she's 28, and a third one is

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Neil. Neil is now 25 years old. He's another Stanford grad, and he became a Schwarzman scholar. They only take 50 people around the world. So he's a Schwarzman scholar. And he is looking at the problem from the other side. He said, Uncle, you keep focusing on rent, I'm gonna go focus on the home mortgage. So he fundamentally now looking at how do we make the experience of mortgage? How do we get mortgages are constantly getting resold? How do we make the whole thing such a pleasure, pleasurable experience for billions of people who actually pay mortgages, right? So all three of them went off to look at the big problem and solve them. And then, you know, as you go along, I want first of all, hear your thoughts since you

• 39:57Speaker 00

  have known each one of them since they were a little kid in diapers.

• 40:02Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's been beautiful. I've had the chance to mentor all three of your children and I'm so proud of, of what they've done. The one, the one thing I remember when Encore was getting started, um, his appetite was, was his eyes were bigger than his abilities and he was working on five or six different companies at the same time. And, and when he decided to focus in, uh, it really was extraordinarily successful.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Peter, Peter, I'm going to ask you, take that advice from that young kid.

• 40:35Peter Diamandis?

  So, so that's an interesting, that's an interesting conversation to have, right? Because I am, I am definitely, uh, guilty of doing way too many things and not, and not focusing in for sure. Uh, I have more is better disease in my life. Um, but just good, good human beings and, uh, and, and so talk about you and Anu, uh, your wife, what, how did you, how did you raise them? What was, what was, because one of the things, you know, when I was growing up, my dad was an OBGYN, my parents were both born in a small island of Lesbos in Greece and came to the U S and it was expected I'd become a doctor and I did become a medical doctor

• 41:19Peter Diamandis?

  to make them happy, but it was not what I wanted to do. So the balance between, uh, inspiring your kids to think big, to be, uh, good human beings first and foremost, but not, you know, not pressuring them to follow your footsteps. What's the balance there?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  So first of all, Peter, before I go there, I want to thank you and I want to thank you, uh, you know, at everyone who's listening to it. Peter has done more for our children, our families in terms of guiding them, mentoring them and really giving them that inspiration that everything is possible. And he has been a great influence on our family. And I think one of the things that Peter and I have really enjoyed is that every time we go, we go as a family together to at X Prize, we are there with the kids because I want them to be exposed to everything that I'm learning so that when I go back home, I don't sound like a foreign person. They say, Dad, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense, right? But since they were exposed

• 42:22Speaker 00

  to the same thing, we could have those discussions at home. So everyone who is really listening to it, I would probably encourage them to really, you know, go to Abundance 360, go with your children. Because to me, when you expose yourself, you expand your mind and no longer you're able to have that communication with your children. So if you can bring them there, you have a common vocabulary, the common language, and now when you can talk about the possibilities, they actually can help you think through the stuff that you would never be because they have the same vocabulary and the language. So I find that absolutely fascinating and I always, always been, in fact, coming to X Prize, taking them all through Singularity University. Every one of the kids went through Singularity

• 43:06Speaker 00

  University, right? And every one of them, actually, even Neil, who actually was the chief of staff, him going through to China as a platinum trip, it has opened his mind. And that was the only reason he actually decided to become a Schwarzman scholar is because of that, what happened in that trip, um, his being exposed to it. So Peter, thank you for that.

• 43:26Peter Diamandis?

  It was a joy.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  Now, coming back to the things in terms of raising the children in affluent families, right? Obviously, uh, in the early days, uh,

• 43:36Peter Diamandis?

  By the way, by the way, that's an important point to make. It's more difficult, you know, especially when you have a successful dad like yourself, right? And, and how do you, how do you enable your children to think bigger versus a lot of second generation wealth, uh, doesn't have that drive?

• 43:55Speaker 00

  That's right. And that was the main thing for us was how do we bring the same drive and, you know, passion, obsession to solve big problems into, uh, into our children. So I remember very early days when the kids were young and my first company, as you mentioned, was wisely successful. And I, you know, my wife said, you know, maybe we can live in a small home and we can tell our children that we don't really have much money, so they will have the drive. And I said, sweetie, one day, like it or not, I hope they can, they will learn to read. And when they learn to read, they will realize that daddy is not poor, so let's not fool ourselves into thinking, right? So I say, instead, we need to reframe the discussion of what success is. And I think that's probably what I want to share with you now is.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  So when the children were young, there were a couple of concepts we brought in, which I thought were very different and counterintuitive to what people would say. One was that our love for you is unconditional, but our approval is not. That means we'll always love you. You know, there is nothing that we won't do for you. But we're not going to tell you we are proud of you until you do things that actually improve other people's lives. That means we want you to focus on improving, you know, billions of people's lives. And the more people life you improve, the more proud we are of you. Right? The second part was really interesting was as opposed to, you know, most parents, when they get the first success,

• 45:24Speaker 00

  they feel it is their obligation to spend time with the young children and they want to actually stay at home and spend more time. Now, that is the most counterintuitive thing you do because imagine now from their perspective. It is a very selfish thing on your part, but what children see are very different. What children see is when they are going to school, daddy is sitting on the sofa watching CNBC. They come back from school, they see dad says, go to your room, work hard, hard work is what it takes. You got to finish your homework. I want you to work hard. And they see the dad sitting on the sofa watching CNBC. In their mind, what they are thinking is, I want to grow up just like my dad, sit on the sofa and watch CNBC.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  So what I'm trying to say is, they don't do what you tell them to do, they do what they watch you do. Right. Now, instead, what dad did was very interesting. After the first success, dad didn't sit at home. Dad started the second company, dad started the third company. Dad constantly looking to solve problem. Dad says, we're going to go to the moon. We're going to start Moon Express. We're going to focus on going to the moon. Dad can't be done. Let me show you how it is possible. Dad turns fifty-eight, dad is going to do healthcare. Dad, what are you thinking? Time to retire. You can't do healthcare. You know nothing about healthcare. Let me show you how it is done.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Point is, when you do that, our children always thought dad is a complete moron. For every single kid, don't get too cocky. They think their parents are complete morons. Right? If they, in their mind, if dad can do this, I can do anything. Dad is a moron. If he can build healthcare, let me show him how it is actually done. So our daughter says, let me actually show you how women's health company is actually built now. Right? So point was, they watch you do. So, in all seriousness, do the things that you want them to do. Don't go out and preach them what to do. Right?

• 47:26Speaker 00

  And the third part of the thing is, you talked a little bit about this idea of imposing on your children what you do. And I want to share a story that actually I did write on Ink Magazine. It is an entrepreneur versus his eye-rolling teenage daughter.

• 47:43Peter Diamandis?

  Say that you're an entrepreneur versus?

• 47:46Speaker 00

  His eye-rolling teenage daughter.

• 47:49Peter Diamandis?

  Okay, got it.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  And this whole story was about when Priyanka was young, I think about fifteen or so. She comes to me and said, Dad, I know you love science and technology. I want nothing to do with science and technology. I have my own passion and I want to pursue my own passion. Now, most dad at that point would have said, sweetie, what's your passion? I want to help you pursue your passion. Instead, what I said was, you're too young to have a passion. Dad hasn't done his job yet to expose you to everything so that you know what is out there before you can tell me you don't like it.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  And then she rolled, so I said, you know, and I said, sweetie, I want you to really learn, be exposed to neuroscience, the genetics, and then, you know, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. And she rolls her eyes and said, Dad, you don't hear a word what I said. I want to do nothing to do with them. And what happened was really a complete game changer. And we agreed that if she, if she allows the dad to do his job of exposing her to these things, she will get to decide what she wants to do and I would completely support her. So agreement was if she goes to Singularity University and she spends four weeks learning with an open mind, wanting to learn and wanting to like the science and technology,

• 49:12Speaker 00

  then she get to come back and she can tell me whatever she wants to do, I will support her. And she went to Singularity University.

• 49:18Peter Diamandis?

  I remember that summer, we, we created a, a special high school program that, that enabled, enabled Priyanka and some other amazing students to do that.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. So she came back home and I remember it very clearly. She opens the door and she says, Dad, I've made up my mind. And my first words were, oh shit.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  All right, sweetie, I gave you my word. What is it that you want to do? And you have my 100% commitment to making whatever you want to do successful in that. She said, Dad, I've decided I'm going to become either a geneticist or I learn about artificial intelligence. So what, what happened here? At the risk of you changing your mind, what happened? She said, Dad, you're so dumb. I'm in high school. I go to these high school classes and I mix things and they change the color. I'm looking at these math, I'm thinking, why would I ever in my life do anything with this stuff, right? What I realized going to Singularity University was these tools and technologies are simply the tools in my tool chest for me to do what I want to do.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  That means they are not the destiny, they are simply the means to an end. Imagine now when she went to Stanford, she became Stanford's Stanford fellow. She started the first company using AI to remove gender bias. She started the second company using AI and genetics to help women's health. And her whole thing was she wanted to help women and girls. And she did not realize that what you learn in science and technology is what allows her to pursue her passion. And without that, she would have never found a true way of solving the problem and world would have lost out on a great entrepreneur.

• 50:56Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing. And the reality is, a lot of times, it's so difficult for the parents to guide the kids and you need to hand them off to a trusted third party. In this case, it was at Singularity University, or when your kids were interning with me over the summer. And, you know, listen, it was a pleasure because they're brilliant kids. And I don't, the challenge is, and I want to go to this right now, my boys, right, we have, Chris and I have two boys, Dax and Jett, they're 11 today, and my concern is that today's educational systems are, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, are

• 51:40Peter Diamandis?

  just not preparing kids for the future that's coming. And they're just, it's very fundamental, it's, you know, test-based learning. Yes, we need the fundamentals of reading, writing, arithmetic, and basics of science and so forth, but the tools that, you know, that they have access to, that they need to be learning how to utilize, and to be inspired, just isn't happening.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  And Peter, I think partly, I think you have obviously started the whole education X Prize, and part of it is the same, which is, as opposed to fixed time variable learning, can you do a fixed learning variable time, like a video game? Can you actually make sure people learn before they move to the next level, rather than everyone moves to the next level without ever having to learn?

• 52:25Peter Diamandis?

  Exactly. So listen, the realities are, at school today, first of all, you know, it's a sage on the stage, it's one teacher in the front, and 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 kids, half of which are bored, half of which are lost, right? And then on top of that, we end up in a situation where, you know, and I hate this part, when you are, when you're in school, you start at, with 100 points, and every time you get something wrong, your average goes down. And then, in the video game world, you start with zero points, every time you do something correctly, your average, your score goes up. The incredibly perverse process that we have, add to that the notion that, you know, we have three months Months of summer and nine months of school. And why do we have three months of summer?

• 53:10Peter Diamandis?

  Do you remember the reasons why we have summer vacations?

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Uh, because the teachers wanted to uh.

• 53:14Peter Diamandis?

  No, it's because it because a hundred years ago, the kids needed time off to go and work the farms to get ready for the harvest in the fall. And so it's like, you know, we stop, okay, listen, if I said that to my kids, they'd kill me for now. Why have a summer vacation? But the reality is, uh, we haven't reinvented education. And there's a, you know, large, uh, ingrained institutions and unions and processes. And so there, you know, I do think in the final result, and I'm curious about your thinking here, that we're gonna have AI and Web three or VR, whatever, where I can go into a virtual world and I can

• 53:56Peter Diamandis?

  I can experience and learn and play the game of learning.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  But Peter, you know, truth is when uncle was two and a half, three years old. All his education was done using CD-ROM. People probably don't know what that concept is. There were no online things. You put a CD-ROM in the things and you actually play a game. He learned math from Math Blaster. He wanted to play the game of shooting and the only way he could do was to learn the addition, subtractions and things. And literally, the item with the reading rabbit is how he learned to read, to actually gave him the game that he loved playing. And the whole thing was for him to learn using those games. And, you know, I think the interesting thing is, learning to solve problems is what is going to be the skills that you need.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  And those problems are multidisciplinary. So yes, you can have expertise in one, but most problems are not a, you know, a single focus. They are multidisciplinary. And learning to connect the dots is a skill that is actually rarely taught in the, in the colleges and schools. And if I may actually share with you very interesting things we did, at least I did with our young children. Most parents read, most parents read story to their children. And they thought that's literally the culture of American culture. When they go to bed, you read them a story. I actually flipped that and I said. Uh, you know, Uncle, tell me a story and I would give him the three most different

• 55:25Speaker 00

  things I can find about it. Give me a story, tell me a story about a monkey, an apple, and an ocean. Now, he, in his idea was for him to believe the things that can never be connected are somehow are interconnected. He will tell me a story and then will turn on to Dad. Let me, now you tell me a story about a coffee, this and that. And in his mind, those things can never be connected. Now their job is to connect them. What he learned was every dot can be connected with other things if you creatively think about it.

• 55:59Peter Diamandis?

  Genius. I love that. I absolutely love that. And it's true, right? Because this is where real innovation comes in, where you bring unlikely bedfellows together and see what can materialize out of that.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 56:12Peter Diamandis?

  That's extraordinary. Hey, everybody. I hope you're enjoying this episode. I'll tell you about something I've been doing for years. Every quarter or so, having a phlebotomist come to my home to draw bloods to understand what's going on inside my body. And it was a challenge to get all the right blood draws and all the right tests done. So I ended up co-founding a company that sends a phlebotomist to my home to measure 40 different biomarkers every quarter, put them up on a dashboard so I can see what's in range, what's out of range, and then get the right supplements, medicines, peptides, hormones to optimize my health. It's something that I want for all my friends and family, and I'd love it for you. If you're interested, go to mylifeforest.com backslash Peter to learn more. Let's get back to the episode.

• 56:57Peter Diamandis?

  Uh, let's, let's jump into the conversation of, of mindsets. If I were to ask you, you know, I talk about abundance, exponential mindset, moonshot mindset, longevity mindset. What are the mindsets that have made you successful, Naveen?

• 57:11Speaker 00

  Obviously, to me, the number one thing that has really changed the way I look at life is the possibilities of the what is possible, not what is not possible. And let me rephrase that. I think it didn't come out quite the right way. Is that the possibility is that what if this could actually be solved? So the two words that I always loved in in English language are what if and imagine? Imagine is the only word that I know. When I say Peter, imagine all of your preconceived ideas go away. And now I'm able to say, imagine a world where this happens. And just the word imagine, it takes away all the preconceived ideas.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Within you can create a completely new story out of Peter's mind. Because he's ready to imagine, right? So, and when you do that, it allows you now. The question really you have to ask yourself is, when you tell someone to imagine, is it vivid enough? Is it detailed enough that someone can actually create that picture in the mind? So you can't say, imagine a company that is five hundred billion dollar worth and is a market leader in this. And it's like, I don't know how to imagine that. But imagination needs to be something as clearly as Martin Luther King says. Imagine a world where a black girl is walking, holding a hand with a white boy, walking hand in hand together.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Vivid, anyone can imagine that. And so your job is when you say imagine is to create as detailed way to someone to say, that's the world we want, right? So anytime I create a company, I create that vision of imagine. So our tagline, as you know, is always been the theme. Imagine a world, right? Imagine a world where illness is optional, right? What does it meant? Went was imagine a world where your mom is no longer sick. Your grandma no longer needs the care. Your grand uncle didn't have to die from cancer. And the reason I say that is that is how you woo people from saying, I want to be part of your journey.

• 59:22Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, now I imagine, I mean, it's it's innately the most powerful human element. The ability to to imagine the future and then to materialize it along the way. And I think those are the skills, going back to our skills about kids. Is enabling them to imagine and then giving them the confidence to be able to go and take their shots on goal.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  And the two other parts, Peter, I want to add was what if? So every time someone says it can't be done, you say, what if it was possible? What would that world look like? So you start to switch what if? And the third part that I find most fascinating is why? Get to the root cause of the problem and you have to really behave in a mindset of a two-year-old. Why, why, why? And when you ask three whys, you get to the root cause of why actually it happens, right? And I can give you an example, which I think most people may may find fascinating.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  So when you see there is, you know, on planet earth, we have a problem of a clean, fresh water is one of the biggest problem facing in Africa and many countries. And you as an entrepreneur says, I want to solve that problem. And you go out and you build, you know, the nano filters draw and you build all these things because you think that is a problem. Until you realize, somebody says, why is this a problem? And you say, oh, fifty percent of all the fresh water is actually used in agriculture. And you say, oh, so I need to solve the agriculture problem. And now I'm going to build a, you know, pick a thing you want, aerponics thing, hydroponics, agriculture, and you're focused on that.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Until someone asks, why do we have this agriculture problem? And you say, well, majority of the agriculture is used to feed the kettles. And really the problem is you have the, you need to solve the problem using the kettles. And now you're trying to figure out how to minimize the kettles. And you realize it's really a synthetic biology problem of creating a meat without using to have to create a cattle, right?

• 1:01:28Peter Diamandis?

  I, I, I love that. You know, and it's, when I think about, about the mindsets that have made me most successful, and I think they apply to you as well, is a, a willingness to keep going and to not give up. Right? The majority of people, when they, when they hit a brick wall, they, they basically stop. And they stop for a particular reason. It's not their, I use their highest calling, you'll use obsession.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:54Peter Diamandis?

  Like, if you're doing something as a get rich quick scheme.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  Yes, you stop.

• 1:01:58Peter Diamandis?

  And, you know, it, you stop because everything is difficult. Doing anything big and bold in life is a difficult situation. And if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, then you're never going to follow through. I mean, all the things I've done and successful in life, I, I jokingly call them overnight successes after 11 years of hard work. It takes time. And most people don't realize, they look at what Tesla did, or what you've done, or some of the things I've done, and they say, oh, man, that was so amazing. How, how quickly they made their capital. They don't understand that all of these things have taken a decade or more. And anything, you know, listen, easy come, easy go. We've watched as Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, you know,

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 1:02:41Peter Diamandis?

  exponentially up and exponentially down. And we're going to see those things. But the stuff that is substantial takes time. And, and if you're driven by it, if you're, to use your term, obsessed by it, if it's your highest calling in life, then when you hit a brick wall, you're going to back off, you're going to ask the question, what went wrong? Do I still believe, you know, this dream that I have? And pick yourself up and, and go once again. But it takes that level of passion, commitment, continuation.

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  Wall is there because you're so close to it. All you do is you step back and you can see, you can go around the wall, you can lift yourself up and go over the wall, and you will find many ways if you're truly obsessed about that. The last part, Peter, on that, and it might be more coming back to our kids, the curiosity. And I, to me, there's something I want to just, you know, emphasize here. This is the biggest thing that you and I have in space is curiosity. So one of the things that I found really interesting was that as a parent and as a teacher, we always want to teach the children. In a sense is that we take them to the water and we make them drink. And what I realized was the best way to do that is not to take them to the water and make them drink,

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  is to make them thirsty. If you can make the children thirsty, they will find their water and they will drink it every single time. And how do you make them thirsty is to create that intellectual curiosity. Once you give that to children, they can never stop learning because they will always be asking, "Why? Why does credit card has to have a fee? Why the women are not involved in the research? Why is the mortgage has to be so tough, right?" Is giving that intellectual curiosity and then, even though you and I always say it's better to be a non-expert, but you and I probably are, once we get into the industry, we drill deep. I mean, we read research, we read knowledge.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  I mean, in last six years, when I started a while, I didn't know what DNA and RNA was. And now I can use big metal words.

• 1:04:50Peter Diamandis?

  I listen, Val, I'm, I'm, I'm so impressed, right? I've got two universities. I've wanted to give you an honorary medical degree or PhD and so forth. It's, it's incredible how deep you have gone to hear you talk about illness and about RNA and about molecular, you know, variations of particular digestive situations. It's extraordinary. So, and, and I think it's that, it's that intellectual horsepower and curiosity. And I agree with you, curiosity is one of the most fundamentals. It's, and the question becomes, at what point do you switch from curiosity to obsession? Right? Because I think one of the things I've talked about with a few other podcast guests in the, in the past is,

• 1:05:35Peter Diamandis?

  curiosity is the means by which you discover your passions that turn into purpose and obsessions here. When do you, when do you shift and say, okay, this is big enough. This is enough of a moonshot. This is where I want to. You know, I I use this quote from I got from Tom Bilyeu's dad, you know, you know, something you would die for and live for it for sure. When do you make? Because honestly, at the time in which you make that commitment to go and build a moonshot company, to go uplift humanity, you are making a decade-long commitment. You're not, if you're doing it right, you're not doing it for a little bit, you're not doing it for a year,

• 1:06:18Peter Diamandis?

  you're not going to flip it over a year. You are making a commitment that is going to transform your life. And and one thing for entrepreneurs, I want to come back to this, is you're going to spend more time with your co-founders and your leadership team than you are with your spouse or your kids. And so you better love what you're doing, because if you're really going to make a dent in the universe, it's a decade-long effort.

• 1:06:46Speaker 00

  Well, I think you're right. That how, when do you believe that this is your calling? And I think to some extent, there are a couple of ways, and I think you hit on one part of that. The second part is ask yourself, if you have everything you want in your life, you have billions of dollars, you have an amazing family, you have everything you want, what would you do? And if you do that today, you will get everything that you want. And or in reverse, that you ask yourself, then when you wake up in the morning, what are you willing to dedicate your 10, 15 years of life? Or in other words, what are you willing to die for and then live for?

• 1:07:22Peter Diamandis?

  Yes, I want to flip the conversation here. There are so many extraordinarily successful individuals who populate the top of the Forbes 400 list. These are the billionaires out there who have not just a billion or two, but tens of billions.

• 1:07:40Speaker 00

  Hundreds of billions in some cases.

• 1:07:42Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, the question I have, and I'm frustrated by this, is I do not see that I see very few individuals. Folks like Elon and Eric Schmidt and Marc Benioff are taking massive shots on goal. They're using their wealth to go and change the world. And a lot of other people are just sitting on it and creating more wealth. What are your thoughts about this? Am I, do I have it wrong?

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  No, you don't. You don't. And it's just surprises me that people who have money, they are so miserly. And I, you know, to me, what I find most fascinating is you go in the villages in India. When people have absolutely nothing, they will feed you with the best meal they can possibly give and be starving themselves. But you as a guest, they'll feed you the best they can ever do, right? And people who are rich are just hoarding their wealth rather than actually using their wealth for the benefit of humanity, knowing that they cannot take that with them. I mean, what is it that they do? And there's some people, at least as you know, are taking these moon shots.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  I mean, even Jeff Bezos, you forgot to mention, but even him, he said, no, I started Amazon for purpose of creating a multi-planetary society. And he's now dedicating his life to doing that at Blue Origin, or at least we want him to.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  But Elon has now done, you know, multiple moon shots. I mean, you know, he is one great entrepreneur. You look at the thing, what he did with electrification of automotive. Everybody knew it needed to be done, but nobody thought they could build a company that could be electric car company, let alone another car company, right? And he proved everyone wrong, building a space that people thought only law feed and the big companies could do that. He did that, whether it's a Neuralink is successful or not, but fundamentally having the mind and a computer, brain-computer interface doing it, right? Now, Twitter.

• 1:09:48Peter Diamandis?

  Let's not even go there. So one of the questions, you know, I was having a conversation with a gentleman who's a benefactor in one of my organizations, I won't go into it. And I was asking, asking the question and saying, listen, what up with, you know, how you're using your capital, you know, why aren't you taking bigger bets? And, and really focusing on, you know, uplifting humanity, doing something that makes the world a better place versus making more money. And he said something which I found fascinating, and I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this a little bit more, is he said, you know, it's become enough of a game where, you know,

• 1:10:28Peter Diamandis?

  you're using your money to make more money and you're sort of like playing this video game of life. And I found that, you know, okay, maybe that's an honest answer, but I found it lacking. And, you know, you can't take it with you, right? And, and so one of the challenges is if you leave it to your kids, you have a good probability of, of actually making them lazy or destroying their lives.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:55Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. And, and so what, what could we say to the wealthy billionaires out there that might inspire them to be really going after moonshots that make the world a better place?

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  And I think that, I would say, Peter, many of them just have not found their purpose in life. Because once you find your north star or purpose that you're truly obsessed about solving, people will dedicate every penny that they have to doing that. Because if you're willing to give your time to something, the money will follow, right? So to me, I think these people, when they say this is a game, that means they have not found a purpose. Their purpose is simply to play the game, be the better, better player in that game, rather than have a true purpose in life that fundamentally changes the, that transforms humanity, as you would say, that changes the way people live their lives, right?

• 1:11:50Speaker 00

  And I think what you and I have not done is to really penetrate their mind to help them find their purpose. And I think maybe instead of asking them to give their money, is we should help them find their purpose because the money will follow.

• 1:12:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. Well, and part of what, what Abundance 360 is and X Prize and even this podcast is about helping people find their, their purpose in playing a game. Because the fact of the matter is, you can change the world.

• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:16Peter Diamandis?

  Right, that that fundamental mindset, yeah, every one of us can can make a difference and change the world. You have to believe and you have to make an effort and you have to have a compelling vision and and do the work. But you can.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  I mean, the belief system is probably one of the biggest barrier to why people believe they can't, right? So their belief system comes from the the homogeneous culture that our society has created where failure is not tolerated. Right? And to me, there cannot be a success without failures. There cannot be people to take moonshots without having some idea that won't work. And so to me, the creating that belief system that says, I believe in myself. I finding that what I call, you know, falling in love with yourself. And when you do do that, it's not about being self conceited. Falling in love with yourself is very simple.

• 1:13:15Speaker 00

  What that means is you don't let other people's opinion change. Allow you to not pursue your own dreams. That means you don't let other people's only on on opinion change the way who you are. And I tell people, the day you fall in love with yourself is the day the world will fall in love with you.

• 1:13:35Peter Diamandis?

  It's a it's self love is a critical part of of a of an entrepreneur. Because you're gonna be, if you're trying to do anything big in the world, you're gonna get criticized by everybody. Why you, you know, you know, how dare you think you can? How dare you think you can, yeah, to to go after that? And and you said something a few minutes ago that I think is very important is tolerance for failure. And and this is a challenge in societies. I mean, you grew up in India. India has a a real, a real issue, South and Central America. Zero tolerance for failure, right? You fail, it's a black mark against you forever.

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  I mean, I mean, obviously, Peter, I mean, you know that it's. In Silicon Valley where there are more entrepreneurs being created, what is one thing unique about that culture is when you have failed, people believe you have now learned enough, you got enough wounds on your back to be able to say, hey, now this entrepreneur actually is a better entrepreneur than someone who has never failed, right? So to me, and what I find about really fascinating about Silicon Valley and many of the things, the group that, you know, we are surround ourselves with, which is the second part, surround yourself with people that believe in you, that uplift you and that allow you to go even further, where your dreams are the smallest dream in that group, right?

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  So when you go tell someone you're going to the moon, they don't say, oh, that's not what happened. They ask you, where are you going to land? What kind of fuel you're going to be using? Literally just, of course you're going to do that, right? And that is the kind of things you want to do. So I think Peter, I was going to turn on you and say, how does someone find that community and group of people where you can actually dream big? And even though you are crazy and you can sound crazy, but those crazy ideas are just fine.

• 1:15:34Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's all about mindset again, and your mindset, people don't realize your mindset's set by so many things. It's, it's what posters are on your wall. I remember years ago, you know, when I was starting International Space University, my co-founder Todd Hawley had a poster of Murphy's Law on the wall. If anything go wrong, it will, you know? And I was like, oh my God, I just don't want to stare at that every day. And I went to my wall and I wrote on it, if anything go wrong, fix it, to hell with Murphy. And I wrote Peter's Law on the top and that became the first of now what 30 some odd Peter's Laws. And, and so what's on your wall? What books are you reading? What, you know, who are you hanging out with? Is everything, if you want to become thin, if you're overweight, hang out with thin people.

• 1:16:19Peter Diamandis?

  If you want to get in great shape, hang out with people in great shape. If you want to take moon shots, hang out with people who are taking moon shots and who have these mindsets. And, you know, that's why we created Singular University and Abundance 360 and the X. Prize and whatever wherever you go it's it really is because people who are inspired who are taking big shots on goal and failing and picking themselves up and taking another shot gives you permission to take your own shots and to fail and to take your next shot and ultimately it is we don't know what's going to succeed we all we can know is that we can keep trying experimenting iterating trying again

• 1:17:03Peter Diamandis?

  and until we find that that channel into the future that product market fit that right inspired idea and so hanging out with the right community is everything and as I like to say on every one of these programs stop watching the crisis news network and stop wasting your time infecting your brain our brains are neural nets right our brains are neural nets and we train neural nets if anybody's been tracking what's going on and deep mind and open AI and stable diffusion and all of these companies that using machine learning we train neural nets by showing them example after example after example we train them on data sets and the question you have to ask yourself is ultimately what data set are you training your mind on are you training your your mind on all the negativity and

• 1:17:48Peter Diamandis?

  what you know watching Kim Kardashian are you training your mind on the greatest entrepreneurs on the inspiring opportunities for the future and on you know really stories that inspire you to go bigger and so you know that's what I love about hanging out with you Naveen is we we hang out and we just talk about you know all the possibilities in the world not the impossibilities

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  and I think Peter and I think coming back to you the things that I have learned the most is being part of that community that you introduced me to right being part of Singularity University allowed me to think differently being part of X Prize really allowed me to think bigger and then you know abundancy sixty and all of those things and your platinum trip I think to me to me is anyone who's listening to it they can afford there they should really be a platinum trip I mean you learn so much On that trip about what's the most cutting edge stuff that is happening. And any one of those things, if they don't inspire you, you need to go back and maybe do the second time all over again. Until you get inspired, because that is what the most inspiring thing is.

• 1:18:56Peter Diamandis?

  Do you, do you remember when we first met?

• 1:18:59Speaker 00

  Oh my, of, of course I do remember that Peter, I can even tell you how we got connected if you want to know.

• 1:19:03Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, please go ahead.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  I was actually taking a zero G flight up in S from Seattle and met Richard Gereat, who was happening to be on my flight. And I said, you know what? I love this thing enough. I want to invest in this. And then came Peter was on the board of X Prize, sorry, put a board of zero G and the space adventure. And then you came to Seattle to meet with me and then we, we just bonded and we had, I still remember we went to El Gaucho to have a lunch. And we talked about the X Prize and said, Peter, I'm going to absolutely support X Prize. Let's have talk of something else now.

• 1:19:37Peter Diamandis?

  And it was, it was amazing and we, you have those moments in life where you find somebody who's like minded and you just resonate. And we became the best of friends and co-conspirators and partners and it's been extraordinary, extraordinary journey. Um, I have two, two final questions I want to talk about as we, as we wrap this up. Um, uh, the first is going to be around, uh, finding happiness and defining happiness in life. The second, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you a warning to think about in background mode, which is. If I were to launch a Naveen Jane X Prize, fully funded, what would that be? So let's talk about happiness. Um, what, how do you define happiness?

• 1:20:21Peter Diamandis?

  And, and what is your, what's your advice to someone who is seeking happiness?

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  Most people find, think that happiness is something you drive from something else. So they constantly chase something or someone that's going to make them happy. What they don't realize is happiness is their inside job. If you are happy inside you. You will find you can share that happiness with everyone you meet. That means you could, if you're a happy person, you could be sitting in a dark corner and still be happy. And if you're unhappy person, you could be sitting in a paradise and still be unhappy. So to me, the happiness comes when you find the true peace, the true purpose in life. Where every day when you wake up, you wake up with joy. And truth be told, Peter, I get up every day at four AM and I jump out of the bed with joy.

• 1:21:13Peter Diamandis?

  I, I, by the way, I can verify that he does. I've stayed at your home and you're up way before I get up. I'm up at least five or five thirty, but at four, boom.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the reason is, I feel that I'm doing things that I absolutely love. And I, you know, I use the word, I think I'm doing God's work. I just feel that point of found my purpose and I'm willing to just do what it takes to be done. And that brings me happiness. And I share that happiness with my, you know, children, with wife, everyone. But I don't look at them to give me happiness. Happiness comes from yourself, right? Now, the part that I think is, a lot of people in business find themselves in the situation where the things are not going as well. And that makes them unhappy. And what I realized is that your life as an entrepreneur is, you know, to be alive. And to be alive, you have to have a heartbeat.

• 1:22:06Speaker 00

  And heartbeat goes like up and down and up and down. And when it's smooth, you're dead. So when you find yourself, seriously, when you find yourself living a smooth life, you're living a life of a dead person, right? So don't, don't look for the smooth life. You want a life that goes like this. When you are at the bottom of that beat, all you do is hunker down and know the next beat is going to be up. And when you're on top of that beat, never get too cocky and always remember winter is coming and winter shall come.

• 1:22:36Peter Diamandis?

  I love your wisdom, Naveen. It's extraordinary. I love it, love it. All right, final question. We're in a realm where we're launching $100 million X prizes. You've been extraordinary. You know, you and your wife Anu funded the Anu Jane X Prize for women's safety many years ago in India, which was extraordinary. But now it's time for a Naveen Jane X Prize. You don't have to put up the money. It's fully funded. What is it? What is an area that you want the world to race to solve?

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  There are only two things I would do.

• 1:23:11Peter Diamandis?

  And by the way, you can give me more than one if you want.

• 1:23:14Speaker 00

  Okay, so one would be really increasing the health span of humanity. I really believe to us, there's no reason why humans have to die young, whether it's 85, 200, they're still dying young. Why can't they live to be 500,000 years or 100,000 years? But the question is, you don't want to live a life that we believe old people live. We don't, we look at the 95, 98 years old, they're thinking, my God, they're fragile. They can barely walk. They're sick. They are most of the time in, you know, are always dealing with chronic diseases. What if you can actually fix that and you die? You die on the top of the mountain because you were able to climb the mountain to begin with, because that's the life you want to live, right?

• 1:23:58Speaker 00

  So that's number one. Number two would be really creating an interplanetary society. We're not going to just internet. We're going to have a galaxy net that really connects all of us living across, not just in our own solar system, but beyond our solar system, not even our galaxy into a different galaxy, and really connecting, making the humanity a multi-planetary, multi-universe society, if I may say so.

• 1:24:22Peter Diamandis?

  All right, well, a man who does not think small and a man whose wisdom I love. Naveen, it is a joy and a pleasure to have you in my life. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for your three kids who are amazing and making the world a better place. Always a joy, buddy.

• 1:24:43Speaker 00

  Thanks a lot, Peter. It's always, always an honor and a pleasure. And I look forward to seeing you in person sometime soon.

• 1:24:49Peter Diamandis?

  See you soon, buddy.