Travis Kalanick's founder rule, why pushed kids lose, & what excellence really costs

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/ Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire Eric and Neil open on Travis Kalanick's take on founders, and end up somewhere much less comfortable: the research says the people pushed hardest early on are rarely the ones who end up best. They get into what founder drive actually is, why the two of them handle being crossed differently, how first-principles thinking changes a deal, and the Four Seasons founder's brutal one-line definition of excellence. Key takeaways ◾Being a founder is about pushing, not driving. The title on the org chart is not what makes it work. ◾Across 34,000 top performers, early standouts and eventual world-class performers are almost never the same people. ◾Excellence, per the Four Seasons founder, is the capacity to take pain. Suffering is built into the job. Chapters 00:00 Founder Drive 04:20 Seasons of Work 08:32 What Actually Makes Them Angry 11:53 First Principles Dealmaking 13:58 Protein and Macros 16:25 Trade-Offs Everywhere 17:55 Tiger Parent Pressure 20:27 Raising Without Resentment 24:01 Defining Excellence 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗟 Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. 🎙️ Learn More About the Hosts Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Finding customer information shouldn't mean digging through emails, call notes and spreadsheets. HubSpot Starter Plan brings all of those details together, so it's easier to track what's happening with every deal and what to do next. It pulls information from calls and emails. Then it gets to work, logging and summarizing them. Right after your call ends, HubSpot pulls next steps from your call notes and drafts suggested follow-ups. And it stays up to date for you, so you can build demand, win more deals and spend less time on repetitive work. Your records, insights and next steps are ready for you to act on. And you don't have to miss a beat searching for any of it. Try the Starter Plan for $10 a month. Learn more at hubspot.com. All right, so Neil, I was in Arizona with our some of our mutual friends this week. And, uh, you know, I, we're talking about a couple of things and, uh,

• 0:43Speaker 00

  you know, did you see that, that podcast interview with Travis Kalanick on, with David Senra?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  I did not. Was that the one where he was, he bad mouthed VCs kind of?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  1%?

• 0:56Speaker 00

  So.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  I saw the clip of that.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber. So he had a conversation with David Senra, who does the Founder's Podcast, and this one's called David Senra. But anyway, so there's a couple of lines in there that I think stick out that I think we can react to. He did actually say, I'll tell you one thing, don't put money into bench, or don't let Benchmark invest in you, right? Or like Bill Gurley, like he's looking, he's talking about VCs, he's bad mouthing them because he got kicked out of his company because of that. Now, that has nothing to do with us. But I, I do want to talk about the true lifestyle of an entrepreneur. And, uh, one of our mutual friends, we're, I, I, I spent like nine hours playing tennis Monday through Wednesday, right? And we're just like, dude, like at the end of the day, one of the main things is the founder has to be involved, right? And the funny thing is, I think about you for a moment, right?

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Like, I, I think about one of our mutual friends. So he was out of the company for two years or so, okay? And when he was out of the company, his CEO was alone. He basically had like a dad was there, right? But when he came back in, it's almost like mom came back, right? And when mom came back and you split the load, the company was able to move forward like that. I think about you, I look at you, even though you don't really have a title at your company, I still look at you as the CEO because you're driving things.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  But I'm not the CEO.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Whatever. You look at Elon Musk, he's not really the CEO, right? Like he's driving things. And remember, a long time ago, when, when, when he put money into Tesla, Elon said, I don't want to be CEO. He's like, I never want to be the CEO, right? And then he realized to get things done, you have to have the CEO title, right? And then he's driving things that way. And he's not like a typical CEO. You'd agree with that, right?

• 2:23Speaker 01

  No, he's not a typical CEO.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  So I still, like, despite you not having a title, you drive things like a CEO. And I think Mike Cammo, who's your co-founder, you both are the drivers, right? And I think it's so important to have, it's so helpful to have a co-founder there. Because when you only have one driver, uh huh, right? It's, it's a lot more difficult when, when you don't have mom and dad both there.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why Y Combinator typically only invests in three people, uh, founding teams or two. It's, but it's either two or three.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  I haven't really, there must be some examples, but Y Combinator usually doesn't invest in a one-person led, or one-person founding team.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know what, though? What, what's interesting is, um, I forgot, I was listening to another podcast recently and it was like, I think it was A16Z. I think, I think it was, um, it might've been Ben Horowitz talking about this, right? What they've noticed is this, you might have two co-found, you might have a technical co-founder and a founder, right? The founder might be more sales-led, marketing-led, and you have the product person. But usually what happens there is only one of them is the true driver. You usually don't have two drivers in a company, right? One of our mutual friends, I would say both of them are drivers. I look at you and Mike, I would say both of you are drivers. It's actually fairly rare to have both of the co-founders being drivers. And you call it a pusher.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with you. So I, it's semantics here, but I think we're speaking the same thing. I look at it as I don't drive, I push, and.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  It's the same thing.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  A real life example of this, and the, or let's go back to driving. The reason I don't consider myself a driver is, and even Mike Cammo, my co-founder, we genuinely don't run the business. The CEO runs everything. He knows so much more about the business than us. I would be in trouble without him, being really honest. Although at this point, we have a big enough executive team. I'm not saying the CEO could be easily replaced. I don't agree with that. But he has built a really solid team underneath him. And he has told me if something happens to him, here are the few people who should help run the business. He's been very explicit about that.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  When I look at, um, Mike Cammo and I, I would say we're more pushers than anything else. And I don't think Mike knows what I do on a daily basis, Mike Cammo. My CEO is also named Mike, so just trying to reduce confusion here. Uh, and I also don't know what my co-founder does on a daily basis. We have ideas of what we're focusing on.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  But we're also at a point in our career where I don't think we're really grinders anymore. I don't have it in me to really grind it out. And I'll give you an example with Fuse, you know, Kellen, you met up with Kellen, we did dinner together. So Kellen and I were talking about doing a business together. They would fund it. We would end up creating a company that would help automate a lot of the work that marketing agencies are doing. He was down to fund it. I would own a large chunk of it. If I wanted a bigger chunk, I would just put in some of the money that would be raised. Let's call it a $10 million round. They're willing to put in $7 million of it, roughly.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I'm speaking on their behalf, but that's roughly what they would have put in, uh, for a first round, for 20%. So 10 million, you lose 20%. So call it 40 million pre-money valuation, 50 million post.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And I remember I was walking up and down in my driveway. My son was kicking the soccer ball to me and.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  And you're ignoring it? I'm just kidding.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I was half paying attention. I, I tend to kick the soccer ball with him probably like four, five times a week. I don't like when my daughter gets involved playing soccer with us. I know that sounds really bad to say I love my daughter, but my son and I do stuff we're not supposed to do. Like, let's kick the soccer ball on the roof and see if we can get it stuck.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  And like, we'll break like shingles on the roof and do stuff that you're not supposed to do.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  But I have fun just messing around and like, let's kick the soccer ball into our balcony. And like, we'll break furniture and pots. And I know that's a really bad example. And we're wasting thousands of dollars, but I'm really bonding with my son and we're having a blast.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  But I'm talking with him, I'm, I'm kicking the ball with my son. And I'm like, he's, I'm telling him like, I'm at, or I'm asking him like, what's required of me? And he's breaking down usually what people do in these kind of roles. And I'm like, dude, I don't know if this is for me. And he's like, why not? I'm like, I gotta kind of answer to someone because I have investors, even though I'm LP in his fund.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  And.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  Well, it's work.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was just like, I gotta sign up for all this kind of work? And I'm like, this isn't me. And he was just laughing. He's just like, I know, but he's like, it's a big opportunity. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, he's like, I respect it. And I'm like, look dude, I don't mind writing you checks for your venture fund and you guys can invest my money in other places. Like they do with a lot of other investors. I don't want to do the work.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  But here's a side thing, right? So you, you've heard of the story before where, um, there's a fisherman in Alaska. He's very successful, right? He's fishing all these fish. And then an investor comes up and says, dude, let me invest in your, like, let's build this into a company, right? And the fisherman's like, well, why do I need that? Well, what we're going to do is we're going to expand and then we're going to, we're going to build this into a huge multi-billion dollar operation, right? And then the fisherman's like, well then what am I going to do after that? Right? He's like, well, then you can do what you're, like, you can, you can chill and you can, you can catch fish every day. He's like, well, I'm already doing that right now, right? So the point is, you've already worked, and this is not saying don't work hard. Like Neil's already paid his dues, right? He's already worked very hard. He's just not in that season anymore. We have different seasons of entrepreneurship. But going back to this, um, if we think about, when I think about driver, pusher at the end of the day,

• 8:00Speaker 00

  the reason why I think the founder is so important is because the founder is naturally incentivized to care the most. And that's because you, naturally you have a big chunk of the company, right? And so of course you're going to push the most, of course you're going to drive. And my, um, and, and our mutual friend was talking about another friend that we knew. Uh, and we've talked about this before, like, we have a lot of people that, you know, they, they will hire someone and then get out of their way completely. And I think that's one of the biggest, um, fallacies, I think, in entrepreneurship. Because we know someone on Twitter that likes to talk about how he owns all these different businesses and all that, right? And not even he, or, or it could be a she as well. But to, to, to say you're going to sit out of the business and not push, I think is, is broken. And the reason why I'm even bringing this up right now, because we're talking about that clip, right? So, um, this is what Travis Kalanick says.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  The lifestyle of an entrepreneur at its core is, I can take more pain than the other guy and I'll prove it. There's a zen that can happen when a warrior has fought for a long time, you can get used to it, right? Um, and so by the way, if you and I are put through poo poo moments right now, we deal with them pretty well, right? Unless someone tries to screw you over and like, you know, maybe you're buying something at a store, that's a different story. Then you lose your, your stuff, so.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually get upset on that end, but normally I haven't really, I, I don't ever have a temper, um, or get upset. I, I used to as a kid, but I do get upset when someone tries to pull one on me and screw me over. But you were spotted, to go back to the pusher and the driver. I went through this, this week because when we look at M and A at my company, it's two deals a year is, is no problem. When you start doing three, four, five, six deals a year, it puts a lot of burden on the team and it makes more work on the integration. And it's just harder, especially if you do them in the same regions.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  But right now, I have an LOI out for a company in Latin America, which I think we'll go through.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Uh, we have terms agreed upon in one company in the United States, which I think will go through. We're in negotiation with one company in France, and we've already discussed pricing and everything, and they want to sell to us. So I think if we want it, it would go through. There's one in Germany that I want, my team wants, but how many deals can you end up doing? And we think that one's probably one of the better ones. Um, and then there's another one in the U S that has some hair on it, but they work with our ideal customers in a service that we don't do a ton of. Um, but the business isn't growing like a hockey stick.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  But you combine both, they work with our ideal customers. They don't sell all the services we sell.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  You'll have the growth.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can make the math work out on that. So roughly, I don't know how many of them will go through, but it's more than two. And you're talking about in a period of six months where maybe three on the low end, five on the high end, right? And I'm still building the pipe, but I keep telling my team, I'm like, you can do it, right? Why not? And I keep pushing them. And I remember them saying two, we don't need to do more than two a year. It becomes really hard. So now my team is coming back to me like, yeah, this third one's not bad. Yeah, maybe this fourth one too. And they're changing their attitude.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  You've built the muscle.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yes, I keep pushing and pushing and getting them. So I'm like, I'm like, I, instead of saying, hey, I get you can't do it. All right, let's do only two. I start asking, why is it that people only do one or two a year? What are the bottlenecks? What's the main reason behind this? What, what, what are the big things that I'm missing and I'm not thinking through?

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  And then they break it down. I'm like, then how would you solve for that? Oh, this is how I solved for it in the past. And this is what we do. We build a pure integration team that just focuses on X, Y, and Z. And then it becomes more manageable. I'm like, okay, then go do all of that.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  This is what we call reverse first principles thinking. And I just came up with it. So, you know, Elon likes to talk of our, you know, I, I think about from first principles, Jensen Huang, I like to think about from first principles. And what that really means, by the way, for everyone, when you think about a rocket, right? The, the Russians were trying to charge Elon like an arm and a leg to, to buy these rockets back in the day, like six million dollars or something. And then Elon's like, well, what actually needs to go into a rocket? Well, actually the, the components actually lead up to about three hundred grand or so. So you actually end up saving like, what? Like ninety-five percent plus, right? Something like that, right? And, and so, but he broke it down to the first person, uh, first principles components. This is the same thing here. What, what's required to get a deal done? That's what you're basically asking your team. When I say reverse, you're basically putting on your team to think from first principles.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Now, Neil doesn't read these things. I'm just, I'm just giving it, but that's, that's what he's doing intuitively, which is, which is amazing, right? Um, but the, the funny, this is no different than like, we look at Noah over here. He's got a six pack, right? He's working out all the time, but you're just stacking on a little more weight each week, a little more weight, a little more weight. And eventually it's like, oh damn, yeah, I can actually put up two twenty-five, like easy, no problem, right? And you know, there's, there's a lot of examples like that.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  But I can't do it. He doesn't have a six pack. I don't think I would ever achieve that.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Well, that's because you don't eat enough. We can talk about you, promote it.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  I would have to eat less to get rid of body fat.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  How many grams of protein do you get per day? Real quick, if you want to acquire customers faster and more efficiently this year with the latest strategies and tactics, then check out singlegrain.com. That is my ad agency again, www dot singlegrain.com. Check it out. And if it seems like a fit, we'll get in touch and help you with a free marketing plan.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Recently or when I try?

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Wouldn't you try?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  When I try maybe eighty to a hundred.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  It's not enough. You weigh like one twenty, right?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  I weigh one twenty-five this morning.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  So, so this is, so here, here's the hack for you. Okay. This is funny. So you guys can go to Chick-fil-A. Okay. Go to Chick-fil-A. You get the twenty-four pieces. You will actually get seventy-six grams of protein on twenty-four pieces. And it's only four hundred calories, right? And it's, it's not that expensive either.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  But I don't care for a six pack to eat them.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  You don't need a six pack, but you need more macros. You need, if there's anything, you know what's funny? Um, uh, Hormozzi, he, he, when there's a period of time where he's making these videos, like workout videos and things like that, right? And he's like, you know, for, for twenty years, I've had two hundred grams of protein every single day. And literally he'll eat like a giant tub of like, you know, uh, Greek yogurt and all that. Yeah. But the, the thing is this, he'll get his two hundred grams and he'll eat whatever he wants, like cupcakes, dinner, uh, dessert and all that, right? Um, and so as long as you get your macros, like it shouldn't be a problem for you because you're already at the right weight. And this is not a workout podcast, but I'm pretty sure if you wanted to get it, you just need to, you know, adjust your diet a little bit. Right? Right, Noah? See?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  But I don't want to adjust my diet.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Well, your diet's fine. It's fine.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, overall, I eat pretty healthy, but I, I agree with you. I, I do work out enough. I don't need enough protein. And just in general, if I get a hundred grams of protein a day, I'm happy. And my goal is to get there and I think I can consistently get there. I, I don't know if I can get enough protein to build like mass and muscle, but I'm okay just having a hundred grams and eating something healthy.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Cause a hundred, you'll be satiated. It's already like, you know, eighty, eighty, more than eighty percent. That's all you really need. I think some people like, it's gotta be one to one, but honestly, eighty percent is fine.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so even seventy percent, I don't think it's the end of the world. Well, I, I don't want, and, and this is the problem with, I think, some people who are in fitness. I was talking to someone the other day. And he's, he was just like, dude, I'm more jacked than ever. Cause my friend was at a gym, Curtis, you know Curtis?

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Curtis was at a gym. He sends me a picture of another guy that I know. And the other guy, I don't, I'm not that close to him or anything like that, but he sends me a picture of him. So I text the guy and I text him and I was just like messing around. You know my personality. So I text him like, you're looking a little weak there, bro.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  And, and the guy's in pretty good shape. He has a six pack. Uh, he posts images of his six pack online. I don't follow him. I, I, I think that's, you can post whatever you want on, but I think to some extent it starts becoming a little douchey, just my own two cents. I've told him this too.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  And as he's responding to me and I'm just joking, he's like, dude, I'm more, uh, ripped than ever. I'm taking rapetitide or rapiditide. It's something like that.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  It, it's like this peptide.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  I think it's like Ozempic alternative.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  It's like a GLP one. Yeah, it's powerful. It's a little too powerful.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And he's telling me, he's like, he's like, I now have my bottom six pack. I never had the bottom. I only had the top two.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  And he's like, you know, I said, you're like, no, I don't need no pictures or anything like that. So he's going in, in real in depth. And I'm telling him, I was like, why would you want to take this medicine to just get your bottom six pack? Like, to me, you're already in good enough shape. He's like, dude, this medicine is really good for you and all this. And I just stopped the conversation. I'm like, you should Google it. Whatever it is, there are side effects.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  It, it causes mood problems, that one.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Not, well, not just mood problems.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  You can't take drugs and medicine or a magic pill and expect it to not have many side effects. Some may be really minor, but I wouldn't want to risk to my life.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  One of my favorite quotes in business or life in general is there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  So everything has a trade-off, right? There's no perfect thing. You live in a big house. Guess what? There's a trade-off, right? You get, you have bugs, you have bugs. You live in a high-rise, like, right? You don't have to deal with bugs, right? But then there's a high-rise, you have to go all the way. There's a trade-off to everything.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Dude, you're so right. Uh, there's a trade-off in every decision you end up making in life.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Or, or let's do kids versus no kids. You have kids, like you're very happy, right? But sometimes like, you know, there, like, there's, there's like, this is a good trade-off, right? Like you have to take care of them. There's a lot of work that goes into it, but it's worth it, right? Now, on the flip side, I don't have kids, but I'm like, man, the grass is greener. Like I wish I do have kids, right? But there's always the trade-off that comes with it, right? And you have to decide what's acceptable to you, what isn't acceptable to you.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Kids are short-term, uh, not a short-term. It's a long-term pain. But in the longer, longer run, like when they're older, it gets much better.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  I think it's a short-term pain because eighteen years goes by so quickly.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  I look at eighteen years as a long time.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Dude, look at how, how long have we known each other?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Ten years, fifteen?

• 18:03Speaker 00

  Fifteen, sixteen years. Look at how fast the time has gone.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, time's gone by fast.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  So it's, it's fast.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Sixteen years. That's a long time.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. Noah, how long have we known each other? To twenty seventeen? Almost ten, ten years. Look at that. It was like yesterday when I met him, right?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  So anyway, but you know what's interesting? So I was playing tennis the other day. I want to show you this because, because remember we're talking about

• 18:23Speaker 00

  the Nobel laureates, right? When you, when you're like a

• 18:27Speaker 01

  The what?

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Nobel laureates.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Oh, Nobel laureates, okay.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  So, uh, performance of physics and chemistry, Nobel laureates and nominees, right? So remember we talked about, um, kids that get pushed really hard. So I'm, I'm Chinese, right? Uh, and then Neil's, Neil's Indian, right? So, um, growing up in my culture, because I grew up in like a Chinese dominant area, Taiwanese more specifically, uh, the, the parents push them really hard. So, um, Yeniv and I were watching, um, this girl playing tennis because we were walking up to the tennis courts on Tuesday or so, right? The first thing that Yeniv noticed like, dude, she's really freaking good, right? It's like a fourteen-year-old. You know what the first thing I noticed was?

• 19:01Speaker 01

  She's Asian?

• 19:02Speaker 00

  No, no, dude. Like, that is the first thing I noticed. Yes, I guess. But, but, but, but like as, as Yeniv's admiring her skills, she's really good at age fourteen. I was looking at her. I'm like, she hates it. And, and then he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, and then I walked up to, to the coach that sees her playing a lot. I'm like, she hates it, doesn't she? And he's like, he's like, yeah. He's like, how could, like, most, like, you're the only one that's noticed. Like, everyone notices how good she is. The, the first thing you called out was how much she hates it. Cause I'm looking at her bilingual. She's hitting it hard. Like she's doing, she's doing really well. The coach is coming out hard on it. We can keep doing this all day. Like if you want to do this, we can do this. Like, she does not give a damn. She's just like looking at the floor. When she's like in between sets, she's just like looking at her hands or whatever.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  And the, the coach we were talking to is like, I've seen that girl coached up since she was four years old to fourteen years old, right? And she has cried all the time. She has never in one second or one minute even looked like she enjoyed it. And I'm looking at the dad. I'm like, hey, what's her last name? By the way, he gives me their last name, Jing. I'm like, oh, they're Chinese, right? I could say this because I'm Chinese, right? I'm like, that is an example of a tiger parent that's pushed them so hard. But remember we saw this study before where if you have like an elite kid that, that learns piano or they learn tennis, they become number one. The issue with that is they're so narrow-minded that they actually end up average later because they never actually enjoyed it. And you, the people that are more well-rounded that are like exploring all the time, they actually end up being top one percent. They never had to try that hard.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  And so, like, I, I'm, I'm looking at that. I'm like, man, it's like, as much as like, I, I, I want to be a dad, right? But it's like, I, I look at the, the parenting piece and it's like, dude, trying to drive, trying to drive, I think your company is one thing, but trying to drive your kids is another thing. And you're a parent, right? And maybe it's too early for you to say, but I'm actually curious to see what you would say here because again, like, look, same individuals, elite, uh, university and top five percent late twenties. Um, only fifteen percent of those people actually become elite. The other eighty-five percent comes from people that weren't pushed that hard growing up. I thought that was fascinating.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my wife and I have this philosophy when it comes to raising children. Or our kids specifically. If they don't want to do something and they've never done it, we push them to it and we actually do force them to try it out. If they try something out and they hate it, we don't keep pushing them to do it over and over again. And to be very specific, if they try it once and they say they hate it, but we think they're good at it, or the coach says they're really good at it and they have potential, or we think they may like it, we push them to do it one or two more times. But if they keep saying after three times, they don't like it, they don't want to do it,

• 21:43Speaker 01

  we don't make them do it, even if that sport or that activity would be like, this gets you in a ride into Harvard or Stanford, I'm making up the school. I don't care. I don't understand why people force their kids to do something that you know they hate, because like,

• 22:00Speaker 01

  your childhood memories should be some of your best memories. You shouldn't have resentment for your parents for making you do stuff that you hate. Now, on the flip side, if they have to do homework and they hate doing homework, I will force them to do it because there's certain things that are good for them, like eating balanced meals, um, you know, uh, and I will still give them ice cream and stuff here and there, but eating balanced meals, doing your homework, reading books before you go to sleep every single night. And we make it fun. If our kids don't want to read, why don't you want to read? Oh, you find this boring? Well, let me go find different books that you actually will like and I'll read it to you. And eventually you'll see other people reading, then you're going to want to read too. But I just believe it's a really bad parenting

• 22:41Speaker 01

  model to just force your kids into something like tennis because you know it's a great ticket for them to get into a good college when they hate it.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  So what I would say is this, because Yaniv was asking me, our mutual friend was asking me, he's like, so why, why does this happen, right? I was like, because in, in Asian cultures, like, if you can get through this, if you can get through the suck here, the whole idea is that you have the, the wherewithal to get through anything tough, right? Because if you've gone through like 10, 15 years of this pain, right? Um, but to your point, I actually subscribe to, to your point. It's, there's no point in making, like, I think the goal of, of not even kids, but just in life in general, is just to learn and explore things. And there's some things that you like, some things that you hate. So let me read the study to you real quick and then we can move on. So this study was led by Arne Gulick, I'm butchering it, but a sports scientist at the RPTU University in Germany. They crunched data on more than 34,000 elite performers, Neil. So,

• 23:34Speaker 00

  including sports, chess, classical music and academia. And including that, although they often reach a high level, the best performing, most intensely drilled teenagers tend to not become true superstars as adults. Those who do make that grade by contrast tend to not stand out early on. They take longer to reach their peaks and seem to keep their interests wider for longer. So I just think that's really interesting. And I think this, uh, that, I think at work certainly be the driver. I think in other areas, maybe, maybe, maybe not so much, but I, that was eye opening to me because in that moment, I was like, okay, maybe I don't want to push my kids, my future kids that hard, because seeing her suffer like that was painful. So.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yep. And on a random, remember I talked about the person who's taking those drugs?

• 24:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. He's just sexy to you?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  He, he just texted me, he's like, getting ripped. He's at the gym with his shirt off. I'm like, why are you texting me a picture? I'm like, I deleted it.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Do I know this guy? Does it start with an N?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  No, you don't know him. I don't know him well either. I met him at a conference a few times this week. I was like, dude, don't send me this crap.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  That's funny. That's funny. Um, by the way, one more quote from, uh, so the, remember the Four Seasons quote?

• 24:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Neil, what do you define excellence as?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  I, I don't really have a definition. I go for it.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  So, defined by the Four Seasons founder, okay? Excellence is the capacity to take pain, right? And that's why Travis Kalanick is like, everything that you go through, like you think about a, a marathon runner, for example, right? If they're smiling at mile, mile 21, that they're, they're not a true killer, right? They need to be grinding there. Because if you start to light up at that point, someone else is going to come and eat your lunch, right? Um, and it's, it's crazy to me because to your point on, on like, Travis Kalanick is, is, is post economic, but he's still grinding so hard, right? He wants to work on harder and harder problems over time. And, and, you know, people, some people are built differently. Um, I don't think there's any right or wrong way to entrepreneur, um, but you know, suffering is, is built into it. And so.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yes. I, when I look at excellence, I, I didn't really think too much about suffering. I look at it as you're never really excellent. To me, excellence is like continually trying to improve and get better, uh, and never really being satisfied with what was achieved.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Isn't improving a lot of pain?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  That's true. To go through it, you are suffering because you're always trying to achieve more and more.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  You almost have to enjoy it.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Like, that's why we've become a little numb to it over time.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And I can't speak specifically for Travis because I don't know him, but what I found, and he's much more successful than I am, once entrepreneurs have made enough money, a lot of them still do more because it, it's not about the money, it's about purpose in life. But the grind that they have later on usually isn't as nearly as much of a grind as they had before they really started making it.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  I mean, look at Bill Gates. Do you think he grinds anymore?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  No, but even Travis, like, I do think he works hard. I'm not doubting that. People say I work hard. I don't think, and again, I'm just taking a guess here. I don't know him. I don't think he works as hard as he did when he first founded Uber.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Probably not. Also, you have a lot more leverage when you're a little older, right? Like the success that he's had, the team that he has now and all of that. So, um, that's what I would say. So anyway, that's it for today and, uh, we'll catch you later.