Starting a Business is a Rough Ride (Stephen Schwarzman) | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | I'm now personally taking a step into building a startup, first time, hoping to change the
00:00:06.980 | world of course.
00:00:09.420 | There are thousands, maybe more, maybe millions of other first time entrepreneurs like me.
00:00:14.740 | What advice, you've gone through this process, you've talked about the suffering, the emotional
00:00:21.900 | turmoil it all might entail, what advice do you have for those people taking that step?
00:00:28.660 | I'd say it's a rough ride and you have to be psychologically prepared for things going
00:00:38.980 | wrong with frequency.
00:00:41.700 | You have to be prepared to be put in situations where you're being asked to solve problems
00:00:48.440 | you didn't even know those problems existed.
00:00:51.260 | You know, for example, renting space, it's not really a problem unless you've never done
00:00:56.660 | it.
00:00:57.660 | You have no idea what a lease looks like, right?
00:01:01.140 | You don't even know the relevant rent in a market.
00:01:05.420 | So everything is new, everything has to be learned.
00:01:09.540 | What you realize is that it's good to have other people with you who've had some experience
00:01:15.580 | in areas where you don't know what you're doing.
00:01:18.900 | Unfortunately an entrepreneur starting doesn't know much of anything, so everything is something
00:01:25.460 | new.
00:01:27.020 | And I think it's important not to be alone because it's sort of overwhelming and you
00:01:37.860 | need somebody to talk to other than a spouse or a loved one because even they get bored
00:01:44.620 | with your problems.
00:01:47.100 | And so, you know, getting a group, you know, if you look at Alibaba, you know, Jack Ma
00:01:52.980 | was telling me they basically were like a financial death's door at least twice.
00:02:01.340 | And you know, the fact that it wasn't just Jack, I mean people think it is because he
00:02:06.380 | became the sort of public face and the driver, but a group of people who can give advice,
00:02:17.340 | share situations to talk about, that's really important.
00:02:22.080 | And that's not just referring to the small details like renting space.
00:02:25.620 | No.
00:02:26.620 | It's also the psychological burden.
00:02:28.420 | Yes, yeah.
00:02:29.420 | And you know, because most entrepreneurs at some point question what they're doing because
00:02:34.500 | it's not going so well or they're screwing it up and they don't know how to unscrew it
00:02:39.460 | up because we're all learning.
00:02:43.060 | And it's hard to be learning, you know, when there are like 25 variables going on.
00:02:47.940 | If you, you know, if you're missing four big ones, you can really make a mess.
00:02:52.820 | And so, the ability to in effect have either an outsider who's really smart that you can
00:03:00.820 | rely on for certain type of things or other people who are working with you on a daily
00:03:07.260 | basis.
00:03:10.740 | Most people who haven't had experience believe in the myth of the one person, one great person,
00:03:18.540 | you know, makes outcomes, creates outcomes that are positive.
00:03:24.340 | Most of us, it's not like that.
00:03:27.480 | If you look back over a lot of the big successful tech companies, it's not typically one person.
00:03:35.380 | You know, it's, and you will know these stories better than I do because it's your world,
00:03:40.420 | not mine.
00:03:41.420 | But even I know that almost every one of them had two people.
00:03:44.700 | I mean, if you look at Google, you know, that's what they had and that was the same at Microsoft
00:03:51.260 | at the beginning.
00:03:52.260 | And, you know, it was the same at Apple.
00:03:56.100 | You know, people have different skills and they need to play off of other people.
00:04:02.580 | So you know, the advice that I would give you is make sure you understand that so you
00:04:10.620 | don't head off in some direction as a lone wolf and find that either you can't invent
00:04:17.500 | all the solutions or you make bad decisions on certain types of things.
00:04:24.340 | This is a team sport.
00:04:27.220 | Or means you're alone, in effect.
00:04:31.260 | And that's the myth.
00:04:32.980 | But it's mostly a myth.
00:04:34.700 | - Yeah, I think, and you talk about this in your book and I could talk to you about it
00:04:39.420 | forever, the harshly self-critical aspect to your personality and to mine as well in
00:04:46.780 | the face of failure.
00:04:48.460 | It's a powerful tool, but it's also a burden.
00:04:52.900 | It's very interesting, very interesting to walk that line.
00:04:57.900 | But let me ask in terms of people around you, in terms of friends, in the bigger picture
00:05:05.020 | of your own life, where do you put the value of love, family, friendship in the big picture
00:05:12.340 | journey of your life?
00:05:15.060 | - Well, ultimately all journeys are alone.
00:05:20.780 | It's great to have support.
00:05:25.220 | And when you go forward and say your job is to make something work and that's your number
00:05:34.380 | one priority, and you're gonna work at it to make it work, it's like superhuman effort.
00:05:42.580 | People don't become successful as part-time workers.
00:05:47.340 | Doesn't work that way.
00:05:49.500 | And if you're prepared to make that 100 to 120% effort, you're gonna need support and
00:05:59.940 | you're gonna have to have people involved with your life who understand that that's
00:06:04.380 | really part of your life.
00:06:08.060 | Sometimes you're involved with somebody and they don't really understand that and that's
00:06:13.820 | a source of conflict and difficulty.
00:06:17.780 | But if you're involved with the right people, whether it's a dating relationship or a spousal
00:06:28.820 | relationship, you have to involve them in your life but not burden them with every minor
00:06:43.260 | triumph or mistake.
00:06:45.460 | They actually get bored with it after a while and so you have to set up different types
00:06:52.140 | of ecosystems.
00:06:54.580 | You have your home life, you have your love life, you have children, and that's like the
00:07:01.860 | enduring part of what you do.
00:07:04.500 | And then on the other side, you've got the sort of unpredictable nature of this type
00:07:14.540 | of work.
00:07:16.020 | What I say to people at my firm who are younger, usually, well everybody's younger, but people
00:07:24.860 | who are of an age where they're just having their first child or maybe they have two children,
00:07:33.180 | that it's important to make sure they go away with their spouse at least once every two
00:07:44.300 | months to just some lovely place where there are no children, no issues.
00:07:51.540 | Sometimes once a month if they're sort of energetic and clever.
00:07:57.220 | - Escape the craziness of it all.
00:08:00.380 | - Yeah, and reaffirm your values as a couple.
00:08:07.020 | And you have to have fun.
00:08:09.520 | If you don't have fun with the person you're with and all you're doing is dealing with
00:08:14.900 | issues then that gets pretty old.
00:08:18.420 | And so you have to protect the fun element of your life together and the way to do that
00:08:24.980 | isn't by hanging around the house and dealing with sort of more problems.
00:08:31.260 | You have to get away and reinforce and reinvigorate your relationship.
00:08:36.900 | And whenever I tell one of our younger people about that, they sort of look at me and it's
00:08:42.140 | like the scales are falling off of their eyes and they're saying, "Geez, I hadn't thought
00:08:46.620 | about that.
00:08:47.620 | I'm so enmeshed in all these things."
00:08:49.820 | But that's a great idea.
00:08:51.420 | And that's something as an entrepreneur you also have to do.
00:08:56.460 | You just can't let relationships slip because you're half overwhelmed.
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