Perfect problem. So he needed a way to sort of delineate problems. If you think about the world problems, you got the ones who are salt so that we can cover the solution. And may be a problem that symbiosis already figured out. Then you have the ones that are one reason or another are so lovable. We just dont have the ways to do it. But then theres a group in the middle of solvable problems that have not yet been solved. Jim so that is what i call the perfect problem because that in fact, is the focus of what i think the leadership is. In other words we are looking for a way to solve a problem that is solvable but has not been density going to have to be doing something new and you dont get a copy it. So what happened with jack, jack dorsey and i, while i hired jack when he was 15. It was a High School Student and came into work at a company that actually still have. I dont run any of my companies but i also never sell them. At some of this one has been around for 30 years. And jack and i started working together. And then he went off to college. We kept in touch. And then he got kicked out of twitter. In the first time. [laughter]. They showed him the door and he came back and we were hanging out and talking. And decided we would start a company together. And so then we were kicking around ideas and neither of us had no idea so started looking for problems that we can solve read and came up with the problem of how small participate. Cat somebody you come to that conclusion pretty talk in the book about your work. Tell me about the moment when you realize the payments were a problem for some merchants. Jim it was funny because as i said jack had been just clicked out of twitter. He was sort of like a little brother to me. Like somebody i needed to sort of stand up for. And what they did to him and twitter the first time was just completely file. So my first suggestion was lets go out to San Francisco and get even with those guys. [laughter]. It was like a motivation. But jack to his credit said well why dont we do something more positive and just started company. So that was the impetus. And we were looking for a problem. The only thing we determined was that company was going to be focused on. I have to use my phone here is a prop. These things. Were going to focus on these things. Because the iphone and just amount. And we know is going to be important so we hired an engineer from apple. He was starting to weeks. So i gave us two weeks to figure out what we were going to do. We could not think of anything. We are stretching for ideas. Im a glass blower. I make stuff that nobody needs. Make art. That stuff nobody needs. As a matter fact, in dc, age to teach. So all the local cspan viewers, 20 years ago, i was a guy that taught you how to make a paperweight. But the point is, i was in the studio and trying to a piece of glass. And i lost the cell because i couldnt take an American Express card. And i was angry. I just have this windfall. And i was talking to the lady on the phone about one of these devices. I have this attitude towards devices like this. This device is a magic device. It turns into anything i wanted. I wanted to turn into a television, it does pretty hard radio. It will turn into that book. It will literally tomorrow, turn into that book that you want. It did not turn into a credit card machine. So, i was angry but i was also motivated to fix thats pretty socalled object on that device and said, lets make our iphones turn into credit card machines. Since we did. Cat so the name of the book is the innovation stack. What is that and how did you learn about it. Jim is not something that we knew about when we started this but it is probably the most powerful phenomenon that i have seen in business. And we stumbled apostate. The innovation stack is simply a way of interweaving inventions together. Sometimes very simple images. But enough of these together, they start to take on their own life. And they create new industries. So if you look throughout history as the Great Industries that have started, almost always it was an innovation stacking. So we started with that and wanted to do this but i had no night idea that this was happening. I was sort of having people reviewed like yourself. In one of the greatest, the god was from a very successful entrepreneur. So his living room and he has a painting on the wall is worth more than my house rated so i was a little intimidated. And asked me about the book and he finally said, i wish i had known this when i was 20 years old. And i said me too. But it turns out that there is this thing that happens. This process it can happen when you start to fall or solve a perfect problem, something does not been solved before. Because most of what we do as copying. In most of our tools and training and comfort us with solutions that exist. When you get out of the world of copying, you can build something that is truly different. And it creates the thing called an innovation staff. If you go into the innovation stack. Your company will dominate the world. Well just run whatever business youre in. Cat in the book, when you talk about the innovation stack, it is interesting that you focus on companies that dont associate with text. I think a lot of people parallel that with tech and innovation. Ntf and southwest. So i did you decide to focus on those companies outside of the tech industry. Jim blame a scientist by training. My father was a scientist. I was very steep into the scientific methods. So if youre going to do a reasonably controlled experiment, you need to eliminate the variable. In one of the most powerful variables is the phenomenon of viral growth and technology. So if you look at the potential for a company and does nothing really that interesting but adas sufficient technology to an old business, you can get outside success. I do not want to study thats what i did when i saw this pattern of the innovations that, i wanted to Study Companies but not Companies Like google. They are walking late successful. All of these companies are fantastically successful. But what is it that creates success. Just the pure destructive nature of technology overcomes anything else. So this is what i laugh when people study Google Business practices. They can fund their own space program. Which is tremendous. But the management could be crummy. Insensitive powerful force technology. So i wanted to exclude that reading and if you excluded, what you are left it is the history, have built an innovation stacking still have dominated their industries. So i go back basically start a hundred years ago they were forward. Just to show that the pattern is something that is systemic in the innovation and not just a result of having Amazon Web Services and growth rate of speech of something loosing this book on the shelf might be surprised to learn that actually started as a graphic novel. Can you tell me a little bit about that evolution. Jim so i didnt write a business book. I dont particularly like most Business Books because they are very boring. There these sort of selfserving and unscientific. And so i saw this and thought i can share this. This thing. And they did not want to write a business book so i started looking at the stories of these companies who had done this. In the stories were epic. They were fantastic. And so that will i dont have to tell this is a business story. I can use this as a graphic novel. So what i originally sold was the sort of schizophrenic manuscript is like graphic novel then tech and flipped back and forth pretty randomly. If anyone liked it. Version say they pretended to like it because he signed a contract. Once they sign a contract, the on the book. So then they took me to this windowless Conference Room in manhattan and had a little talk. It went like this. Do you realize that your cute little comics are not going to show up here and people besides that are going to listen to this as an audiobook. As an audiobook, its useless. You cant take a graphic novelist and like their level is 70 percent of your audience. Otherwise you have to rewrite it. So they were right. And so i rewrote the whole thing. But i still had all of these great comic domain my own comic. You cant buy this thing. I will give you a copy though if you go to my website. Because look, this is a story of a thinker. But its like, is murder. There is a funeral and oh here is that this direction of a major city. This is comic book stuff. And the reason i wanted to do a comic was because the tales of entrepreneurship is a tale of these companies who build innovation stacks, they tend to be really good stories. This is a lot of failure. In failure actually makes good stories. He was here about success. Boring. The failure. How did you get that score. Thats a good story. So i wanted to tell it in this format. And although theres only one chapter the sort of survived, if you buy the book, i will give you the comics. Im not going to sell it. But you can have it. And there is good stories. And they are fun. And so often, i find that we sort of ignore the fun part when what its like to something that has not been done. Was a lot of failure you gotta have a sense of humor but like mistakes, everybody likes to talk about that. Cat so about the comic book, and only one chapter has turned into a comic book now proceed to me the reading that, if you were to write the comic book about squares, the bill and with certainty amazon. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like when you realized that amazon was trying to directly compete with you in the payments space. Jim leaving, i appreciate the irony of dissing amazon when youre in the middle of selling about. [laughter]. So mean, but i will redeem myself the very last second. So yeah, amazon did with the do which is they look to our markets, decided they wanted it and decided to take it. When they take the market, do two things. The copier product. They undercut the price almost always by 30 percent and then they had whatever else they have like your amazon brand a couple hundred million customers in all the stuff. Then they watch you die. So amazon did this. They just run the book. So we were terrified and we went looking for solutions that we could copy to respond. We looked around for all the companies that had been amazon when they had been attacked this way. There were none. Netflix were already a giant with startups. Forget it. Zero. Zero startups that i know of, or that we could find had survived the attack by amazon. They were truly alone. I was terrified and we looked at what we can do. And there wasnt really that much we can do. But amazon was undercutting us in price. They were being amazon. We were terrified. There really wasnt much of that we could do just to do differently. We looked at all of our options and we realize there were all being done for a very reasons we just doing it. We didnt even match them on price. Amazons price was 30 percent lower than ours. We did not match the price. We just kept going. And it lasted for about a year and have read and at the end, on halloween, in 2016, amazon gave up. In the mailed all their former customers in little white square reader. I couldnt believe it. This never happens. This step just does not happen but it is what happened. Thats actually let me to the book. Because as someone who was raised as a scientist, i needed an explanation. I needed to answer the question. Why did this happen. You cant just be lucky there must be some phenomenon and it turns out that they had an innovation stacks. We did it go it at the time. And there a bunch of reasons that i hadnt seen once i saw it, oh my gosh that was what happened. Thats what allowed us to survive amazon. In all of these other companies to survive. These vicious attacks. Amazon is bad but what happened to Southwest Airlines, was worse. So we didnt end up in federal state court did. Cat i wanted to ask you, you mentioned you looked around and couldnt find other companies that had been able to beat amazon. In the book you also say that you found some people who amazon beat. But they werent willing to talk to you on the record about it. Jim so i found many amazon victims. I talked to them personally. In other stories. And i said that is great. Could i put to you. In no. Nobody would. Even people who work in totally different industries, and industries that were not competing with amazon, everybody was so afraid of amazon the nobody would go on record. Ive zero on the record first in this book about what happened with him zone. Cat why are people so afraid of amazon. I dont know. Cat . Jim i will tell you that it was so severe that i could get nobody to go on the record read so there were no posts. Just me. [laughter]. Cat right now where in washington where there is a ton of scrutiny larger Tech Companies. When you look at congress, sec, and so, do you think that amazon is a monopoly. Jim led a monopoly in the traditional sense. But i think they definitely, and some of the behaviors of the market dominance read i dont have a sort of legally valid opinion on this thing but any companies that gets big enough, that it can move markets. They ought to be looked at. And again im not a regulator. I guess i kind of them now. But im a big believer in relation. I think it is probably good in a lot of situations. But on the other side, these tech platforms and amazon in particular are very good at keeping the customer in mind. So i think what you are looking for is a tech platform its very powerful still maintains the semblance of responsibility. I think amazon is and that maybe google to. They deserve relation and different levels. Cat i wanted to ask you about apple because square could not exist without my phone. And they relied on the ipad. So i think about them in that context. Jim thoughtful and superpowerful. And there really important to get along with. They have great innovations and i have tremendous respect for them. And we build our company and product then i think apple introduced to the world which was the this thing. The sample convention. And so, good tremendous amount of respect for them. And theyre also someone you dont want to pass off them. Like what we did in the early days. Which could have ups and apple a lot by we bypassed a little connecting thing in the bottom of it. And we put it square reader and through the microphone jack. I was a nono. You were not supposed to do that. We thought we would get into trouble with apple. And maybe we thought that are product was so cool that maybe they would be good with it. Steve jobs had a way of protecting privacy. If you thought you recall, your fine. Apples lawyers would leave you alone pretty so we did this to save our butts. Cat tummy elisabeth about the design of the square and that process of creating such an iconic design the people recognize in the smithsonian. And in the midst today. Jim this rater which is about this wide, and the one i built was even smaller. It had a basic design flaw. It was one that i noticed that i not to correct. And it was when you are swiping a credit card through, it was so narrow the card would wobble as we go through. And as a result of that, it would result in a misread. Its about 80 percent of the time it would work in about 20 percent of the time, the card would wobble would not work. So to solve this problem, i build another reader was that was a little bit wider and tested it and everybody was 100 percent without. So the question is why did we build a tiny little device that didnt work as well as these big devices. And it wasnt for cost reasons or anything like that. But the reaction of the device was very different. Use the big device, people would be like oh hohum. If i used the small device, the one that is now in this custodian, they were amazed. They were blown away. What just happened. Like remover the first time you saw card go through a square reader. You were impressed. Like everybody was impressed. It cut your intention. So we took this giant gamble, the square to build a product, mechanically did not work all of that will as it could. But it just got your attention and glee away. And looks so cool. It was fun to have people were talking about it. And we just had to go for the cool. So we built something super cool. This day, square meters, they will work better if they were wider. But they are cool. The funny thing is as it turns out that 80 percent of the number really drops after a little bit of practice. So what you practice a little bit you will always get a good read. So we made a product lessthanperfect, the train to customers to use our product and then once they were using it, they were showing off to their friends about how good it was. Cat is a major gamble. You talk about the distinction in your book about entrepreneurs and business people. Could you talk a little bit about that. Jim so i was trying to discover what allowed square to survive amazon. In the process i saw this thing and about the innovation stack and i wanted to tell the world about the sprit of god to draw this or write this but i got to story. And immediately realized that the english leg which does not have a word for this sort of process that i was describing and was building a business but not one that has been done before. So how do you describe somebody to start a business. That was an entrepreneur. Im a friend of mine who started the Coffee Company and hes entrepreneur. As a bishop. The coffee shops have been around for centuries. Like you know how to make a coffee shop. If you dont, you can go to a tradeshow where they will teach you all of the stuff you need. How does this vendor set up your espresso machine. Coffee is a solved problem. So how do you differentiate surveys like that from somebody was doing something that they have never done before. So another friend of mine is trying to launch a satellite for super cheap. And is buying all of these old fighter planes a sense of up to 90000 each and put cinemark to howard dimon and pulls up at the last second. And he has all of this Kinetic Energy and is 70000 feet up. And if you fire a missile at that high, you dont need to have a very big missile because theres so much energy in it. So we can launch satellites cheaper. Where is his tradeshow or jump. He doesnt wealthy is living in a different set of rules. Hes living in this world where i needed to be able to describe that so it turns out, the word entrepreneur was originally used and popularized to describe the person is doing something new and weird. It was the original use of the word. Not in a sense in the main just business. You can say, and entrepreneur. He started the business. But the engineers, the 100 yearold use, and economists that were using it hundred years ago, met nobody who is different. So i sort of in the book, go back 100 years they say when you use this word. We will use in its archaic definition. This is the only word that i can use to describe it it and wanted to be able to differentiate what is it like to not copy because i did not want to write the book. It is a pain. It was very tough for me. But i had to write it because i look for the explanation phenomenon the scene. No one had ever explained it. It and i kept thinking theres learning the vocabulary to cleave off of the part that you want to talk about so i needed to sort of dust off the old definition and then go and find examples supported my thesis. Cat when did you realize you yourself had fallen into that category versus a business person. Jim im still sort of realizing it. By my definition, entrepreneurs are people who have solved problems but not so before it sometimes felt that it. And im certainly in that category. But also had the fortune of doing some stuff that had not been done and then having it work. And then seeing the results. The results are tremendous. And so, it is just a great thing when it works. Finally works i should say. Because typically, at least about that i have taken, failure, the leader, failure, is something prime succeeds. In that success breeds to other problems. And if you do that enough, one of two things will happen, you will either die because you run out of time or Energy Resources or you will succeed and when you succeed, you will basically be in possession of this thing called the innovation stack. You will have done so many Different Things in those Different Things on to relate and influence each other. The what you have will look like nothing else in the market. And it will behave like nothing else in the market. And even when amazon or some may try to copy, they want to be able to. Even amazon with all the resources and talent cannot do it. This pattern is what creates Great Solutions to new problems. Cat you mentioned early since youve known jack or saint since he was at High School Student working for your company. Tell me, when did you first realize that he had some of these qualities of an entrepreneur. Jim was the first quality demonstrated, was the first time because it made him pull an allnighter with us. The day he was hired, we were in this panic, we just needed everybody. Thats how we got him because we were literally crying out everyone from around the location where our company was. Then his mother in the coffee shop that sold us the chocolate covered espresso beans that we were using to keep everybody awake. This was before ritalin before it is widely available. So we would stay awake like munching on caffeine. And marsha sold us and let us her first son and i think she regretted that. Because we sent him home at 5 0. [laughter]. Celeste how i met jack. Holding one. Survive a little food, got it. I later discovered the jack is just incredibly confident. He is by it. He is really good. It just shows through. Cat you mentioned earlier you have almost like a brother relationship with him. You are so defensive of him the first time he was pushed out of twitter. Are your thoughts now that there has been this recent activist investor push once again to potentially push him out of the company and what are your thoughts about that. Jim , you guys have tried that before. If you came out twice, let him with his own company. You keep bringing him back. Like who else but jack will run twitter well. Then again, i dont know anything about twitter. I dont have anything to do with the company but i would say this pretty jack is a fantastic leader. Hes a guy who thinks deeply. And this whining about the fact he is running to public companies. He has been phenomenally successful with square. I would leave him alone. Cat got it. What you think it is about him that gives him the ability to run both of these Large Companies successfully. Jim is single. Cat [laughter]. Jim single no kids. All the married folks out there, you get it. Im not saying the family is not a good tradeoff but im saying, well actually that is why [i had my first child. I cannot work a 12 hour day. Not anymore i would not know my kids. In a not was not fair with all the other people for me to stay around and put in an eight hour day to go home and say see you guys. So that was when i left. Sometimes if the course have a tremendous work ethic. But he is not dragging on. A mini van. The cups. Cat i wanted to ask, how did your life change. Jim i was all of a sudden taller than i was ever in my life. People start treating you differently. My life do not change all that much. Because i was living in st. Louis, i had already paid off most of my gifts that so i was on his debt. Turns out going from ghana debts no debt is a big deal through the plane from no debt to a lot of money, is not that big of a deal. I dont spend much. So that was weird. The people started treating you differently. I stopped getting good feedback. Two just spent three years writing a book and basis your book is great. An unthinking i think if i was sort of my old artist self when is what much grumpier and sort of less known. I would probably be getting more feedback the book might suck but it usually can be honest. The cameras on the rated. What it felt like what i could say the rest of the book, by the way is not going to write it in less i found examples of the phenomenon elsewhere otherwise just me talking about me. And that is boring. So it is not a book about me. It is a book about a phenomenon that up loudest to create that even though we didnt know what it was. Safe you dont square without knowing what it is why it is important to know . The answer is, it gets back to the core of the reason i wrote it. I wrote this, i had a person in mind i know who she is. She is incredibly competent. She is so good, just so much potential shes one of these people who disqualifies herself from trying to do new things because she has no qualifications to do the new thing its heartbreaking. Being qualified is the right answer qualification is possible. But if its not, then you are in my world youre an entrepreneur and youre going to do stuff that fills really worse for me give you examples i want to fly home today my friend flew me up here hes got a little plain. I want to take control of that little plane i got a go it certified i got a medical 40 hours of training that a pass on these tests i have to do all of the stuff to make me a qualified pilot. And then i can with life theres no clouds. So thats good it will be bad for me to it just get his planes aol take over from here, scoot over. Today you can get qualified pilot and you should be a qualified pilot but what about the Wright Brothers . What about the first person who ever flew so awful right got the plane how we can steer this thing . He doesnt know if its possible he doesnt know because there can be no qualifications or be a pilot because no ones ever been a pilot or built a plane. He got two pilots here. The pilot of 2020 better have a medical and all the stuff they need. That pilot of the first wright flyer could not be qualified. So back to my friend. She has been raised and trained as we all have that we need to be qualified to do things were doing your qualified check in the box. Learn from people who know better than you all this stuff apprentice, thats good thats what should be. Except in the case to be doing something that has not been done live 70 problems in the world that havent been solved if we have great people like my friend who i really wrote the book fork disqualifying themselves they dont feel qualified in a situation where they are never going to feel qualified no one will feel qualified to do something that hasnt been done. You know what, every time i hand sweat. I get nervous when im never qualified whose qualified to start a Payment System question right onto glasco with a Computer Science degree and is zip about that the only professional credential jack has as a massage therapist. Biggest bank in the world star the guy whos a produce vendor he sold lettuce Biggest Furniture store in the world started by a guy who was 17 years old. Kicked out of his own country 17 on has the biggest fundraiser compete in the world. Theyre not qualified to do this. But it turns out qualification is effectively irrelevant if you doing something new. I just wanted to reach out and give a taste of what it is like. In stories will hopefully entertain you but at least make you feel when you are in the middle of doing something that you are not qualified to do, that it is okay and others who are also not qualified you the great things they did were in similar situations. What did it feel like when you are at the very beginning of starting square and realizing how much you needed to learn about the payments there is one anecdote in the book where you are working on the product and you realize hey i think were breaking about 17 different laws right now. [laughter] how did you overcome that hurdle . Guest my god, i ignored it we started ignoring with stopped counting at 17 we decided on the very first day everything was against the rules and attorn to the guises that were doing is illegal. [laughter] turns out it was not just illegal in one way it violated 17 different rules and regulations that visa required you to have carp present transactions the following banking relationships in all of it. Its like oh the little stuff. Seventeen laws and rules rags. Which we have since complied with i say that in washington. [laughter] we are not compliant in heavily audited. To because the urine have to get compliant so we built it anyway we turn the machine on even though the machine was not licensed there is no ul certification when i form the first square reader into the first iphone theres also notes bark and explosion. Turns out it works, the system worked, and because the system worked we then had this thing we could point to to get the people whose laws needed to change to accommodate us to change those laws or change the rules so in some cases we would change just retried change our system become comply with the Health System vote theres a few cases we were absolutely in violation of something that had to be changed in order for square to exist we would go to them and show them this beautiful thing that worked. Edges violated the rules they said you need to change a rule and they did. Host another part of your book its highly regulated space you have to break some rules at the beginning is the father of Southwest Airlines of course those are some the most fascinating parts of the book your trip down to texas to meet him, tell me a little bit about that. I know he passed away a year ago id love to hear your thoughts on what his legacy has been in the business world. I so miss Herbert Keller and he was so generous anna probably got the last living interview with him at least its the last one ive ever heard. He welcomed me down to Southwest Airlines. At the time i had a theory and i had all this Historical Data i had great data from history. The things about data from histories guys like that who died in the 40s cannot argue with you. If i am dead wrong you are not going to return from the grave go on cspan and contradict, its not going to happen. That is a copout right i had this theory and i wanted to take my theory and hold it to somebody whod been there say okay herb, you have lived through something i think was similar, what was it like . Herbert was incredibly generous he was super fun, he smoked two packs of cool mentals will we were down there. And this guy said hell yes send thing happen only worse like herb stories i had. [laughter] are always doing something nasty would say herb had like five that were worse it was like watching the world through a magnifying glass a very smokefilled magnifying blaster he was so cool and so fun and he reminded me of how much fun it was. And i tried to capture that in the book i had this whole graphic novel thing ready for herb and mike herb it got make you a superhero and i asked permission to do that and herb said no. He said it was not dignified enough, okay man you could have a tape. Herb did not want to be portrayed like i did for giannini but what a great man what a Great Company they built. If you know what the worlds of air travel looks like before southwest, it was an exclusive providence of the rich. You can only fly if you are rich. In the government in their infinite wisdom concluded only rich people wanted to fly and they said the only rich people are on plane so therefore only rich people want to be on place without asking the question what if you offer the guy affordable fare would want to go visit his grandmother . Herb change so many lives probably saved so many lives people could go on southwest to get cancer treatments at distant Cancer Centers they got the right equipment and fly back to be with their family. These things are lifechanging but you build innovation check you do this you will materially improve the lives of millions of people. Herb was a living example of that and im so sorry we lost him. Stay when theres a great story in the book when youre getting out of this car and you picked that cigarette pack off the ground and he signed it for you. Guest a cap never asked for an autograph in my life ive got friends theres one in the mba nba star of never asked for an autograph. I was so starstruck by herb that i wanted his autograph but i feel that my notebook so there was no space left. Hes drive me to the airport in his car his cars trashed full of empty, cool cigarette boxes. So i grabbed a cigarette box and i handed to the man i said what you autograph a pack of cool mentals for me. He was like sure so he grabs a pen and signs of thing its my most prized possession it is sitting in my office in this little case. Very special. See when thats wonderful you mentioned innovation stack can save lives when you think about that when you think the legacy of square is and how has it changed peoples lives . Guest oh my god, square has allowed people to go into business for themselves. Or right in the middle of coronavirus i dont know when this is going to air but life is going to change people go work for Big Companies and may not be working from home so selfemployment is a viable option but only viable if you can get paid. Let me tell if you sell something that cost more than a hundred bucks nobody cares that much cash anymore. Checks are basically dead. If you dont take electronic request as a form of payment will not get the money. Square enables that started this process. We added on these fantastic tools so now i run my little glass studio using a dozen different square tools from handing Loyalty Programs this is not a square commercials not about that its all these tools the Big Companies have a now i have a Minimal Company that allows me to it compete with these guys i can do the stuff they are doing i dont have to worry about being the best hr system because square helps me handle that. He give tools to the Little People they can compete with the number of companies thats what i find so gratifying as a see a Small Business person who loves doing what shes doing and the business is working theres things making selling or doing or making easy for her so she can ignore the rest of it. Host tell me a little bit about once you step back from square daytoday moved to st. Louis, he started a nonprofit right . Yes launch code. So st. Louis had a problem we had a big deficit of programmers we needed programmers and there is an office in st. Louis we close because we cannot hire enough programmers in my hometown beat which was heartbreaking because i wanted square to be partially located in my hometown. Well after moved back i learned the problem is sort of interesting. It turns out that education does not work in Computer Programming works for Everything Else we need welders we can train welders in the supply of welders will go away if you need programmers you say will open a school for programmers, for some reason that does not work the reason we know it doesnt work is the problem has been getting bigger shortage has been getting bigger for the last 20 years. While 30 years actually we have had plenty of training during that time. The problem with trying theres a bunch of problems one of the main problems is employers wont hire newly minted programmers they can do too much damage if they dont know what theyre doing theyve got no experience they dont get a job wont know job they dont get no experience. So its a catch 22. We started launch code, and launch code is a Free Training Program that gives you the skills you need for free. The most important thing about launch code is we started not as a Training Program but as a job placement system. So if you have the skills launch code get you the job no matter what your credentials where we figured out a way to do that we built an innovation stack and we figured out what nobodies figure out before which is how to place people with competent coding skills but zero experience into a company in a way that does not hurt that company. Were not asking companies to be nice or kinder pay it forward any of that crab no pure greed motivated Companies Hire launch coders because its good for those Greedy Companies its greed based. So that job placement we then coupled with education we added another innovation which is to make it free. Turns out free innovation as part of launch codes innovation stack Free Education was part of launch codes innovation stack it is magical. It does two things, and opens up the doors to everybody we find talented people everywhere. People you not expect people you would look at or test they wouldnt look or testily expected. We give them a Free Education they got a job in kick is a fantastic program. Host tell me a little bit you raids skepticism in the beginning about Business Books. Guest yes some of them are great ive read enough. You kinda know right . Host so that skepticism what is the biggest take away they hope potential entrepreneurs take away from your book . Speech if you do something significant you will not feel qualified to do so and i can explain exactly why you feel that way and show you a path out. And then im going to show this thing called innovation stack which you can build and if you build it meant transforming your industry you dont transform it you basically create a new industry thats different than the other industries. Youre almost beyond attack. We seen this again tassels a great example of it in current day as a dozen examples out california right now. Theyre probably hundreds of examples around the country. It is just a powerful thing. If you see the thing and recognize it, you will be a little less scary essay a little bit i dont people to think the book is some sort of guidebook theres note checklist sono howto guide to basically the of somebody who is been there coupled with supporting historical evidence. And then all tied together around this idea that innovation, true innovation stuff that is not been done before feels differently we dont discuss it. And what is that light . Well lets talk about that. And hopefully if you read it and you find yourself in a situation where you can solve a perfect problem you will not disqualify yourself early. This guy is a multi millionaire he super success was got a painting worth more than my house. He told me he shot one of his companies down and he was six steps into an innovation stack he said if i would have read your book i might not of quit so early. I sat there for Second Thought what would the world be like who is trying to solve a big problem he quit that i cant do it. Its because i kept getting all this negative feedback people telling me its all the stuff i talk about the book and equipped heres a guy successful hasek complete bad if i could use his name i would and youd all be impressed, right . But i cant uses nays i didnt get his permission to tell the story. Dont disqualify yourself. At least know when to disqualify yourself or at least have a sense of what it looks like because its going to feel different. Spew it odyssey the book just hit shelves, have you share this idea of innovation stack and scene play out successfully with any other budding entrepreneurs . Guest oh yeah im not trying to hoard the ideas if you piece together all of my interviews you dont have to buy the book. Its an easy way to disseminate knowledge. I share this all the time. I work with entrepreneurs and talk with them and encourage them sometimes i actively discourage them just to see if they can handle it. But i think the best advice i could give is that new solutions are really messy, ugly things. And we have been trained to want validation in advance. That is going to kill you is when to stop you every time so get over that. And then i hope that people will care about something enough to actually stick their next out. What i found again the got great entrepreneurs i studied none are doing it for the money maybe a little bit then of them are doing it for the same whatever the sort of Public Benefits are not but those are necessarily benefits. But they are doing it because they care deeply about solving a problem. If you care enough about the problem it will give you a terminus motivation see im giving away another chapter right here you dont have to buy the book. The point is you get that motivation to solve a problem you really care about. He care deeply about the problem will drive you in a way that any extra motivator cant you going to need that because especially when even your family members i come home, to this day until my wife some the things im working on it she rolls her eyes now that is in a network. You gotta something to stand on. See when you talk about there so many copycats and special in Silicon Valley theres a distinction between them in the real disruptors and innovators whats a company that youve seen recently you think is a real disruptor and you are excited about . Guest i love let me step back and talk about cats, copycats. Ive got no judgment against copying i think copying is exactly the way to do anything. Everything in this room everything here is a copy and some of it is actually fake those are not real tvs. Its a copy and thats right because people book tv studios they figured out they need to air condition this that much we dont sweat this tv station we are in right now is a copy of other tv studios, this desk, chair, its all copied this chair is serving as a perfectly good chair. I love copying ill always copy theres an existing solution. But i dont believe it should stop at copying. I dont believe we should only copy. I believe if you limit yourself to only the world of known solutions, you will deprive all of us of this new thing you could potentially invent. So companies i think youre doing great i love tesla, i frankly love spacex. The guy who sits there and goes im going to land a rocket like that, all my rockets can land straight up and down not take this off and fished it out of the ocean im in a stick the landing. The first five times seven times out of my homely times you saw the videos he sticks the landing. Tesla is not a traditional automobile has a massive innovation stack you think its just a battery, electric motor you are dead wrong. How they engineered the chasity goes together the Software Works how you approach a car like there are hundreds of things that are different theres an innovation stack in the test so that gms get a hard time copying. So ive tremendous respect for these companies especially because they usually get so much abuse you want to see a company with innovation stack issued almost look for when theyre almost mocking. Steubenville got a couple minutes left we talked a little bit today about perfect problems i want to ask whats the next perfect problem youve identified the want to solve. The one im working on right now is journalism specifically the problem that we as individuals have lost control of our online identities. We no longer have control over part of our self parts are right now i exist with a bunch of servers and add Tech Companies and big platforms i dont know whats in the files i dont know if its being used for good or against me is just bad for me as an individual whats also bad for me as an individual is i have lost my Economic Voice what i mean by this is i cant pay more for good content and less for crab. So heres the problem, most media these days is a monetized using advertise so their subscriptions at work for a handful. Most publications and most videos are supported by say Washington Post Financial Times wall street journal Financial Times and economist. Okay if its not one of those five though actually its your decision i think it was celeste tried to talk me into doing this back in 2016 of building a micro Payment System. The reason he wanted to do it and the reason ive been doing it, is because all of us as Consumers Want to be able to pay more for good step in less for bad affect how we signal what the good from about to go out have lunch in d. C. Im going to spend my money at some restaurant and probably going to eat vegan ida plant based diet. Five by a bunch of expensive vegetables and pay more for like a plant burger than i would a real hammacher that is a vote for plant based diets about the gets tabulated by pay 20 bucks thats 20 votes for this sort of thing that i want now we tabulate all those votes and thats what gives us quality and everything. It doesnt work on mine because the security thing about online consumption is if i trick you into watching something for ten seconds make the same couple of pennies off those ten seconds as if i create ten seconds you loved your journalist its what you do for living you need to get paid you fact check you have a whole Organization Behind you then each get page and whos gonna pay for that . Consumers like me who consume your staff. I need to pay you more because youre a Big Organization is to create that quality. Its not a judgment of whos right and whos wrong, its simply a way of saying human need to be able to express their preferences otherwise we will be left with crab. Think of it again in terms of food. If we pass along d. C. That every meal is ten bucks which you like . What happens customers ao into this great restaurant tonight and went to fancy steak know they just went out of business because they cannot put a fancy steak in front of you for ten bucks. Now you wont star because what will happen is the Business Model to replace it will be will just make the cheapest crab we probably can and sell for ten bucks. Thats the world we live in an journalism what he think is a crime is a fact that what we become is a combination of a little bit and the rest is what we put in our heads. The model for what we eat pretty much works the model of what we put in our heads the material you create is a journalist is now being economically incentivized by the system that rewards cheap. Thank god jeff is rich in amazons a Great Company because amazon made jeff rich and jeff employed you and probably loses money on the deal. Thank you jeff for employing cats that we shouldnt have to live in that world enough and im working on now its. Thats unfortunately time we have for today think is much for joining us to talk about the new book again its innovation stack. B2 thank you. Tonight on book tv beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern highlights from her monthly indepth series. Its followed by former preacher cordray with the details the creation of the bureau. Then journalist Michele Moulton offers her thoughts on u. S. Immigration policy, watch book tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan2. This memorial day weekend on book tv saturday at 3 25 p. M. Eastern bestselling offer trend author talks about how bookstores are corrected by coronavirus. On sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern foundation for liberty and emeriti greatness and president nick adams on his book true and churchill defenders of western civilization. At 430 eastern Time Magazine National Political correspondent talks about her latest book pelosi which looks at the career of the speaker of the house of representatives nancy pelosi. And at 9 00 p. M. On after words, facebook cofounder chris hughes talks about his book fair shot about his plan to reduce poverty and strength in the middle class. Then on monday at 8 30 p. M. Eastern, bestselling thriller writer talks about his writing career and books on indepth. Watch book tv, this memorial day weekend on cspan2. The president s from Public Affairs available now in paperback and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by the ranking by noted historian from best to worst. And features perspective in the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles visit our website cspan. Org the president s to learn more about each president and historian featured an order your
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