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[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANA CORRALES: Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Talks at Google.
I'm Ana Corrales, the COO of Devices and Services.
I just wanted to mention that if you have questions,
we definitely want to capture those in the live chat.
That will be on your right.
And also, if you ask questions, we're
going to be giving you a copy of Guy Raz's new book, which
is super exciting.
So definitely an extra incentive for you
guys to think of great questions.
It's really my honor to introduce
today's guest, Guy Raz.
Many of you probably hear him every day,
because he has about 14 million people who
listen to him a month.
I'm one of those people.
And definitely, we want to welcome him into Google.
So let's bring up Guy.
And then I will do his formal introduction.
GUY RAZ: Hello.
ANA CORRALES: Thank you so much for joining us at Google.
It's really a pleasure to have you here.
Let's introduce you a little bit.
I know there's so much to talk about.
Let's start with the fact that you're a native Californian.
So we love you for that already.
And you are also the host and editorial director of NPR.
You have three shows.
I think you're one of the few people who have three very
popular shows in the top 20.
So, another one of your big accomplishments.
One of them is the "TED Radio Hour,"
which I believe is one of the fastest growing podcasts
in NPR, so congratulations.
The second one is "How I Built This,"
and that's the basis of your book
that we'll be discussing today that just released last week,
I think on September 15.
So congratulations on that for you.
And then, you have one that's near and dear
to my heart, which is "Wow in the World," which
is the first ever podcast for kids.
I think adults could get a lot out of that, too.
In addition to that, before you did all these podcasts,
you've had this incredible career that started very early.
And I think you were also a [INAUDIBLE] fellow at Harvard,
which was super impressive.
And I think you have so many awards,
I don't think I can go through all of them.
But I can definitely say that you
had your work in Iraq contributed
to many very prestigious awards for you and also for NPR.
Your work has contributed to the Peabody Award.
So now you're an author.
So if that wasn't enough, you're adding author to your resume.
And like I said, you've just written "How I Built This,"
and that came out last week.
So that's really what we're hoping
to discuss with you today.
On a personal basis, you're married.
You have two kids.
And from what I hear, you really love baseball, too.
So we can obviously wave that in.
So, really welcome to Google, Guy,
and thank you for joining us today.
GUY RAZ: Thank you for having me.
I think if I was watching that introduction, I would say, God,
I really hate that person.
They just sound like an overachiever.
And I would say that is the Facebook version of my life,
right?
The highlight reel.
And of course, it sounds very impressive,
but there are lots of very difficult, challenging,
catastrophic moments of failure throughout the--
ANA CORRALES: In between.
GUY RAZ: --throughout those times,
and but I'm very fortunate to have had an interesting career
and to be able to tell stories and to do "How I Built This."
And by the way, great news is that last year,
at the end of last year, I stepped down
from "TED Radio Hour."
And now, the show has a new, incredible host,
named Manoush Zomorodi.
So you should still check out the show.
It's still a great show.
And thank you for welcoming me.
ANA CORRALES: No, that was a good one for sure.
No, thank you.
Just one comment-- I would say I really sympathize with the fact
people see your career in LinkedIn or in your bio
or in Wikipedia, and they just assume that there was never
a tear, never a sweat, never a dire moment,
and that couldn't be further from the truth.
I think every successful person has always had that.
GUY RAZ: There were anti-depressants.
There were moments on the floor lying, crying with anxiety.
Yes, all those things.
ANA CORRALES: [INAUDIBLE] crying for sure.
All right, let's start because I want to get through.
We have so many questions that people submitted.
And we hope to get even more through this talk.
So the first one is, let's start with the pandemic.
It's such an important part of what's happening in the world
right now.
You have such a wide perspective.
I would love to hear what, for you, was
really surprising, both professionally and personally
through this pandemic.
GUY RAZ: I think I've been surprised at human resilience.
I mean, we've seen stories and we've read stories about--
certainly in this country, because it's easy.
It's been easy to live in the United States
for the last 50 years for most of us.
And we've read stories of people living in London
during the Blitz and people withstanding
hardship during wartime.
And of course, I wouldn't compare
this to living in London during the Blitz
or during wartime conditions.
But it's not that far off, in some ways.
And I think that what's been pretty remarkable to me
is to see how resilient Americans can be.
I think it's-- and people around the world.
I think it's been a really challenging time.
And we have adapted.
It's not ideal.
I think most of us wish that we didn't have to work from home
and that we could see our friends
and our loved ones and our colleagues.
And but at the same time, I think
that we have managed as best as possible.
And so, that's been pretty great.
It's been a silver lining during an otherwise challenging
and often bleak time.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah.
OK, you are now--
you've been a journalist your whole career.
You're always interviewing people.
Now you're getting interviewed.
You're writing a book.
How does it feel to be on the other side?
Would love to hear that.
And then, also, you're launching a book in the pandemic.
So how has that experience been for you so far?
GUY RAZ: Yeah, I love talking to people.
I love pulling stories out of people.
I love triggering memories.
That's what I do.
That's why I get out of bed in the morning, because I love
hearing other people's stories, because I
think that's how we learn about the world
and how we learn about ourselves.
And we see ourselves in the stories of others.
And what I try to do with the people I interview
is to humanize them.
The people that we venerate and might--
I don't know-- sort of put on a pedestal
and think of as heroes are actually ordinary people who
have their own anxieties and challenges
and dealt with their own crises and struggles.
In my case, I mean, it's true that I
have spent most of my time asking the questions.
And now, the tables have turned.
And it's incredibly heartwarming and gratifying
to hear that people are interested in me.
Because I just think of myself as--
we all have our own self-image.
Why would somebody be interested in me?
But it's really nice to see that people
are interested in me and in the book and in the shows that I do
and in the content that I create.
And it's also a chance for me to connect
with the people who are moved or touched or affected or inspired
by the work I do.
Because that's why I do it.
I do it for that reason.
I do it for you guys, for the people
who are here and watching and listening.
That's why I do it.
So it's been a very interesting experience so far.
I will say, in terms of launching
a book in the midst of a pandemic, originally,
I would have been on a two-week book tour
around the country and then overseas.
ANA CORRALES: Did you consider pushing it,
like so many people are doing?
Just pushing everything to the right,
hoping that it's better later?
GUY RAZ: No, because this is going to last for a long time.
I think this sort of pandemic and even
after there's a vaccine or we feel more comfortable,
I think people will still be reluctant to go
to live events for a while.
I think we're going to live with this for quite some time.
So the reality is, we have to adapt.
The downside is I don't get to interact personally
with the people who listen to the show
and have been inspired by it.
The upside is--
ANA CORRALES: I know, because we would
be in a big room full of people for you--
GUY RAZ: That's right.
ANA CORRALES: --at Google, so yeah.
GUY RAZ: Right, and I've been to Google's campus
and have spoken there before, and it's just
wonderful to be there.
The upside is, I've been able to have hundreds of conversations.
I mean, so many since early August,
when podcasts and these kinds of events.
And so, that's been great.
I've been able to talk about the book and answer questions
and to do it efficiently because I'm not going anywhere.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, no, totally.
It's a lot more efficient, that's for sure.
I know you've spoken to so many people
throughout your different shows, your experience
as a journalist, I think 6,000 and above.
Then you started your podcast.
And then, you sort of wrote this book.
But your first episode, I believe,
was with Sara Blakely, who was the founder of Spanx.
And I was just wondering if you could describe why
you picked her, why that story.
Would love to get your thoughts on that.
GUY RAZ: Yeah, I mean, there was a few things--
well, many things that we did very deliberately
at the beginning.
I thought of how I built this as--
I've never thought of it as a business show.
I've always thought of it as a show about human journeys.
So it's like a hero's journey.
If you know Joseph Campbell and you
know the notion of a hero's journey,
you will find that in every episode of "How I Built This,"
there's a narrative arc, and you will hear from somebody
who had a crazy idea, encountered doubters, found
a mentor, the mentor died, slayed a dragon,
almost died themselves, obviously not literally,
but metaphorically.
And so, really from the outset, I
wanted this to be a show about human journeys
because that's really how we learn.
Whether we're entrepreneurs or acting
in an entrepreneurial way or we want to introduce a disruptive
idea into the world, we learn through stories,
through other people's mistakes and triumphs and failures
and so on.
And when it came to Sara Blakely,
it was a very deliberate decision.
By that point, I had interviewed probably 15 or 20 people.
And we had 10 or 12 episodes fully produced at that point.
And the reason why I started with Sara Blakely
was because I wanted to signal that this show was going
to be a different kind of show, a different kind of business
show.
So a business show that's not really a business show,
but also a business show that wasn't
focused on the usual suspects.
Of course, we were going to have well-known titans of industry
as well.
But I wanted to signal that this was
going to be a show that was going
to focus on a broad range of people and of subjects
and of products and services, that it wasn't
going to be just a tech show.
In fact, very few of our episodes
have been about tech companies.
That it was going to be a show about people
that we could identify with.
So, Sara Blakely was a very deliberate choice.
And what's been interesting for us
is that "How I Built This," despite the fact that I'm a man
and that it is in the business category,
we have a considerably larger audience of women
than we do of men, which is unusual for most business
shows.
Most business shows--
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, did not know that, actually.
Yeah.
GUY RAZ: --skew heavily towards male listeners.
And ours skews toward women listeners.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah.
Oh, well, that's super helpful.
I did not know that, so that makes a lot of sense.
And yeah, I think your podcasts have gone from pita chips all
the way to Airbnb.
So it's a wide range for sure.
And talking about that wide range,
and you open with this when I did your intro,
failure is such an important component,
and people hear about failure--
they hear it, but I don't think they really grasp it.
And they see somebody as accomplished as you,
with everything you've done and been recognized for.
Why is failure so important, especially for entrepreneurs,
and failure so important for innovation?
Talk to me about your thoughts around that.
GUY RAZ: Well, I mean, here, I'm talking
to Google, which is where you've got the Google X,
and you've got all these sort of moonshot projects.
And failure is rewarded.
We learn from failure much more so than we do from the success.
Oftentimes, I receive a pitch from a PR person,
and it goes like this.
And we receive about 1,000 pitches a week for the show.
And we can only do 40 to 45 episodes a year.
And the pitch will be something like this.
My client is a Forbes 25 under 20 or 25 under 25.
They are a billionaire.
They launched this 10 companies and sold them.
They're a world class gymnast and a ballroom dancer
and on and on, just a list of successful.
And when I get emails like that, I usually just hit Delete.
Because that's not interesting.
ANA CORRALES: Tell me why.
GUY RAZ: That's not interesting.
What's interesting is to find out
how this person actually struggled
and what mistakes this person made.
Because if I'm bringing somebody to "How I Built This,"
implicit in their appearance on the show
is that they've succeeded, right?
In some way, they've had some impact
on our culture in some way through a product or service
that they've brought to bear, right?
If all we're talking about is the next success
and the next success and the next success,
and you're listening to that, and you're
dreaming of building something, how can you actually
relate to that?
How is that going to be helpful for you?
And so, my job is to kind of be an avatar for our listeners,
not just people who are dreaming of building a business
or who are in the middle of building a business
or who are in the thick of it, and that
is a significant segment of our audience,
but people who work for big companies, also
who are thinking about trying to introduce
an entrepreneurial idea within their organization.
So my job is to be your representative and your avatar
and to think, what is going to serve you as a listener?
How are you going to benefit from this person?
Because I have access to Howard Schultz and Sara Blakely
and Richard Branson.
I'm very lucky.
I have that access, by the way, not
because I'm special or smart or famous or any of that.
It's because I have a big audience.
We're very fortunate--
ANA CORRALES: You've earned it.
That's fundamentally there.
GUY RAZ: Well, earned it or got lucky or whatever.
The point is, is that we're very fortunate.
We have a big audience.
And if you replaced me with Joe Smith or some random person
with the same audience, they would also
be able to attract these people.
What I'm trying to do is to say, look, I have this access,
and I'm going to use it to benefit
the people who listen to the show because that's my job.
That's my role.
And so, we are very deliberate in how
we sort of focus on failure.
Because of course, success is embedded within the story.
And we will hear about it.
But failure is really where we can learn from that person.
And it's also the touch touchpoint
where that person shows their generosity.
Because when people can talk about their failures,
they're actually showing their vulnerability.
ANA CORRALES: And their humility, yeah.
GUY RAZ: And that's crucial.
That's key.
We need to hear and see that vulnerability.
ANA CORRALES: Well, one question related to that,
do you, after all these interviews and all
this experience you've had, do you
think that entrepreneurial spirit is something
you're born with, or it's something you
develop, or is it a mindset?
You talked about sort of discarding
the 20-year-old phenom.
What's the range of people you see?
Describe what you see relative to that.
Because I think some people feel,
oh, if I wasn't an entrepreneurial baby,
it's done for me.
I don't believe that personally.
What's your take?
GUY RAZ: Yeah, I agree.
I think it's nonsense.
First of all, Ana, as you know-- and we just
posted this on our Twitter feed a couple of days ago.
The average age of a first-time entrepreneur is 45, OK?
It's not--
ANA CORRALES: 20.
GUY RAZ: Yeah, it's not Larry and Sergey in the basement.
They're anomalies, you know?
And by the way, I don't know if either of those guys
was a natural born entrepreneur, right?
I mean, they were grad students who were producing and creating
a really cool search engine.
Most of us have within us the capacity
to be and think and act entrepreneurially.
It is a mindset.
And it's not a superpower, and entrepreneurs are not
superheroes.
They're simply using techniques and skills
that enable them to conquer fears and put ideas out
into the world.
So yes, there are some people who are born that way.
A good example is Mark Cuban, who's been on the show.
At age 16, he was reading a book called "How to Retire at 35."
He was determined to become a millionaire,
and he planned his life that way.
And he did.
He became a millionaire by age 30.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah.
GUY RAZ: But he's actually rare.
I mean, most of the people on the show
learned how to become entrepreneurs,
learned how to think and act entrepreneurially.
Many of them are introverts.
Many of them had to find their charisma over time.
And those things are developed through experiences.
I mean, think about what you're doing now, Ana.
If I met you 20 years ago, and I don't
know for sure, but if I met you 20 years ago,
there's a possibility you might have
felt uncomfortable presenting in front of a large audience.
Maybe you would have been nervous about it.
Maybe you would have doubted yourself.
But now, you've achieved a level of success over time
with hard wins, right?
You had your own business.
You sold it.
You went to Google.
You now run this part of Google.
So you have kind of grown into your charisma.
The same with me, right?
This is a natural progression.
And so, I actually fundamentally believe that entrepreneurship
and entrepreneurial thinking, these
are developed and acquired skills.
And you can develop them at any point in your life and career.
And in fact, many of the entrepreneurs that we interview
started their businesses in their 40s, some in their 50s.
And most of the people I interview
are over the age of 40 because it allows us to kind of really
explore their mind and their experiences.
And you need that time to be able to reflect and offer
those reflections and that wisdom.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, that's super helpful
because I think there's misconceptions
on that for sure.
I personally, to answer your question,
I still remember the first time I
had to present to 6,000 people.
I wasn't really super stressed about it until I got
to that moment, like T minus 5.
And then I just freaked out.
So yeah, there's a lot you can learn.
Talking about skills, let's keep on that topic.
Resilience is one of those skills.
And in your book, you have many stories where it's like, oh,
I was going to do a pita sandwich,
and then I couldn't find real estate.
And so, then I ended up doing pita chips.
Or I lost my business because I didn't quite protect it,
and I just dust myself off or my company didn't go well.
But then I ended up inventing Slack out of something
I was using to do a different product.
So many different stories of resilience.
Why do you think that's so important?
And what's the best way to sort of teach that
and to really get through that?
Because I think it goes hand in hand with that failure topic
we were talking about earlier.
What are your thoughts on resilience?
GUY RAZ: Yeah, resilience and failure
are two sides of the same coin, right?
I really love this.
I've had this really interesting experience on the show with--
and I talk about it a little bit in the book.
I allude to it a little bit in the book, which is people often
ask me, what is the skill you need to be
a successful entrepreneur?
What is it that you have to have?
And there are different answers to this question.
You can talk about the ability to withstand fear or conquer
fear.
I like the word rejection.
You have to be able to accept rejection, hear the word no,
and then keep moving forward until you hear yes.
So I don't mean accept rejection and then just kind of bow out.
ANA CORRALES: Go away.
GUY RAZ: I mean, hear it and just keep moving forward.
That's very hard for most of us to do, right?
Because most of us are hardwired to want validation.
I want to go to you and say, Ana, I have this awesome idea,
and I want you to say, awesome idea, I love it!
But what happens if I come to you, and I say,
I have this awesome idea, and you say,
well, I don't know if it's going to work.
It doesn't quite fit.
I know that doesn't happen at Google
because at Google, every answer is, yes, let's do it, right?
Am I right about that?
ANA CORRALES: Not quite, but there's a lot of that.
There's a lot of that.
It's a much more encouraging place
than other places, that's for sure.
GUY RAZ: Right, but in many corporate environments,
that's the experience people have.
Or you have a product or service you
want to bring out to the world, and you want
people to love it right away.
Well, how do you develop the ability to hear no,
or I don't know if that's going to work, or nah,
that's not quite right, but to keep plowing forward.
Well, one of the ways that I've experienced this
is through some of the entrepreneurs
I've interviewed, many of them who
were in sales, who started out in sales
or who had experience in sales.
One of these examples is Tope Awotona, who founded Calendly.
Calendly, as many of you know, it's
a scheduling service, right?
It's a scheduling--
I know you guys use Google Calendar,
so you don't use Calendly.
But he's an immigrant from Nigeria.
He came to the US at age 15, finished high school,
went to the University of Georgia.
And his first job in college was selling ADT alarm systems
door to door.
And he went to 500 doors a week.
Now imagine this kid knocking at 500 doors
a week in Athens, Georgia.
490 doors were slamming in his face.
ANA CORRALES: At least.
GUY RAZ: But he learned that once he got a sale,
it actually made all those 490 slammed doors worth it.
Because he had no money.
And it was like a huge commission.
And it really drove him to just keep knocking on those doors.
He then went into software sales and did that for 10 years.
And again, a lot of no's, a lot of rejection.
Sara Blakely of Spanx, she sold fax machines for seven years
to office parks, in office parks, door to door.
ANA CORRALES: That's amazing.
GUY RAZ: She had so many no's, so many no soliciting.
Please leave the property.
Those daily indignities and those daily rejections,
they essentially inoculate you over time.
And they help you build the kind of resilience
you need to have when it gets really hard.
And so, it's connected to all kinds of failures.
I mean, failure is very hard.
It's not fun.
Nobody likes it.
But if you can kind of reframe and reorient
the way you think about it, it's very hard.
I'll give you an example.
Right now, as in real-time, I had a failure this week.
I'm going to tell you what it was.
ANA CORRALES: Let's see.
Let's hear it.
GUY RAZ: My book did not make "The New York Times" bestseller
list, OK?
And we sold enough books probably
to make it in a normal time.
But it's not a normal time.
Every book on that list is a Trump book for anti-Trump, OK?
And by the way, if you do want to help me make the list,
I need you to buy the book.
ANA CORRALES: These people are asking questions.
They're going to get it for sure.
GUY RAZ: It supports our show.
Buy it for friends, buy it for loved ones.
It supports NPR.
It supports our show.
And it helps.
So that's a failure.
But we have to keep pushing forward, right?
We've got to--
ANA CORRALES: But that's a great example.
Why is the expectation that every book
will hit that list immediately?
GUY RAZ: Well, it's just one of those things that
also helps to generate more excitement
and interest in a book.
So it's one of those milestones.
Now we might make another list, maybe "The Wall Street Journal"
list or another list, and that's great.
But the point is, is that those failures sting.
In real-time, they do, but you have
to figure out a way how to reframe, reflect on them,
and figure out how to keep moving forward.
And in my case, the reason why when I encounter failures,
and we do all the time with "How I Built This,"
with other projects that we start
and they don't quite work out, it's easier to deal with now
because I've had so many throughout my career,
small, medium, and big ones, that
have helped me to withstand them better when they happen.
It doesn't mean it's easier.
It's like--
ANA CORRALES: It still stings, yeah.
GUY RAZ: --you get a flu shot, right?
And you still might get the flu, but it's probably slightly less
severe than it would be if you didn't have the flu shot.
That's what failure is.
It's like a series of little flu shots
that you actually need to understand
how to withstand the really tough times when
you're building something.
And it's crucial.
It's essential.
You cannot succeed without failures.
ANA CORRALES: I totally agree.
One question I had for you as I was reading your book,
a lot of your stories thus far were US-based.
How do you see the role of the US in innovation, of Silicon
Valley in innovation?
What are your thoughts around that, especially
with a pandemic?
Just in general, how the world is shifting,
what are your thoughts on that?
GUY RAZ: Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons why
most of our stories are US-based, I mean,
there are a number of reasons.
The US, for a variety of reasons,
has been kind of the center of entrepreneurship
in the world for a long time.
That's changing, of course.
The other reason is, we are a US-based show,
so the bulk of our audience is US-based.
So just like any "Oprah" or "The Tonight Show" or whatever,
you naturally focus on US companies and brands.
But I am very interested in--
I mean, there are some incredibly powerful brands
overseas that we don't--
I mean, in Turkey, in India, obviously, in China, in Brazil,
in Mexico.
And I think that the world of entrepreneurship
is shifting so quickly.
And the center of gravity is changing so quickly.
If we think of the United States as a center
for entrepreneurship, it's not wrong, right?
Lots of people have come here for the last 200 years
and certainly, the last 50 years to start businesses.
So many people have come from Asia and Africa and Latin
America--
ANA CORRALES: Me included.
Yeah, Latin America.
GUY RAZ: --and Europe, right, to the United States
because in their countries, there
was a time when, to start a business,
it was very difficult. There was a lot of red tape.
Maybe you had to pay somebody off.
Maybe you had to know somebody or have a connection.
It wasn't easy to start a business.
And in the US, traditional--
ANA CORRALES: It just didn't exist.
GUY RAZ: Right?
ANA CORRALES: It just wasn't even a thought, yeah.
GUY RAZ: And in the US, traditionally, it was.
That's changed a lot over the past 20, 30 years,
especially because in the United States,
we've actually seen a decline in entrepreneurship
over the past 30 years, believe it or not.
We have fewer entrepreneurs today than we did in the 1980s,
in the 1970s.
Why is that?
There are many reasons why.
I will offer you my theory.
It's because of health insurance.
Americans get their health insurance
from their business, their companies where they work.
So more and more Americans have migrated
to work for large companies where they can
receive their health insurance.
In Europe, in Australia, in Asia, Asian countries,
where there's universal healthcare,
there's a great, amazing culture of entrepreneurship.
Because you can do it.
You can take that risk, and you still have health insurance.
So, actually, one of the conversations
I'd love to see happening in this country
is around the connection between health insurance
and entrepreneurship.
I mean, if you believe that entrepreneurship
is the engine of innovation, which I do,
and you are pro-entrepreneurship,
and you are truly pro-business, there's
a very strong argument to support universal healthcare.
Because when people have healthcare,
and they don't have to worry about getting it
from their employer, they can go start a business.
They can go create something, put something out
into the world.
And it's a very compelling argument,
I think, to support this idea of giving people
some kind of assurance that they'll have healthcare,
despite the risks and challenges they take.
But I think that we're looking at a world
where some of the most innovative ideas
are going to be coming out of China, are
going to be coming out of India, out of Europe, Africa.
I mean, we're already seeing it.
So I'm super excited about what's
happening in a lot of those other countries.
And we'll see where it goes.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, well, this is why Google is very committed
to innovating.
That's why we do a lot of moonshots
for that very purpose.
I have two questions that I have to get out
before we go to the audience.
So we're going to try to do a little bit of rapid fire.
You talked a lot about scary versus dangerous.
Can you expand on that quickly?
And what is the difference between those two?
And why does it matter?
GUY RAZ: Yeah, doing scary things
is you sitting here doing this, moderating this event
in front of lots of people, right?
That's scary, but it's not dangerous.
It's not, right?
And so, this really comes from a conversation
I had with Jim Koch, the founder of Sam Adams beer.
He was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.
He had a safe job.
He had the golden handcuffs, making lots of money.
But he wasn't happy.
And he knew that if he stayed in his job
for the rest of his life, he would be miserable.
That was dangerous, right, because he
would wake up one day and regret that he didn't take the leap.
ANA CORRALES: And hate it, yeah.
GUY RAZ: It was scary to leave his job
and to start a beer company at a time
when nobody had any respect for American beer
in the early '80s.
It was really scary.
But it was dangerous not to do it.
And that's the difference.
ANA CORRALES: OK, that's super fair.
One other thing I wanted to just touch on really quickly.
You have "Wow in the World," which is, obviously,
a different show.
That is the first ever sort of podcast targeted for children.
GUY RAZ: NPR show.
NPR distributed show, yeah.
ANA CORRALES: NPR.
GUY RAZ: Yeah, I produce it, and we work with NPR,
and they distribute it.
So it's the first time NPR's ever
distributed a kids' show, yeah.
ANA CORRALES: Which is great.
And it's doing really well.
So I wanted to ask you a couple of things.
One of them is, with all the experience and stories,
all those stories that you have and that you've thought about
and really reflected on, what's the advice you kind of give
to your children?
What is the thing that you've been
trying to sort of really inculcate in your children?
And was that the inspiration for the show?
And what are you trying to do with that show?
How can we help?
Tell us a little bit about the efforts for children there.
GUY RAZ: "Wow in the World" is a cartoon for the year.
It was designed for one very specific reason.
It was designed to get kids to put their screens down
and to raise their eyes up to the sky
and to look at the stars and ask,
how far away are those stars?
Can we ever go there?
And the answer is no, of course.
It would take us 25,000 years to get to the closest star,
but it's still a question you should ask.
I found awe and wonder.
I rediscovered it when my children were
born, when we were walking down a sidewalk,
and they saw something crawling, and they
were like, daddy, look at that!
ANA CORRALES: What is that?
Yeah.
GUY RAZ: That changed my world.
It changed my life.
And "Wow in the World" was designed
to get kids to put their screens down
and to put the screen in their mind.
It's a television show in their mind.
If you've got a kid between the ages of 4 and 12 in your life,
tell them about "Wow in the World."
Every episode is rooted in a peer-reviewed scientific
journal article, OK?
We translate that for children.
We go back in time.
I do it with my co-host Mindy Thomas.
We go underwater.
We go into space.
We fly on a giant pigeon.
We launched this show three years ago.
We're very fortunate it's the number one kid's
podcast in the United States.
ANA CORRALES: Congratulations.
GUY RAZ: And it is super exciting.
We love doing it.
If you want to support us, if anybody wants to support us,
the best way to support us is to listen to the show,
tell people about it.
And if we can partner with Google, we'd love to do it,
so do let us know.
ANA CORRALES: OK, we'll look into it.
And what's the advice that--
I feel like you remember a few things your parents tell you,
but there were a couple that were just so prominent.
After all this experience, what are you
trying to inculcate in your children?
GUY RAZ: Something very simple, and I think a lot of parents
do this intuitively.
It's follow your curiosity, right?
Follow your cur-- because your curiosity
is going to lead you down so many different paths and rabbit
holes.
And it's going to unlock all of these new ideas and passions
that you didn't even know you had.
So right now, my son, my 11-year-old,
he's really interested in building a gaming computer, OK?
Do I love that he plays video games?
No, not really.
I don't love it.
It's not my favorite thing, but he's
so excited about buying the components
and building a gaming computer.
And we're going to do it, and it's awesome.
ANA CORRALES: There's a lot to learn about that, yeah.
GUY RAZ: There's a lot to learn, right?
ANA CORRALES: Yeah.
OK, great.
I think we're going to go to questions.
So, to the audience question.
So again, if you ask a question, we'll
definitely be giving you a copy of Guy's new book, which
is unbelievably great.
OK, so we have a question from Nicholas van Vliet.
Which HIBT interview was the toughest interview for you?
You mentioned that you wanted to humanize these entrepreneurs.
Were there anywhere that was actually pretty tough to do?
GUY RAZ: I've had some tough interviews earlier on.
And part of that was because we didn't really fully prepare
the person for the interview.
And our process is very different now.
So I'll answer this briefly.
Yes, I would say one of the toughest interviews I have had
was with Jann Wenner.
Jann Wenner is the founder of "Rolling Stone" magazine.
He was tough to humanize, I'll be honest.
I mean, and then a few months after that episode came out,
there were some allegations about his behavior at Rolling
Stone.
And that was unfortunate.
We don't have a 100% perfect record,
but we have a pretty good record on "How
I Built This," sort of filtering out for certain qualities.
We look for kind entrepreneurs.
We look for entrepreneurs who represent
the best of entrepreneurship.
Because our show represents entrepreneurship
to a lot of people.
But we don't spend a whole lot of time
trying to convince people.
We really want people to come on the show
only if they want to come on the show.
And also, as you can imagine, if you listen to
"How I Built This," there are some omissions.
There are some titans that many of you
know of who are not on the show.
And there's a reason why because in some of those cases,
they have approached us.
Their staffs have approached us.
And we're very excited to interview them.
But they come with conditions.
You can't ask about this, you can't
ask about that, and no talking about this.
And my answer to that is, I totally get it.
I respect you.
I completely understand.
But we can't do that because our audience won't accept it,
and I can't--
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, that's not genuine.
GUY RAZ: --do the show with integrity
if we're rigging this game, right?
You have to come with an open heart and open mind.
You have to be willing to surrender to the process.
And if you can do that, we welcome you with open arms,
and we want you on the show because we will contextualize
your life, your ups, your downs, the mistakes you made,
the decisions, the good decisions, the bad decisions.
So that's crucial and key.
Now, before every interview I do--
and I've done this now for three years--
I have a half hour conversation with every single person weeks
before they join me in the studio.
And I say this exact same thing I've just told you.
No conditions.
We need you to surrender.
We need you to come with a sense of generosity.
And we want you to do-- we want you to come--
ANA CORRALES: Do you have people fall out during that process?
GUY RAZ: Occasionally.
Very rarely, but occasionally.
And look, I'm very clear with them.
I'm like, I don't want to pressure you to come on.
And it's an off the record conversation.
And I know we're going to know a lot about you.
We do a very deep dive.
We even do a background check on you.
We know as much as we can know about you.
And it's not to embarrass you.
It's to contextualize your life and also
to protect us, because we have to represent integrity.
So we have to make sure that the person who's
coming on, if there was something that happened
in their life that maybe missed the mark, we
want you to explain it and talk about it
in an open and generous way.
No one's perfect.
No one is perfect.
Larry and Sergey aren't perfect, right?
They're good guys.
Nobody-- Ana's not.
I'm not.
We're all flawed.
We're all flawed, right?
And so, we have to--
but we all need to be contextualized.
That's really important.
And that's what I'm trying to do on the show, so.
ANA CORRALES: That's fair.
All right.
Should we get-- let's see.
Let's get the second question here.
It's from Nipen Mody.
What changes have you seen in podcasting the last few years?
And where do you see podcast going in the next five years?
Have you considered lending your voice
to an audio book or a storytelling podcast?
I think you do that already.
GUY RAZ: You can buy my audio book, "How I Built This."
I have narrated it.
ANA CORRALES: Yes, and I think you
narrated [INAUDIBLE],, including some children shows as well.
GUY RAZ: Yep, and I do "Wow in the World."
And so, where do I see podcasting going?
I see it being consolidated similar to television, right?
I see kind of the Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV model coming online.
I don't know if that's the YouTube TV model.
I don't know if that's--
I think it's inevitable.
If you were to ask me if that's what I prefer,
the answer would be no.
I wish that podcasting would be free and open and available
to everyone forever.
But the reality is that this is also a business.
And these shows have to become sustainable.
"How I Built This," we work with NPR,
so it's distributed by NPR.
NPR has a public service mission to make their content free,
but it's not easy.
And by the way, I'm going to tell you right now,
if you want to support "How I Built This," in addition
to buying the book, please contribute
to your local public radio station.
Right now is a really difficult time for public radio stations.
They are really suffering with this economic crisis.
And they need your help.
If you listen to KQED in San Francisco
or KCRW in LA, whatever it is wherever you are,
please do contribute because that money actually
goes to enable NPR to make and pay for shows like "How I Built
This," which I hope brings some benefit and joy to your life.
If you have a great pair of shoes or earbuds that you love,
I think "How I Built This" also brings
joy and value to your life.
So public radio, super important to support.
But I do think that in the future,
podcasting is going to be even more disaggregated,
and more of it's going to be behind paywalls.
And my pledge to you is "How I Built This" will not.
You will always get it for free.
We just need you to support it.
We need to voluntarily support it.
ANA CORRALES: Great, thank you.
We definitely will do that.
All right, we're going to go to a third question
here from Tim Anderson.
I've loved listening to the resilience edition of "How I
Built This" episodes recently.
How do you think COVID will impact entrepreneurship
over the next five years and over the next 15?
GUY RAZ: It's going to have a huge impact.
I mean, it's going to change the way we work, how we work,
where we live.
I think it could have--
the upside to it is that it could kind of
create the sort of disaggregated superstar cities.
We've had San Francisco, Bay Area, New York, Boston,
Los Angeles.
Well, could Boise, Idaho, could Omaha, Nebraska,
could other parts of the country benefit from more remote work,
people living there, and working for Google and Apple
and other big companies?
So I think that's going to be a huge change.
I also think that there will be, I hope,
significant moonshot changes that come out of this moment.
Because look, if you think of the pandemic as a dry run for--
and actually, in here in California,
we're having a dry run.
We've had a real-time experience with chapter 1
of climate change.
If you think of the pandemic and climate change as alarm bells
going off, saying, hey, humans, you
have got to pay attention now.
We need huge, huge moonshot swing
for the fences kinds of products and ideas
Impossible Foods is a great example.
Pat Brown is trying to get people not
to consume animal meat, but to make meat from plants.
Because 15% of global climate emissions
come from livestock production.
Here in California, the governor has just
announced he's going to ban combustion engine
vehicles in 15 years.
That's crucial.
We have to support that.
And companies like Google and Microsoft
and Apple, huge companies that can scale things,
we have to do these things.
We have to think of things in a big way.
So my hope is that we will start to see people really come out
of the woodwork with big dreams and ideas
on how to confront the challenges we face.
It may be a combination of legislation,
but also things like geoengineering,
which scares me, but we may have to start thinking about that.
So that's my hope.
My hope is that this time and place
has been kicking our butts.
And if you're watching, I hope it's kicking your butt.
And I hope that maybe--
ANA CORRALES: Swing for the fences.
Yeah, definitely swing for the fences moment.
All right, let's do another question for you.
How much does confidence play in the role of being successful?
GUY RAZ: I think confidence is hard won.
I'm a big believer in self-doubt and interrogating everything
about what you do all the time.
Not to undermine yourself, but to make what you do
or how you think better.
So for me, my example is, I don't
have fixed, unmovable beliefs about most things.
I mean, yes, I have views about certain topics and ideas.
But I really am open to learning about a variety of issues
and open to changing my mind.
I mean, I think that's one of the gifts
that we have as humans, right?
And when it comes to confidence, I
think confidence is one of those-- it's not like a fixed,
immovable attribute.
I think there are days where we are
more confident than other days.
There are days where we have more self-doubt.
But it's a work in progress.
It's like what I talked about earlier with rejection.
It's a practice.
It requires effort and time and experience.
I am infinitely more confident at age 45
than I was at age 35 and 25.
And hopefully, I will be more confident.
I look at my mom who's almost 80,
and she's unbelievably confident because she's like--
ANA CORRALES: She's doing great.
GUY RAZ: No, she's like--
ANA CORRALES: Same for my mom.
GUY RAZ: --what do I have to apologize for?
I lived a great life, and I'm doing fine.
And I don't worry about what people think about me anymore.
I'm almost 80, you know what I mean?
Or 75.
So I think that confidence is something
that comes with time and practice
and those little victories and those little failures
that you learned from to get to those little victories.
ANA CORRALES: OK, great.
Let's do I think one more audience question,
or maybe two.
We'll see.
Lydia Barrios is asking, there are
thousands of impressive founders globally.
What criteria do you use to determine
which guests to bring to HIBT?
GUY RAZ: Number one, kindness.
We look for kind founders.
We look for founders who operate with integrity,
who treat their employees well, who are as good
of corporate citizens as possible.
I mean, we're in a time where there's
a lot of mistrust of corporations
and big organizations.
So we are really trying to be careful.
No one's perfect.
We look for really good stories.
We look for struggle.
We look for people who didn't come from money
or who didn't have easy access to it.
We look for people who have built,
generally, brands and services, products and services that we
recognize that are available.
So we don't do a whole lot of B2B companies or back end
technology.
Those are great and interesting, but there
are plenty of other shows that focus on that.
"How I Built This" focuses primarily on consumer-facing
goods and services.
So that's essentially how we decide.
ANA CORRALES: Great, OK.
Let's take one more audience question from Natasha Hammond.
Who is the one person you have not interviewed
that you would want to?
GUY RAZ: Now that I'm here, I would say Larry and Sergey.
Let's bring them on.
We approached them--
ANA CORRALES: Go get them.
GUY RAZ: --a few years ago.
I think I saw Sergey at a TED conference,
and he was like, yeah, sure.
But I think we'd love to have them on.
So--
ANA CORRALES: We'll work on that.
GUY RAZ: --if you guys have any ins, start emailing them now.
ANA CORRALES: OK, I will, immediately after this.
GUY RAZ: Just do a mass email campaign to Larry and Sergey
right now.
ANA CORRALES: Perfect.
OK, talking about Larry and Sergey,
what is your favorite Google product?
We ask this of all of our guests.
GUY RAZ: I can't live without the search engine.
It's pretty great.
ANA CORRALES: OK, that's good.
GUY RAZ: It's pretty awesome.
I'm using Google Chrome right now.
I actually uploaded-- I started using Google Chrome in 2008, so
a relatively early user.
So those are two prizes.
We have a Google Home at home.
One of my kids has a Google Home.
The other one has an Amazon Alexa.
So they fight against each other.
ANA CORRALES: Of course, ours is way better because that's
my product, so of course.
GUY RAZ: So, and it's great.
The Google Home is on all the time.
And unfortunately, my 11-year-old
has connected to a Spotify account to it,
so I hear a lot of really bad words coming out
of it, like hip hop and stuff.
And the other day, can I say a bad word on this?
The other day, I caught my kids in their room
asking their Google Chrome, Google, OK, Google,
what does shit mean?
ANA CORRALES: What was the response from the assistant?
GUY RAZ: Yes, and the assistant was
like, a colloquial term for excrement or something
like that.
It was something like that.
It was very earnest, so I appreciated that.
They were laughing about it.
ANA CORRALES: Good, we try to keep it very clean.
The team does a really good job of that.
So thanks for the feedback.
And my favorite son story with the Google Mini,
which is probably what you have, the speaker was--
he asked something, and it was very early on.
I had a prototype.
We didn't have that answer.
So I said, oh, you can go to the computer and type it.
And he's like, what do you mean, I have to type it?
Why?
Why would I ever have to type anything?
And it just was a moment for me to realize
how much expectations are changing
in a very quick manner.
Guy one other question for you.
You've written this book.
You've done this show.
What are you hoping--
what's the message you want people to take from your book
as they read it?
What's the lesson you're hoping to leave the community
with as you wrote this book?
GUY RAZ: I want this book to inspire creative thinking.
Whether we call it entrepreneurial thinking
or not, that's what I am calling it.
It's really a mindset.
I mean, the book can-- it's designed for somebody who's
thinking about starting a business, who is starting
a business, or just wants to be inspired by people who do,
but also by people who want to put out a disruptive
idea into the world.
And it might be an idea in your workplace, maybe a product
or service that you'd like Google to offer.
And it's really designed to trigger thoughts and ideas
and creativity.
And my hope is that it's like difference
between the entrepreneurs you admire and you
is that they walked into the phone booth and put on the cape
and walked out and were [INAUDIBLE] booth,
then I've done my job.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, OK, great.
With that topic, do you think there
is more we could be doing at Google, just
in general in the community, to elevate entrepreneurship
in sort of the underrepresented minority groups,
like Blacks and Latinx?
That's a really big--
obviously, with social injustice and everything
that's happening in the US and in the world,
really, because it's really a worldwide thing now,
what could we do more for entrepreneurship and innovation
there?
GUY RAZ: Well, one thing you could do, actually--
I mean, there's lots of things you can do.
And you probably are doing some things
because Google, of course, has the ability
to scale things in a huge way with all of its resources.
But aside from creating very clear programs
to identify and help entrepreneurs of color,
we are actually, "How I Built This,"
we are actually launching, right now,
a new initiative where we will select 60 entrepreneurs
from underrepresented communities around the country.
We're going to launch this in 2021.
And we are looking for people who have an idea--
ANA CORRALES: That's great.
GUY RAZ: --to bring out a service or product that solves
a problem in their community.
And we are going to give each of these people,
every person we choose will get $10,000.
And then, we will have a panel of people
who've been on the show evaluating their pitches.
And the winner will get $50,000.
We're looking for money to support that.
So if Google can support that, we would love that.
And that initiative is going to be
part of the "How I Built This" Summit in 2021,
which will be virtual.
So we're--
ANA CORRALES: That's great.
GUY RAZ: We're planning that now,
and it's going to be-- we've had this amazing fellows
program for "How I Built This" for the last three years.
80% of our fellows have been women and people
of color and from underrepresented communities.
It's been an amazing program.
And now we want to take it to the next level.
ANA CORRALES: Yeah, that's really fantastic to hear.
And definitely wish you the best of luck as you build that.
I know we've talked about several areas for Google
to help partner.
Google was built on innovation, and that
is what we try to do every day in many different ways,
from moonshots to small ones, which are also sometimes very
hard won.
So we'll definitely connect with you on that.
I want to thank you for joining us today at Google.
I want to congratulate you on what
is an incredible career and impact to the community
and also on your book.
I loved reading it.
I actually did buy some copies and sent them
to my family, my brother, and my sister.
GUY RAZ: Thank you.
ANA CORRALES: Both run startups, as does my dad.
And so, they all have a copy.
It's on its way to Costa Rica, so it'll
make it to Latin America, probably
the first copy in Costa Rica.
But really, congratulations.
And thank you for having us.
And really continue everything you're doing.
It's making a really big difference.
And congratulations again.
GUY RAZ: Thank you.
Thank you, Ana.
Thank you to the Googlers watching.
Really appreciate it.
You guys do great work.
And when I can come visit there post-pandemic,
I'd love to come.
ANA CORRALES: All right, thank you so much.
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