a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: Belief -- An Interview with Oprah Winfrey

Episode Date: October 16, 2015

This special episode of the a16z Podcast is based on a Q&A from an early screening we hosted of OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network)'s "Belief", which just premiered and airs over seven consecutive nights. This week-long documentary series depicts how people -- with a wide range of faiths and spiritual practices around the world -- search for deeper meaning and connection with the world around them. But ultimately, it's about the rituals, stories, and relationships that bind us all together as human beings. The Q&A features Oprah Winfrey interviewed by Ben -- or being interviewed by Oprah, depending on how you look at it (and getting schooled in how to do so!) -- as well as one of the series guests, Resham Thakkar, joining them onstage from the audience.

Welcome. I am Ben Horowitz, and this is Oprah. Thank you. Did you like it? I mean, would you tell other people about it? Good, it's, thanks. I'm glad everybody liked the show.

It would have made the interview a lot harder otherwise. So, kind of getting right into it, in the very first segment of the very first episode, when I first watched it, I felt like, you know, having the story of the girl who was raped and lost her, faith and lost her way, kind of was you letting me know as the audience that this wasn't just Oprah coming and reporting the news or telling a story, but it was kind of deeper and more important than that.

What does this mean to you to put out a series like this? Well, first of all, thanks for doing it, you and Felicia. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing it. You all are the people to know in this town. Thank you.

It feels like, as I was saying in introducing it, it feels like an offering. You know, my whole life, my entire life's work in television has been about trying to connect people through stories so that you see yourself in that story and see the best of your. yourself. And the opportunity to offer this series to the world is, to me, it feels like literally an offering. And it's not about ratings and it's not about, you know, trying to make a lot of money from it or all the other things, reasons why people do television.

it really is for me to say to whoever chooses to be open-hearted enough to watch it and view it to see how we're all connected, because that's my goal. That's really what I'm here to do, is to inspire people to see the best of themselves. And using this tool of belief seemed like a really good way in, because every one of us, even those of us who say we're atheists believe in something even if you just believe in your value system or you believe in you know being a good person as Rashaima was saying you know

right right right I believe I don't believe I'm an atheist that's right so then I know people are going to leave going what do I believe let me see so if that happens that's good that's good that's interesting how did you go about picking the stories

and what was the connection between them what were you well I have a team I'm not actually sitting doing all this by myself Sherry Salada who's president of own and one of the presidents and John Sinclair who's been all over the world looking at different people

we stand up John let everybody see you yeah and there's another whole team behind them of photographers and producers who we literally started out with the stories in a room looking at what are the religions of the world and what are the main religions of the world and what are the core belief systems in the world

and where we wanted to go in the world and how we wanted to form those stories and basically auditioned some people like Mendel we went through a lot there are a lot of young boys having Bart Misfas but I think we got the one I think we got the one

I mean I was just watching them on my iPad and when his little face popped up and he said it's you know it's up to you to believe I go you're right about that brother so so finding the stories that we wanted to tell and then finding the people who could best manifest those stories

was really key now when you went and you picked you just you made the decision to kind of go pick lots of different religions that's something if somebody's doing an anthropological kind of movie or something like that

they might do that but nobody does that when they're trying to talk about spirituality just because you know it's just not done mainly because a lot of people in each individual religion might end up like being really mad at you

I think theirs is the only way yeah it's like what are you talking about what I wanted to show and I think we as a team wanted to show was that there are obviously many rituals and many ways in which to demonstrate your faith and your worship. But there is a central thread through all of them

and the central thread in all religions, be Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, we have several Muslim stories, Catholic stories, Jewish stories, Christian stories, the central thread that runs through all of them is the line of compassion and treating others as the way you want to be treated. The golden rule runs through every religion

and also a sense of what you feel when you look at Mendel and his rabbi father and what you feel and sense when you look at Terry and his grandson Lucas is really the same thing that's why those stories were put together and the thread that runs through them all is love

is love is love I'm looking at some people who believe in that whole unconditional love thing in the front row you can feel it Reverend Cecil Williams Glide Memorial the Love Church

yes Yes So Terry who passed away I guess two months after you shot it You and I were sitting there And like

He speared a fish with a stick Just Now you know I could go To the He called on the fish spirit Yeah Yeah that's what I was going to ask You know

Because I could go to the gym forever And like study a nut Be able to spear a fish with a stick And two months before he died He could do you think There's a There's a superpower that goes with that kind of faith?

You know what moves me so much about this story? And I've seen it and seen it and edit and, you know, color correct. I've been through many versions of this story. And I still just sitting there tonight, teared up when he says, I have to pass these stories on to my grandson, or our people will lose their way. Our people will lose their way. Makes the hair stand on my head because I think of my generation and the generation before that didn't pass on to so many kids who are in the streets right now and that's why they're in the street because there was no one to pass the stories on and to understand how the song line, whatever you call it, how if you don't know who you are, as a people, then you won't know who you are as a person.

Right. That's the thing. And you know what? He gets that, he got that, and he's an Aboriginal grandfather who never was on Twitter. And he didn't have all of the amenities and access to technology that we do. But he got that and understood that. So that's why I think that's such a powerful story. And you see, there's a time.

little moment that I love in that story. You know when this story starts and he says, buckle your seatbelt. Buckle your seatbelt to his grandson. You see that the rabbi who is, who loves his son and wants his son to, and questions whether or not I'm trying to live my life through my son, that love and that pride is the same across continents, nations, ethnicities, races. It's the same. Because this is such an interesting point. So you've probably, you know, spent a lot of time talking to people, interviewing people, helping people who are lost.

How... I thank God for the lost and dysfunctional people. Yeah, yeah. Because the Oprah show, we wouldn't have had no guess if everybody was already healed. We thrived on. dysfunctional people and it was so great let me just tell you this been when I first started doing talk shows I was so surprised because I grew up you know poor

Negro child Mississippi the whole thing so I was watching television all my life and I thought white people were like all white families were like the Cleavers so when I grew up and started doing the talk show and realize y'all got some problems too great revelation to me there are very few white people like the clevers they were pretty darn happy but you know what is the path

you know when people get that disconnected and that broken and are so lost how do they when you think about making something like this what do you hope that that people will find well I think that one of the things that Reishma says,

who's here, Reishma, where are you? Rishma! Rishma, come up here. Come up here, Rayshma. Come up. Come up. I think what Rishma says when she's in the Ganges with 40 million people on one day, is that every soul

and every soul has a yearning to know itself and that which is beyond itself and so you get to say hi we just met backstage you get to see this through the multiple stories that we tell and I think Rizma is

classic and that there are lots of young people out there because, you know, according to the Pew Studies, they're like two-thirds of millennials who don't believe in anything. They say don't believe in anything. And there are people who just feel like, okay, is being a good person enough? And I think everybody at some point in their life, no matter how wealthy you are, no matter what your square footage is, no matter what is going on in your life, you ask, is this all there is? And is there something more? and you're looking for that which is deeper,

which is divine, which is greater than yourself, which is what was going on with you. We all want to know what's happened afterwards. So it's been a while. In a while. Before you answer that, I want to know, what did that smell like? I just, I just got to say,

40 million people and I did not see them in the bathrooms that the crew originally I was still shooting the Oprah show at the time originally because it was in January I think of 2012 and they wanted me to go and I said how many people did you say it was and did you say where is the nearest hotel

did you say it was all right so what was that like It was actually, this is the first time I'm seeing it, so that was pretty amazing, and I felt like I got to relive the whole experience. Thank you. Yeah, it was incredible. It was, it's hard to describe in words. You saw how crazy it could be, the commotion. Where did you sleep at night?

On cots. So I had a tent. But yeah, the amenities were very, very limited. Were other people in the tent with you? Yes. Did you know them? I met them there. I made a good decision.

Go ahead. But yes, the smell is something I definitely don't care to remember. But it was just mind-blowing. And honestly, there were moments, as you saw, that I felt like I was trying to pierce the surface. Like, it was very easy to get caught up in the sensory stimulation. And so I had to keep digging and just, trying to pierce through that. And when you saw me sitting with that family, that is the

rawest moment. Like, I remember the entire world just disappeared. And I felt like it was just us sitting there talking. There were no cameras. It didn't even feel like the Kumbamela was happening at that moment because I felt so connected to that family. And I still, to this day, I think about them all the time. Like, I'm like, man, next time I go to India, I hope somehow I can find them and just tell them what an incredible moment that was for me. So. And so what you say at the end, I'm not taking over, Ben. I'm really not. Go ahead.

I've heard you're good at this. Okay. No. Okay. Thank you. So when you say at the end that you realize that there is a power greater than ourselves, I call that God. You say there's a power greater than ourselves. You feel yourself in that.

power and it's a part of you and you're part of it. Did you know that before you left or did you realize that there? It's interesting because Ben, you were when we were watching it just now, you said, I don't think it's the water. I think it's the people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was one of those things that I knew on a like a logical level. Like you hear it a lot from people and in, you know, when people are preaching about the divine, whatever you call it, you know it. But when you actually feel it and experience it, it's a whole different thing. And what was it you were experiencing, the connection to all of those people? It was just that we are... In the water, all at the same time, yearning for that, which is great.

Yeah, and the energy there was just incredible. Like, that many people, it didn't matter who you were, where you came from, what your background was. In that moment, we were all the same. There was no difference. Yeah. That was the biggest church ever in the river. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Are you glad you did it? Yes, absolutely. The question I wanted, though, to know is have you been sustained by that and been able to go deeper? Yes. So the biggest thing for me is I did end up going back to my IT career, but the energy around it has totally shifted because now I'm doing an empowerment project for women and kids in India. And my IT project is now what is fueling that.

So it was belief, my experience with the Kumbamela that really just was the catalyst for me to go after what I really wanted to do and maintain that connection with my roots and my heritage and feel like I'm still giving back to the world and I found the meaning that I was looking for. Beautiful. Thank you. Did you have this much poise before?

Like it's amazing. You've just come up here, a big audience, Dan is sitting next to Oprah and like... This would be a first. I'm really impressed. You're like, I mean, I don't know if you're containing it in, but...

You know, I've never really done a lot of stuff in public, but, well, thank you. That's a really nice compliment. Awesome. Thank you. She was good. Awesome. Awesome.

Thank you. Thank you. That's Rehima. Really great. So we were talking earlier about how long this goes back in the history of humankind. And maybe you could kind of share your thoughts on that a bit. Well, this yearning that Rishima was just talking about, I think it's been since, you know, Neanderthal time.

I think that, you know, rituals, when you. find those old graves and anthropologists dig up, you know, how men and women lived thousands and thousands of years ago. You see rituals that indicate that there was a belief system and that there was, there were ideas and ideals about that which was greater than themselves. And I think that to be human is to seek that. in one form or another. And the exciting thing about our series is that you get to see the many forms

in which people seek it. Yeah, yeah. And do you think the kind of, when you stop seeking it, that's when you spiral? Is that kind of exactly the... Well, this is what I... You want to know what I believe?

Yes, what do you believe? Okay. What I believe is that your power here on earth, your ability to be who you were meant to be, whatever you call your creator, is in direct proportion to how you are connected to the source. And the farther away you are from the source of that, the center of your creation,

the center of why you're here. So I really do believe that, If you were to ask me, what is my creed? My creed is the same creed that runs through all religions, and that is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But even deeper than that, even deeper than that, it's law. If you ask one of my favorite definitions on Super Soul Sunday, my favorite show. One of my favorite shows on my own.

That is such a cool name, too, Super Soul Sun. Super Soul Sunday. I was asking Carolyn Mace, what I ask everybody, what's your definition of God? And Carolyn Mays, who wrote the anatomy of spirit, said, God is law. And I was like, whoa, God is law. That's good. And what do you believe in Judaism?

Yeah. What do you mean by law? All the laws that rule the universe. And the number one law for me that rules my life that I believe is the third law of motion in physics, which says for every action which is you know really the golden rule on steroids because the golden rule says

do unto others as you would have them do unto you in the color purple remember color purple that moment when Miss Seeley says everything you even try to do to me is already done to you.

That's the third law of motion. That's physics. It's the moment the energy goes out from your brain, the moment the energy goes out, that energy can do nothing else but return. So for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And as we were talking in the car, beyond even the action and reaction

is the intention behind the action. So you have to not just be responsible for your actions, but be responsible for the intention behind the action. And in doing that, you do unto others. You do unto others because that is a law. That's a physical law that it's going to... And it doesn't just show up. You know, like if you're like cut somebody off in traffic,

it doesn't mean they're going to cut you off in traffic. It just means somebody may hit you down the street. Delayed. Delayed equal and opposite reaction. It just means that the energy of whatever it is that caused you to cut them off, that energy is coming back to you all the time. So, watch out. You touched on something there that's interesting, which is it's kind of, it's the intention and the action.

And there's a lot of, I think you see a lot of people sometimes in certain face go, well, like, my heart is good, even though, like, what I did was wrong. My heart is good. And how do you think about that when you've got bad actions, or at least you believe you have good intentions? Because that's a... I don't understand that. Well, you don't understand what I said,

or you don't understand how people believe that. No, I mean, I don't understand how you believe that. Because, you know, good actions come from good intentions. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

Yes. And sometimes good actions come because you're trying, you have an agenda and because you want to make an impression. You know, when I grew up in the church and I went to church all the time, Sunday school and then afternoon service and then evening service and Baptist Training Union, I was that kid in church all the time. So I grew up with a strong belief system. You know, the real reason I am, where I am, and who I am today is because of my deep, profound faith in knowing that, that, that, you know, first of all, when I used to sit in church and the preacher would preach and say, God is your father, I actually took that, I believed it, and so for a long time, because I didn't grow up with a father, when people would ask me, who is my father, I would say, God is my father. my father, and Jesus, he's my brother. It's very powerful. Very powerful. I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. It gives you some self-confidence. It gives you some self-confidence. So if you grow up believing that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, if you grew up believing that you are a child of God, which is how I grew up believing that, I was very much alone and feeling, you know, not loved. in my immediate family, but I prayed a lot, and I really had a deep connection.

And I have been led by the inner voice of that connection, my whole entire life. And that's why I'm sitting here. Yeah, that's why I'm sitting here. That is a great story. How, I'm going to use the word that'll be an inside joke, but how were you able to evolve that from, you know, kind of that very kind of,

I don't want to say trivial, but it's kind of almost like a personification. You're going to say, God is your father. Yeah, you're going to say, Jesus is your brother. By limited view. Yeah, very long.

So how did I expand my view of God? Yeah, as you became more sophisticated and you understood there were other religions and you understood that you know, not everything in the Bible was necessarily the word of God and so forth, how did that not break your faith but strengthen your faith? Meaning I didn't take it literally.

Right, you didn't take it literally. I didn't take it as literal. I'm like Mendel. I didn't believe that God, you know, because I started out like Mendel, believing God was, had a beard. Yeah, white beard.

Long white beard. Jesus was blonde, had blue eyes. He was on the calendar. You knew exactly what he looked like. He wore sandals a lot. I think around 22, 23, I started to expand my view

of being able to be inclusive and understand that God wasn't up in the sky and that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't, he wasn't a literal man. And I was sitting in church one day. This was after, after Jones Town. And I was listening to the preacher preach about the Lord thy God is a jealous God, the Lord thy God, is, you know, omnipotent, all things, all. And I started to question, how can you be omnipotent and jealous and jealous of me and all at the same time? So my view, the questions that I started to ask caused me to expand my view.

And my view is so expanded that now I see God in all, as all. in all things yeah yeah that's beautiful that's amazing um really really great i'm getting the time signal um so i just want to say one thank you for the courage to put this out i think it's one of the you know it's not um something that uh is guaranteed you know it's not um something that is guaranteed to have commercial success, and it's something that, you know, could easily, you know, cause people not to like you. And, no, I'm serious. It's scary.

You know, when, yes, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, it's, and to share so much of yourself. I appreciate it so much, and I think everybody here. Well, I hope you tell your friends about it. I hope you watch with your children, your family members. I hope you share it. I hope you send out a little.

clips on your Twitter feed. I hope it causes you to think about what do you believe and have an open heart to allow people to believe what they choose to believe because faith is a very personal thing. You know, religion, there are hundreds and hundreds of religions in the world, but how you choose to believe in what your faith is and your relationship with that which you call the higher power, your creator, God, that's your personal thing. I think Mendel said it best. It's up to you to believe. It's up to you. It's up to all of you. Incredible. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oprah Winfrey. Belief. October 18th. Thank you. Watch parties. Thank you. Thank you.