a16z Podcast - Alex Honnold on Human Performance (part 2) – Climbing and Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

In part 1 of our series on human performance, we looked at the limits of human potential in climbing and other sports – and how we push those limits through technology and training.In this episode, recorded at our a16z innovation summit last year, Alex talks with a16z general partner and fellow avid climber Peter Levine about the risk, fear, and preparation for his free solo of El Capitan on Yosemite. While climbing is the topic, the conversation holds many lessons for entrepreneurs, and anyone else who is attempting something that’s never been done before – from how to evaluate risk versus reward, moving into the public spotlight from stealth, removing constraints to innovate on established routes, and knowing where you can fall and where you can’t. The conversation finishes with Alex’s life philosophy of living simply and giving back, including how he donates a third of all his income to the Honnold Foundation to support solar projects in underserved communities.

Hi, and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Doss, and this is part two of our two-part series on human performance with rock climber Alex Honnold, who first became famous with his free solo climb of El Cap and Yosemite, a feat captured in the award-winning documentary Free Solo. In part one, we talked to Alex about the limits of human potential in climbing in other sports and how we push those limits through technology and training. In this episode, at our A16Z Innovation Summit last year, Alex talks to A16Z general partner and fellow avid climber Peter Levine about how he prepared for his free solo, including some things that the film didn't show. Climbing's the topic, but the conversation holds parallels and

lessons for entrepreneurs and anyone else who's undertaking something that's never been done before. They start with how to evaluate risk versus reward, then move on to how to shift from stealth to the public spotlight, removing constraints to innovate, and knowing where you can and can't fail. They finish, though, with Alex's life philosophy of living simply and giving back, including how he donates a third of all his income to the Honnold Foundation to support solar projects and underserved communities. As a note, because this is a live recording around three minutes in, you're going to notice some issues with Alex's audio. But stay with us. They fix about a minute later. We have a bunch of entrepreneurs in the room here. We always think about risk versus

reward. Do you think about that, the risk versus the reward of doing any of these endeavors? I think that as an entrepreneur, you can maybe quantify it a little bit more. I mean, because or is it? I don't know. So actually, so flipping it around. So from my perspective, it's all a lot more physical, a lot more internal. Something seemed really scary. And you're like, oh, I probably shouldn't do that because it seems really, really scary. Because typically feeling fear is warning from your body that something is dangerous. And oftentimes you should heed that warning. You should be like, oh, that's really sketchy. I shouldn't do that. And so, you know, for climbing challenges, it is generally more internal. You know, if I, you know, for many, many years on my to-do list was,

you know, solo L-Cap. But then I would drive in Yosemite, I'd look up at L-Cap and be like, there is no way I'm soloing L-Cap. Like, it looks completely insane. It's terrifying. And just the mere thought of it filled me with dread. And so that was a pretty clear sign that I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared for it and that I shouldn't be doing that. Right. I would assume that as an entrepreneur, it's maybe a little bit less physical like that, a little bit less of a gut feeling and maybe a little bit more quantified. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, it is. But there are big goals where you get so invested in the goal that the risk becomes too high. You create some objective and you go, you know, you put too much risk behind it,

right? And I'm wondering if that happens in these cases. You mean like if you build the goal up too big and then you start to go too far out on a branch? Right. Too far you're hanging on a branch, you know, sawing the branch off while you're hanging on it. I mean, so I worried about that a little bit with L-CAP because, I mean, I wanted to freeze L-CAP more than anything I've ever wanted in climbing. Right. And I did certainly worry that it was, you know, too far out. Right.

The thing with climbing, though, is that you can just keep training. You can keep preparing. There's no time crunch. There's no pressure. There's nobody forcing me to do it one way or another. I was kind of able to just keep working at it until I felt comfortable, you know, until I could finally look at the wall and be, you know what? Like, it doesn't look that scary anymore.

like, I can't do this. I am ready. I'm capable. I'm excited about it. What was important about preparing for a climb like that? If you remember the film, I had a failed attempt the fall before where I attempted to free solo cap and then I backed off at a certain point because basically because I was scared, I didn't quite feel out for it. But it was very disappointing for me at the time because I was very close. I was almost able to do it and I felt like I was ready to do something that I was proud of. But, you know, I just wasn't quite able to free solo cap. But so when I came down, we shot a few interviews where they're like, how do you feel?

and I'm like, well, really freaking bummed, obviously. And that's all, that's all in the film. Then what's not in the film was then I got on my bicycle and I rode over to this other 1,000-foot wall, the route called Asterman, that was actually the first thing I ever freestown as a kid. So I went and free-soled that thing again, which I hadn't done in, I don't know, seven or eight years.

And so I did that, and then I went over and repeated another 800-foot route that afternoon. And so, you know, the film just shows it as like, oh, I had this failed attempt. But then that afternoon, I free-soled the two hard routes that had started me in my career. I've often associated building companies and more mountaineering and climbing as very related. You have this objective to go climb some mountain, and then there's camps along the way,

and you have to prepare for it, and you go from one camp to the other. And a lot of building a company is actually similar in spirit to that. And I'm wondering, like, when you think about a climb, do you break it up into little pieces and say, like, hey, like, I'm at this point. Ah, good. I'm done with that. Well, it's actually not so much the point on the actual. climb, like on my actual free solo

of all cap, it wasn't that there were certain points along the way, like camps on a mountain. But there are definitely steps in the process. So when I showed up in Yosemite to start working on the potential free solo, there were eight sections of the route that were big question marks for me. So then over the course of the two seasons that I worked on it,

I had to isolate those eight sections. I had to learn how to climb them, try to make them easier. A couple of them I actually wound up bypassing. I went around a few sections. You know, I solicited advice from friends. I went up and cleaned up certain sections of the route. I pioneered a few variations. The film doesn't mention this at all

because it's kind of too complicated for a Hollywood film to explain easily to a general audience. But a few of the parts that I climbed had never been climbed by anybody before because they're not where you would normally go with a rope because there's no way to protect yourself. There's nothing to clip your rope into.

But it is actually physically easier to climb around some sections. But it took me a really long time to find those areas. It took me a whole season before my vision was even wide enough. So when you climb it with a rope, you normally stick to sort of a certain path

because that's where you can clip your rope in for protection. But, you know, at a certain point, I realize if I don't have a rope anyway, I might as well go anywhere because either way, the rope's not helping me. And so I cast a wider net and I started looking at the wall with much broader eyes. Like maybe I should be 100 feet further right. Maybe I should be 100 feet further left, even though you could never be there with a rope. I was like, well, without a rope, you can go wherever you want. And then the actual climb all went pretty smoothly.

It's just four hours of climbing. But, you know, it's freaking months and months to get there. Yeah. I'm only smiling at four hours of climbing. What was the original, like Royal Robbins? What was it, 40 days? Well, so the first of El Cap was done over 49 days, I think. Yeah, 49 days. Yeah, and then the second of the sound was a week.

And now typical parties on El Cap spent three to five days. So four hours is trimming it down a little bit. And then partner night last summer did two hours, which is the speed record on the wall. But we were climbing together with a rope and equipment and using all kinds of specific strategies to move quickly. It's insane. Like, what is it, 30 pitches?

So it's four minutes a pitch. I mean, most of us can't even run on a flat surface that quickly, let alone. No, no, that's not totally true. I'm embellishing slightly. But the thing about speed climbing is that if you see footage of us moving up the wall, it actually doesn't look that fast. We're not running. We're not sprinting.

It doesn't look extreme. But it's incredibly efficient. We basically never stop moving. It's very, very smooth. You know, there's no extra weight. There's no wasted movements. You just move continuously the whole time. you can travel up this, you know, tremendous amount of vertical terrain in two hours.

And do you guys protect at all? Or do you go a whole? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything's totally safe. There's always gear between us. But over the course of it, my partner took a 100 foot fall, totally fine. A hundred feet with the rope, didn't touch anything, totally unscathed. He just, he came to a, came to the end of the rope and was like, oh, I hate that I always do that. And then he just swung over and just started climbing again. And I was like, holy shit. And then we each took sort of like 50 foot falls as we were sort of practicing. But, but basically, I mean those kinds of falls are safe if you know if they're in the right places like I mean because if it's a clean sheer wall and you're not hitting anything it's totally fine to fall but if you fall in

the wrong place not so good yeah yeah exactly but that's one of that's one of the key things about climbing those is is evaluating those situations yeah because yeah if you fall 12 feet and land on a ledge you'll break both your ankles but if you fall 100 feet and touch nothing it's totally fine the rope absorbs the forest and you're just like oh wow that was crazy and then you keep climbing again. And so, you know, the key is to know which points are dangerous, which points aren't, and to think it through. And a big part of our process was every time we climb the wall, then you have to hike down. It takes, like, say, an hour and a half to hike back down. We'd spend the whole hour and a half debriefing exactly what we had done. Like, what could we do better? Where did

we have gear? What was safe? What was not safe? Like, how should we improve? And then by the time you get to the ground, you have a whole new set of strategies and ideas to use for the next round. And so we did something like 10 or 15 attempts until we actually did the speed record. You know, I mean, that should ring some bells with, you know, iterating. And it's like the entrepreneurial spirit. Just keep, like, working on it until it gets better and better. You know, before the film, people didn't even know, didn't know who you were, really. I mean, outside the climbing community.

And you deliberately kept most things stealth. How did it feel to be film? And, you know, was it better to do stealth all the way up to that? Did you, would have been better to not do the film? I think the film addresses that a little bit was sort of dealing with the tension, you know, exactly what you're describing. and making sure that you don't compromise the actual experience of the climb. For those that don't know, Jimmy Chin, one of the co-directors of the film, he's also a professional climber and he's also been in front of the camera.

And so he's pretty sensitive to what it feels like if the filmmaker is like, hold on a minute, got to change batteries. And you're just like sitting there waiting. And they're like, okay, wait, hold on, got to change lenses now. And you're sort of like, oh, this doesn't feel like rad climbing anymore because, you know, the filmmaker is changing my experience. So, I mean, he definitely knew that. They did a pretty good job of making sure that on the day of my actual climb,

it went exactly the way I wanted to. And I mean, over the two years that we worked together and worked on the preparation and the filming, you know, over the two years that we shot, there were tons of times that I was like, oh my God, it's so annoying having a film crew around. But that's kind of natural, you know, that if you're spending that much time with people,

you know, it shapes on you a little bit. But when it came time for the actual solos, the half dozen climbs that I did to prepare for El Cap that were important to me, those were all pretty much, you know, the way I wanted them to be. And then Al Cap was exactly what I wanted. You know, we had worked on,

of so much. They knew exactly where to be on the wall. They knew exactly the timing and everything. It was really dialed in. So even that was prep. Yeah, totally. Well, the thing is because they had been filming all of my practice. So I'd spent, you know, months on the wall practicing. And so they had had had a ton of practice themselves, getting into the positions, knowing where to have the cameras, how long it would take them to move around, who should be in which positions. So, I mean, they had practiced the process of filming it as well. And so we were all extremely dialed. I mean, it really was a whole team executing at its best. Even as we shot some of the, some of the things. We kind of knew, like, this is the most beautiful climbing footage that's ever

been shot. You know, it's just like, this is epic. Like, nobody ever goes on El Cap and shoots in this style. And, like, as we did it, we're like, this is going to be incredible. And then, you know, and then I was lucky enough to get to see it on IMAX. And, like, to see LCap on an IMAX screen, I was like, this, this is worth it. Do you think that free soloing, I mean, I've seen a lot of now YouTube videos of other people doing crazy stuff? Do you think it will inspire others who are less qualified to go do this and create just a cascade of errors that happen out there? No, I really don't actually. And that's a common question. I mean, obviously, you know, there's the possibility for that to happen. In general, though, I think that free-soling is hard to repeat. You know, like you can watch

the movie. You can get inspired by it. You can get all fired up. And then you go and you try to free solo something. And you have to intentionally choose to make each movement. So, you know, you climb up six feet and then you have to choose to climb up to seven feet and then choose to climb to eight feet. And it's pretty freaking scary. I mean, if you're not prepared for it and you're not capable. If you watch a ski movie, you can be all fired up and be like, I'm going to jump off this cliff, here we go. And then you point your skis in one way or another, your skis are going off the cliff. You know what I mean? Like, there are a lot of gravity-assisted sports. You can just, like, watch a bunch of YouTube get fired up and then do it. But climbing isn't like that. It's anti-gravity.

I mean, you have to choose each movement that you make. And if you're not psychologically prepared for that, you just can. I mean, it's really freaking scary. So you do a little bit and then you come down. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one way or another, you come down. Whether, not to be too dark. going from sort of dirtbag climber to world famous athlete. Like, what does that feel like? And have you changed along the way? So for me, it's been a gradual transition. I'm sure a lot of people in this room have experienced the same thing

where you're just working very hard at something that you love to do that you care very much about. And then over time, it starts to become more of a thing and you start to become better known. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, I'm in this crazy position that I never necessarily expected to be in. But that's just the way it played out. As I became more aware of sort of issues in the world, it also sort of coincided with

becoming a professional athlete, being able to make a little more than I needed. And I was living in my car at the time. My overhead was, you know, 10, 15 grand a year. And I started making, you know, 100 to 150. It was like, this is crazy money. So I started donating a third of my income through the foundation to environmental projects because I was like, this is still an absurd amount of wealth for me. You know, like I don't need all this. Like I can give a third for sure. I would say for me personally, and I've gotten to know you in the foundation, it is a as inspiring to me and should be to all of us that somebody donates a third of their salary towards philanthropic well-being of the world. And it's as impressive, you know, as the L-CAP climb.

But I just want to say that when I met you and learned about that, that's super inspirational. And so I think we should all take that to heart. Like we all don't need as much as we have. And it's just a great message to send to all of us who are, you know, of course, very privileged to live where we are and all that. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Peter. Thanks. I mean, I think part of that, though, is just because that's always been kind of easy for me because I'm already doing the thing that I love most. You know, I'm already spending my time doing exactly what I want to be able to do, pursuing the goals that I care the most about. You know, and I was living in my van by choice because it allows me

to climb as much as I want. You know, and I think that when you're living exactly the way that you want to be living, it's easy to give away what you don't need because, you know, you're already on exactly the path that you want. All right. Let's maybe switch to philanthropy, something that you and I have talked a lot about. You know, the Honnold Foundation, give a little background there, how you chose the purpose of what it's doing now, explain it, and why that versus other things. So technically the mission statement of the Honnold Foundation now is supporting solar energy

for a more equitable world, supporting solar. And so I basically came to that because, you know, through climate exhibitions, through travel, is just through my experiences in the outdoors, I basically started to care more about the environment, but sort of realized that there was no point in protecting the environment if it didn't also improve standard of living, if it didn't help the people living in those areas.

Because through several different climate expeditions, specifically one expedition to Chad in the center of Africa, I kind of realized that people don't care about the environment unless they can meet their basic needs. And so I felt like it was only worth supporting projects that helped with both. And so after five or six years of, donating that money through a donor-advised fund

through the Tad's Foundation for anyone actually in philanthropy. Then in preparation for the film being released, I realized that we needed a hired an executive director, have a board, like made it all a lot more official and started to take it a little bit more seriously just because that really has been the big opportunity that the film unleashed, you know, is being able to do something a lot more useful,

take on more interesting projects, bigger scope, bigger budget, you know, the foundation has actually been able to do a lot more work. That's kind of been the one unmitigated good thing from the film. because otherwise it's all like a little hit or miss. I mean, being a famous person isn't like that cool. But yeah, I mean, it's great in a lot of ways. But I think that probably the best thing about it

is being able to do something useful in the world. And I think that's the point of the foundation. The projects that the foundation does, how do you decide on them? And then how do you agree with the community to actually get something done? We're only supporting projects where people are already doing that kind of work.

We're just helping people do the work that they want to do. And part of that was because of, you know, our own constraints. Like, you know, I mean, it was just me donating money way. It's not as if I can project manage something in, you know, Central Africa or something. It's just not, you know, basically we have to find partners who can do the work better and just help them do the work that they're doing. So, you know, when you ask about finding projects, I mean, the first couple years was just me using Google and just searching, you know, like, what's useful, what's going on in the world? And so the first couple projects that I gravitated to were grid alternatives, if anyone's heard of them,

this incredible organization in the U.S. Basically, I sort of focused my work domestically and then internationally because I felt like there was the environmental side and the human side. I felt like the human side, you can have a bigger impact abroad because dollars just go further. It has a bigger human impact in places where your money can do more. But the environmental side was arguably bigger domestically because you're putting bigger systems in.

In terms of CO2 reduction, in terms of climate change, you can have a bigger impact to doing you know, utility scale projects. And now over the years, we've continued to do that, but with maybe more of an emphasis on communities, like sort of finding the right people and the right communities and supporting the right organizations. Yeah.

So that living as simple as possible, maybe the last, you touched on this a little bit, like as you start to generate wealth, you bought a house now, right? Like you move out from the van. Actually, I'm still living in the van right now, but I do technically on a home. But as you have more opportunity, more wealth,

Where does the bar of living simple versus, you know, buying more stuff or doing more things play into that? And how do you draw that line? Well, it might be kind of what I was saying the second ago is that the things that I own are still serving a purpose, which is to help me in my path, which is to be the best climber I can be, to be a good professional climber. You know, I own a home in Las Vegas because it's the best four-season climbing in the country, and it's a great climbing destination. And it's just a good home base, a good space to share with my girlfriend, now that I'm, you know, because I would love to, you know, perhaps have a family someday and things like that.

And at a certain point, you kind of have to invest in that future as well. But I think that for me, living simply just means staying focused on the things that are most important, you know, having clear goals, working towards them and making sure that all the other stuff isn't getting in the way. All right. Well, with that, thank you, Alex. It's truly inspirational. Thanks. Thank you, guys.

I appreciate it.