Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Creation of Netflix | Netflix Co-Founder, Marc Randolph

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Marc Randolph, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor and investor.Marc is the co-founder of Netflix, served as their founding CEO, as the executive producer of their web site, and as a member of their board of directors.Although best known for starting Netflix, Marc’s career as an entrepreneur spans more than four decades.He's founded or co-founded more than half a dozen other successful start-ups, mentored rising entrepreneurs including the co-founders of Looker Data which recently sold to Google for $2.6B, and invested in numerous successful tech ventures.He is a frequent speaker at industry events, works extensively with young entrepreneur programs, sits on the board of the environmental advocacy group 1% for the Planet, and chairs the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Board of Trustees.In this conversation we discuss how he and co-founder Reed Hastings developed the idea for Netflix, how to create a strong organizational culture, and why focus is the key for any entrepreneur._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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of how to break apart a problem, about triage and focus and culture were equally valid no matter what your dream was that everybody has these ideas and the process of taking an idea and making it real is the same whether you're trying to launch a multi-million dollar tech startup or whether you just want to do something better with your own life and so my passion from that point forward began being that my job is to take these people who have these ideas and feel that they can't go anywhere with them unless unless i have a degree unless i have money unless i have a co-founder, unless I have a backer, blah, blah, blah. I've heard them all.

And convince them that that's bullshit, that there are ways to get started, that it is not as complicated or as difficult or expensive as you think it is, and that the real to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And if you like this podcast and you haven't checked out Compete to Create yet, I really hope that you do. It would mean a lot to me. And the whole idea like this podcast and you haven't checked out Compete to Create yet, I really hope that you do. It would mean a lot to me. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations is to learn from people who have committed their life efforts towards mastery of self. And so we use craft as an excuse to really figure out what are the mechanics, what are the processes, what are the practices that

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Okay. This week's conversation is with Mark Randolph. He is a absolute vet in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, advisor, and an investor. You know his work. Mark is the co-founder of Netflix and he also served as their founding CEO, as the executive producer of their website, and as a member of their board of directors. And talk about being involved as a co-founder, spinning up the website, being the CEO at the helm, and also serving to guide on their board of directors. I mean, he really has a depth of knowledge about what it takes to build a titan, not only in an industry, but a titan of a business. Although he is best known for starting Netflix, Mark's career as an entrepreneur spans more than

four decades. He's founded or co-founded more than half a dozen other successful startups. He's mentored rising entrepreneurs, including the co-founders of Looker Data, which recently sold to Google for $2.6 billion. How about it? And he's also invested in numerous successful tech ventures as well. Not only that, not only does he understand business at that level, but he also is on the board of the environmental advocacy group, 1% for the planet. If you're not familiar with that, I really want you to go check that out. It is a phenomenal program. And so he's got roots in the outdoors and he also chairs, talk about a Renaissance man, the national outdoor leadership schools board of trustees.

I love this conversation for not only the wisdom and the insight and the practicality of it, but just the well-rounded nature of Silicon Valley to outdoors, to doing good for the planet, for mentoring young people and also building businesses that, you know, were not even thought of to be an industry. And he built it from ground up. I mean, I love this conversation, as you can tell. And we dive into how he developed with his co-founder, Reed Hastings, developed the idea for Netflix, like how that was born and how that came to be, but also the ways that he worked to create strong organizational culture and why, according to him, focus is the key for any entrepreneur. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with the legend, Mark Randolph.

Mark, how are you? I'm very well, thanks. Oh, good. Okay, so I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. The company you built, one of the companies, is a staple in most households and certainly ours. And so congratulations on your body work with Netflix and Macworld and some of the other ventures that you've been part of.

So I'm super excited to be here with you. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning as well. Okay, so I want to start with a moment in time and I want to understand where you came from just to get some context, what it was like growing up. But I want to start with this particular moment in time, which is the car ride where you and your co-founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, were sorting out and envisioning this idea of what eventually turned into Netflix. Can you bring me into that moment or the series of moments?

Well, certainly. But first, let's kind of set the context. This was in 1997. So this is quite a while ago. And this is at a point where we're in many ways kind of just at the dawn of the internet age. And, you know, I was living in just outside of Silicon Valley, California. So I was certainly pretty aware of what was happening technologically. And at that point, there were some interesting things going on in my life as well. And specifically, I was on the verge of being out of a job. One of the companies that I was working for was being acquired. And it was one of those good acquisitions, where you actually in some ways pay you to stick around the golden handcuffs, so to speak. But then I knew it would only be better in months and I'd be on the street again. But for me, someone who kind of thrives on chaos, this wasn't a depressing

thought. This was like an opportunity. It was a chance to do something new. And at that time, the company that was being acquired had been founded, was being run by someone named Reed Hastings, who was a friend of mine. And Reed was also going to be losing his job in this acquisition. And Reed and I were carpool buddies. And we used to drive back and forth from where we lived in a little town called Santa Cruz, up and over the Santa Cruz Mountains on this winding highway to our offices in Sunnyvale, California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. And that's when and where this was taking place.

And on these car rides, we were brainstorming the next business we wanted to start. And more specifically, it was really the next business that I wanted to start. And more specifically, it was really the next business that I wanted to start. I had already either been a founder or been part of the founding teams of five previous startups. So it was pretty natural thinking to me that if I was leaving one company, well, let's just start another one. And Reed wasn't quite in the same place. He was really in this feeling that he wanted to do a big give back. He wanted to change the world of education and he was going to go get a higher degree in education. But, you know, once you're an entrepreneur, you're always an entrepreneur. And Reed wanted to keep his finger in this entrepreneurial pie,

so to speak. And so the agreement we had was that he was going to be the angel investor, that we'd come up with an idea together. He would fund it. I would start it and run it and off we'd go. And that's what found us in this car driving on the hilly turns of Highway 17, going up and over this Santa Cruz Mountains every morning for months, brainstorming ideas. And although, of course, you know, jumping to the end, what came out of it was Netflix. This was not that Reid and I were both videophiles, that we were both debating who the best French directors were. We were both extremely proletarian tastes. You know, we were like any other person. And in fact, at that point, doing something in video was probably the furthest thing from my mind. I really only had the criteria

that I wanted to do something that involved selling things on the internet, and if possible, involved personalization or subscription, both of things I'd had some experience in. And that was it. So these ideas that we were brainstorming were kind of out there. You know, one of them I remember pitching Reed was for personalized shampoo that we I told I told, OK, here's how it's going to work. Reed, we're going to they're going to have you cut off a lock of their hair and mail it to us.

And our scientists will formulate a custom shampoo just for them. And then they'll subscribe to it. And Reed's role in these conversation was kind of the voice of reason. You know, he would think about it and he logically bat down, bat away all the bad ideas. He'd find the flaws in my thinking. But, you know, I would fight back and I would argue why these were good ideas. But shampoo went out the window. Another one we came up with was custom dog food formulated, you know, for your pet, your pet's gender and

activity level and breed and size. And that also got thrown out the window. And one of the ideas was video rental by mail, which was in some ways just as ridiculous as the personalized shampoo and custom dog food. Because at the time, you know, there's a blockbuster in every corner. But this was the dawn of the Internet. We were watching Amazon, which, if you remember that time, was only selling books. And we go, what else is there? We didn't want to sell video, but we go, maybe we can figure out a way to rent it by mail. And that was an idea. And it was a bad idea because back then the only video rental that took place was with VHS cassettes, if you remember those, you know, they're heavy and expensive and fragile. And it didn't take a lot of research for me to realize

that was not going to work. And so back to brainstorming. And then not too much longer, 30 or 40 days later, we read about this new technology called a DVD, that little disc which could have movies on it. And in some ways, it was this feeling that that feeling you get when you're like, you know, maybe doing a jigsaw puzzle and you are cleaning up the couch and you find this missing piece under a cushion and you realize this is the piece that completes the puzzle you've been working on for a while. And that was that was this feeling we had that, wow, this actually might unlock this video rental by mail idea that we had rejected a month or so ago. And then to prove our thesis that this little disc might be the answer, we turned the car around mid commute and drove back down to Santa Cruz to see if we could actually mail a DVD to ourselves. But of course,

there was no DVD. This was only a test market in a few cities. So we decided we'd just buy a used music CD. And we went to a used music store and bought one of those and a few doors down and bought a little gift envelope, the type you put a greeting card in. And we put this CD in the envelope, went to the Santa Cruz post office and bought a stamp, put it, Reed's address in the envelope and dropped it in the slot and then went to work. And then the very next morning when Reed picked me up, he showed me this pink envelope with an unbroken CD in it that had gotten to his house less than 24 hours later for the price of a first-class stamp. And if you look back and if you're looking for, as a screenwriter would put it,

the inciting event behind Netflix, that was probably it. Okay. So you're a storyteller. I just really, like, there's a double joy here. One, to learn about how you work. But you love stories. You know, it's funny, Mike, because we're all genetically hardwired to be storytellers. It's almost this irony that I ended up being involved in many ways, transforming how storytelling takes place, because I've always loved the story, telling it, listening to it, being a great way to communicate with people. And, you know, versus jumping way ahead. You know, but one of the things that I learned about being a leader,

about what it takes to make people want to join you on these completely irrational adventures that I've been taking people on in my startup life, the most powerful way to motivate someone is storytelling. Okay. It definitely speaks to different parts of our brain rather than just the logic centers and networks. Because when we're doing just logic, which there's nothing wrong with different circuitry, it engulfs people into, you know, what it could be in a fantasy world. And it's so much easier and compelling to walk people down a path when you've created imagination as part of the path. And so, yeah, yeah. I'll take imagination versus logic anytime. Yeah. So I'm imagining and I'm, we're ping pong and back and forth, but I would imagine you're more STEAM than STEM, you know, science, technology, engineering. I imagine you're more

STEAM, right? At the A for art. Yes, absolutely. In fact, it's kind of what made the partnership between Reid and I work so well. That's what I wanted to get into. So let's pull on this thread about your imagination and storytelling. And I can can just imagine what kind of car were you guys driving well it was alternating between reed's gold avalon this is a miraculously clean you know consumer uh middle middle class little car and then i I was driving a Volvo station wagon, which usually had a moldy wetsuit in the back and maybe a bike crammed in the back. So with diapers, like not dirty ones,

but like things I'd picked up to bring home, like in the back seat. So you guys are a little bit like the odd couple. So you, but you're okay i mean it's too simplified to say right brain life left brain for the two of you but you embody that a little bit and how did you how did you appreciate the relationship in a way that these wild ideas that you might be exploring and you bounce over to somebody who is more linear logic and, you know, I think rational maybe in some respects, like how did you guys balance that where it felt still that there was enough space to continue exploring where you weren't critiqued and judged and shut down? Like how did the two of you do that?

Well, listen, the short answer of course is respect But of course, it's a bit more than that. I do a lot of mentoring now for early stage entrepreneurs. And I warn people at the beginning. I say, you've got to be really careful. Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to issue opinions with tremendous conviction that's going to make it sound like I really know the answer. And I'm warning you, I don't. Just the way that I make and form an argument. And Reed recognized that from the very beginning. Both of us did.

That we both kind of recognized that the best way to get to the right answer was this combination of logic and imagination and that we could bat things back and forth as aggressively as we needed to. We could raise voices. I could make points about what I thought people might like. He could make points about what evidence showed that was happening. But by going back and forth vigorously without having the ego involved, we almost were able to arrive at what both of us ultimately agreed were the right decisions. And when you're with someone, you can do that. It's so refreshing. And you just immediately feel it.

And I know that Reed felt that, too, because proceeding from logic leaves you on a solid foundation at all times, but you just don't get that far. Whereas making these leaps of imagination, sometimes you end up way, way beyond any kind of sustainable, solid ground. And both of us really liked where this combination of approaches took us. So in the most romantic sense, how much do you miss those car rides? Because as you guys have built, and I don't know the nature of your guys' relationship. It might be very difficult. It might be wonderful. I really don't know it. But if we just kept it to the car rides, how much do you miss it? Do you still have some semblance of that creative, genius outlet, comb combative exploratory nature

so we're gonna have to struggle to keep this conversation on topic because it leads into all these interesting areas yeah and so welcome to the two of us are probably dangerous right all over the shop but i i i promise you you know that i've got this thing in the back of my head is this i'm trying to understand your psychology. And I'll play it forward when we get to the end, like a bit of a snapshot. We can wrestle there too. But OK, yeah. So play this part for the romance of those car rides.

So the reason it's going to lead off track and you'll see where I'm going in a second is, first of all, of course, I miss it. And that it's a great way to make decisions. And it's a very pleasurable way to make decisions. So do I miss the habit, the ongoing one on one with read in the car every morning and every evening, of course. But let's talk for just two seconds about company culture. And company culture is not this thing that you write up on a piece of paper or that you design. It springs organically from how the founders treat each other and how you tend to act. And because Reed and I were this way, the company we built was this way. So this was not like Reed was my only outlet for this type of decision making, for this type of making progress. This was how I dealt with everybody. This was the type of people I surrounded myself with. to Netflix. And even once Netflix kicked off, all of our meetings were these arguments, so to speak,

these vigorous debates, trying to make intuitive leaps, but grounding them in a logic-based manner. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested.

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And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. I've heard some of your interviews talking about Netflix and having a, I think you call it like a deep focus or laser focus about what they're doing. And I can't remember the exact word, but no focus was part of it. And the second double click on that was that, um, companies that diversify or hedge

their bets, you, your antenna pop up a little bit. And as that relates to culture, I have that problem is that I have three companies and, um, one is a partnership, a beautiful partnership with head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll, and it's called Compete to Create. And both of us were founders of that and we're not, our sleeves are not completely rolled up because we also have other projects that we're doing. He's running an NFL franchise and I've got a couple other projects. So I'm struggling with what you're saying right now. And I'm craving that focus. But at the same time, my appetite to explore seems to take over. And so I'd love for a little coaching. I'd love for just to hear your position on culture and business growth and appetite. Well, so listen, I'll give you the caveat, which I'm going to say some things with tremendous confidence, which are based on two or three minutes of understanding what the real issues are. But, and I'll also say, of course, it's not a one size fits all solution.

The people that I generally talk to have an idea that they want to try and make real, a singular idea. So they're not saying, how do I do eight things at once? I don't know. I don't have no idea how you do eight things at once or even three things at once. So you'll have to find someone else to tell you how to do three things at once. Well, I'm a huge believer that usually taking a new idea that hasn't been done before and making it successful in taking that path where you learn and change and adapt it is so difficult that it's the ultimate hubris to think that you can do that with more than one thing at a time. And that by not taking every single bit of focus you have and putting it on a singular problem, you're selling it short. And it's not easy. It's very, very easy for us to get distracted.

It's very easy for us to believe that we have to get multiple components of the problem right in order to make the ultimate business successful. But what I've learned is it is very, very much a triage situation. That in any startup, there's hundreds of things that are broken, hundreds of things that are crying out for attention, that are in pain, so to speak. And that your job as an entrepreneur is to recognize that a huge group of those things, sure, they're broken, but they're not going sink the enterprise and a huge bunch of things are broken and even if

you get them right it's not going to change anything but there's a handful of things that if you get those right all the rest of the things don't make a difference you can list a bunch of things that would be good to get right but just for example you could say a culture is collaborative but listen things don't make a difference. You can list a bunch of things that would be good to get right. But just for example, you could say a culture is collaborative. But listen, right now we're in a crisis. And so right now we're going into war footing. So yes, for example. But again, these are complicated scenarios. But the thing is you – and it changes over time. You recognize – and I'll give you a more specific one. This is going to sound trite, but at the very beginning, after Reid and I in the car decided let's go for this, we put in place – Reid wrote the check and I hired a dozen people and we rented a little crappy old bank building with dirty carpet we couldn't afford

to clean but you know we said okay we're going to build a company there's a hundred things that go into launching a company and you begin thinking about them all you know what does the website need to look like what do our benefit packages have to be how do i get people comfortable with this but but ultimately ultimately if you don't have customers nothing happens and so even though people would come in and say mark help me solve this problem help me solve that problem I'm tuning almost everything out I'm happy to have the website be half-assed I'm happy to have misspellings and typos I mean you make a long list of all the stuff that I'm completely happy being shoddy because I realize that if I cannot put together some way to have customers coming in the door, nothing happens.

But then once customers begin coming in the door, you begin saying, what's the next big problem if I don't get this right? We're sunk. And if I do get this right, it lifts everything else. And you shift your attention there. And it's a constant battle to be focused on the most important thing to get right. But it's equally important to know what it is you need to focus on. And seriously, when I talk to young, I'll say young, but I mean early stage entrepreneurs, they don't need to be young. It's that's the biggest problem you see is that they are all over the place they believe they have to get everything right they're working on things which don't count until the future you know there's

they i call it the selling the t-shirts you go imagine when that where brand is big so we're putting in place this new line of merchant i I go, Oh my God, every moment you're thinking about what you'll do once you're successful is taking away from the likelihood that you actually will be successful. And are you more interested in recurring benefit models? Um, or are you more interested in, um, products that are able to endure it seems like your business is more about recurring well certainly the ones that have yes there's a pattern here and it's because i happen to be really good at recurring revenue model stuff you know originally going way back i did magazine circulation which is all subscriptions and stuff you know and then i and then once you get into the mail order business which i was in

for a long time that's all about repeat business and certainly netflix subscription model on the most recent startup looker is a sass you know software as a service um model which is subscription so yes but that's not necessarily the thing that's most interesting to me. It's most interesting thing to me is this problem solving piece. And I'm working with some businesses which don't have subscription models in them, and they're equally fascinated. Mark, what is your life mission? Newly, newly minted, you know, in the last seven or eight years, actually. But it was interesting when I, you know, once I left Netflix, I decided I did not have it in me

to start another company, which ended up being a resolution, which didn't last that long. But nonetheless, I began saying, how do I get my entrepreneurial fix? And after a bunch of trial and error, I kind of realized the thing that really gave me that fix was mentoring other people. Now, there's helping them start their companies, helping them take these ideas in their head and making them real. And as part of this process, I also began doing a lot of work with, you know, university students, with high school students, with people who are launching ideas which were not designed to change the world, but they were just dreams people had.

And as I went through years of that tour of coaching, I came to this really interesting revelation, which is that all of these exact same things that I learned over 40 years as an entrepreneur, all of these little tips and tricks and secrets of how to break apart a problem about triage and focus and culture were equally valid, no matter what your dream was. That everybody has these ideas, and the process of taking an idea and making it real is the same, whether you're trying to launch a multi-million dollar tech startup, or whether you just want to do something better with your own life. And so my passion from that point forward began being that my job is to take these people who have these ideas and feel that they can't go anywhere with them unless I have a degree, unless I have money, unless I have a co-founder, unless I have a backer, blah, blah, blah.

I've heard them all. And convince them that that's bullshit, that there are ways to get started, that it is not as complicated or as difficult or expensive as you think it is. And that the real barrier to getting started is you. Not you, Michael. But some themselves. Okay. And that's my – so there you go. So now you can be all wound up here because that is what I feel passionate about.

That's what I'm about. Okay, good. So that's the mission there. And then let me do the other passenger in your car. Let me do the read thing, which is – and I'm way out of my knowledge base here. But okay, Mark, but how are you going to – I know you don't really need money. You've got one of the most successful businesses on the planet right now. But how are you going to actually make that into any sort of business? And, and you might come back and say, no, no, no, you said mission. You didn't say like entrepreneurial spirited business model. And so how would you, and I want to, I want to come also back. I'm going to, I'm saying this out loud for me, uh, tips, tricks, and secrets. I want to come

back to that in a second, but how did, did, how would you answer that, that first part? Well, part of it is I am unbelievably lucky in that this, in that I actually found a career that someone who has attention deficit disorder and probably couldn't hold a real job actually finds valuable and compensates you really, really well. So that's the trite answer, which is I can afford to dedicate my life to something which doesn't necessarily have a P&L attached to it. But I'll answer it more helpfully, is that I don't want this to be necessarily something which I just am Mother Teresa-ing. I do want it to be sustainable, so to speak.

And there is a model where certain people are willing to pay a tremendous amount of money for this type of advice. And I have identified those people and there's an ecosystem you can where you can give this i mean listen for example okay so i give it away free to university students that i work with and i give it away free in some sense to the early stage entrepreneurs that I mentor because I do it in exchange for equity in their companies, which is free in some ways. But I actually gave away, I have about 12 to 16 hours worth of content in my book in That'll Never Work.

And you can get that for 30 bucks. Discounted at Amazon. Or if you want, if you want to have me come speak to your conference of two or 3000 people, I'll do that. But that's going to cost you a considerably bigger amount than $30. And when you kind of blend that whole model together, it does create something which is a an economically viable business. And it's, it's the freemium model in a way like right now you know full disclosure you're not paying me for this i'm doing this because i want to

spread the word that people can actually do this stuff without requiring them to be a phd in computer science um but listen they're going to understand that wow this is interesting and i do this because i can also charge uh you know gold Goldman Sachs to come and speak at their conference and pay them and they'll pay me an obscene amount of money to do that. It all works. Okay. So in that respect, your new mission is really to help people unlock and they've got an idea or a dream and you want to help them unlock. And there's two parts to this. One is I want to understand from your perspective, your psychology, because you have unlocked. Maybe you are being serious about having ADD. I don't know yet, but you've

unlocked your potential and created something that has been durable and meaningful, Netflix and, and, and companies. So I do want to understand how you're helping others unlock, but to do that, let's talk about like your framework. I think you're optimistic without a doubt. Like that's part of your framework. Of course, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And then you have tripled down on trying to control what's in your control and you're not interested in trying to manipulate, leverage, or control what others are doing. You're solely focused or laser focused on controlling or mastering what's in your control, which are your thoughts and behaviors. Is that an accurate statement?

No, that's true too. And then you have an incredible amount of clarity for the passion that you want to live with. And then you're able to roll and deal with the difficult things. So you've got this perseverance thing. You've got clarity of a vision on the other side. So you're working towards an emission-minded, purpose-driven approach. And you deal with setbacks, whether they're internal or external, well. Is that true? Yes. Yes, doctor. I, you've, uh, you've got me wired here. Okay, good. And then, so let's pause there for a moment. Like how do you deal when you get a blow, you get a piece of information that is difficult, right? Like your lead salesperson, your co-founder

of maybe not co-founder, somebody is pissed off, agitated, they're ready to walk. Or they just did walk. How do you manage that? I'm trying to put it in the framework that of kind of how I think is correct, it's not necessarily how I think that I think. So we either have a blind spot or like this is really clever. Okay, good. Let's go as my my self-analysis is very very different is that i've become convinced how little i actually know and how how universally errant are my

preconceptions of what's going to work i've i've become convinced that ideas don't count for anything that nobody knows anything that that whatever I think is right might be right but it may not be right which means I set myself up in advance to be extremely comfortable with being wrong yeah this might be your crown jewel this is this is what psychologists the nerd in me is like, Oh, cognitive flexibility, emotional flexibility is that you have space to say nothing is precious. Let's let's explore. And your ego is not involved in what you say and do. It is more the exploratory adventure in you that has created space. And I'm imagining you do the same for other people. Is that close? Yes. So that one actually gave me a little chill. Yeah. Good. Because that one is,

that one is dead on. That's much closer to how I actually feel, but also how I think about myself. So that's one of your crown jewels. And you know, when you're, did your hair just stand up that that's, that's called pyloerection and that's a fun name, right? But that's how I measure success every day. Mark is like, how many times can I be so present and pure and true to something that my hair stands up? So I'm stoked that you just, you just have them, you know, I compete with purely because I have no hair. I mean, I'm, but yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. All right. So space. So you create space.

And that's why, and there's a disappointment like that. It's, it's, I'm not saying I'm, I'm, I'm Spock here that I don't have these emotional lapses and go and be disappointed and upset. And of course that happens, but it doesn't usually last long because it quickly pivots to how do I turn this around? How do I compensate for this? What have I learned from this? What can I do differently next time? What, what does, um, drop you to your knees or get you scared? Because I hear this is one of my, um, struggles is that I, my, I've dampened my ego in such a way that I love. You and I, I think, vibrate in a very similar way about creating the space.

And I can be wrong in a lot of ways, because I sometimes hold on to a precious idea, but that is not becoming. But then sometimes it looks like I'm Teflon, and things just roll right off me when I'm missing the kind of emotional connection of what's happening with people around me because it's devastating to them and so that's not how i am that's in some ways that's one of reed's wonderful powers is that he he has a

teflon aspect to him like that which allows him to make incredibly difficult business decisions, but including personnel ones, I have the opposite problem. And so, you know, getting back to the thing that hurts me, um, come is it's almost the flip side of what I consider one of my real strengths. You know, we alluded to earlier, the fact that I had been in, you know, the magazine circulation and subscription business that I've been in, you know, the magazine circulation and subscription business, that I've been in the mail order business, I was in the direct mail business. I had these businesses that are internet businesses. And there's something interesting about all of them, which is that all of them are selling remotely. I'm not, you know, they're working with dealing with customers you never see. And I realized really early on that I'm really good at that because I have what I don't know what it's called in your world.

I call it remote empathy, which is cool. I have the ability to kind of sense. I mean, everyone has most people have direct empathy, whereas you say something and you watch someone's face drop and you go, oh, I just said something that disappointed them or upset them. The tricky thing is to recognize if I write an email to them, what's their reaction going to be? And it's even more if you can say I'm doing a mail, a letter, you know, piece of mail. How are they going to react to that? And I've always been good at that. I'm very tuned to that. But what it also means is that when I have to do something which I know in my center of my being is going to hurt somebody, it's really hard for me.

A weakness in a way. I know it has to happen. I know that maybe in some ways I deserve this, but it pains me so. It's a pain I can't help. I just feel their, this is going to sound very Clinton-esque, I feel their pain very viscerally. And that's a problem. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised

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slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. What shaped you? What were the, go back to New York, I think it was. I heard you've only leaked one little kind of New York accent in the whole time we've been speaking. And so you're very West Coast inoculated there. And I'm imagining you grew up surfing, you know, on the West Coast. Do you surf? I surf now on the West Coast. Yeah, well, I took it up. It's 30, though. So

okay, start that way. Yeah, it's a tough one to pick up after puberty. It's I surf too. I mean, it's, it is a tough sport in that way. So good. Yeah, good. Nice job. Okay, so go back to what shaped you early days. I know that you've got a deep interest in the planet. You've been a, you know, part of Knowles for a long time, the National Outdoor Leadership School. You've got a, I think you're on the board for 1% for the planet. Yes, correct. So you've got some sort of roots to Mother Nature. But I also want to understand what are some of the big movers that shaped you, whether they're people or events?

That's a great path, literally and figuratively, a path to go down, which is that what really did shape me is a lot of my experience outdoors. Because in some ways, so many things happened there which are pro what happens in the has happened in the rest of my life. Largely unpredictability, risk taking the sense of not knowing where a path is going to lead or how you're going to overcome an obstacle and having to figure it out on the way. And I've been doing outdoor stuff ever since I was tiny and had parents who embraced the inherent dangers or risk taking and going out into the outdoors. I remember even like in middle school, you know, in sixth grade, you know, coming home and saying, hey, we're going caving up in Albany. And my rather than my parents going, what are you out of your mind? You can't go underground. You know, they go, oh, that sounds amazing.

Cool. Describe your parents in like three lines. My parents in what? Three lines, like just a quick hit overview, doing no service to their brilliance. Loved risk taking, but not themselves. No, they didn't love themselves. They love themselves. I mean, they, my father was extremely risk averse, but hated himself for not being more risk tolerant. And so I think he pushed the opposite onto me. Are you a risk taker or mitigator? Risk taker. Yeah, me too. Okay. Absolutely.

Yeah, me too. I spent a lot of time in the back country in very dangerous environments, working with some of the most extraordinary tip of the arrow performers in the world. And I like to, there's a friend of mine who I know is listening to this conversation. What's up, Mark? And we battle, have battled on the difference between mitigation and taking from the risk perspective. And yeah, I'm really glad that you said risk-taking because Mark's now kind of, you know, crawling back into the hole that he came from. I'm joking. But those things are, those things are the the you know there's the there's there's old mountaineers and there's bold mountaineers but there's very few old bold

mountaineers yes you have you have to reckon you have to reckon mitigating risks is you do both the same time you know and you talk about what shaped me is spending you know by the time i was you know 30 i'd probably spent close to four or five hundred nights sleeping on the ground which is a lot and and you learn a lot doing that and and working doing i was a knolls student and a knolls instructor and you learn things because those are set up to be learning situations. So you get up and it's a beautiful, clear, sunny day. And you're going to do some rock climbing on the other side of the lake. And halfway through the session, it begins to rain. And you didn't bring a raincoat.

And worse than that, you left your sleeping bag out to dry. Pause right there. How do you speak to yourself in those moments? You go, this was really stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. Okay. So self-critical first? Like, do you bite yourself? A little bit. Sure. Okay. And then what do you do? Then you go, well, shit, I'm going shit, I don't want to freeze to death. What do I do here?

And I'm going to have to make the best of this. I mean, I'm not even sure what I do. There it is. Okay. But then you go practical. Then you go optimistic. Yes, of course. And then if you were to measure the amount of time that you spend in those three frames,

and by the way, there's other ones we can do, but it's self-critical or stay there. Some people stay there. It doesn't sound like you stay there long, tactical, practical, stay there or optimism versus pessimism. And how much time do you stay there? Very, very little time. Do you stay there? I mean, you're immediately going on to what do I do?

How am I, or how do I make the best of this? Or I go, well, I guess it's going to, nothing's going to change the fact that I'm going to have a, be in a wet sleeping bag tonight. So now what do we do? So you've got, you've got a little scar tissue. You've got a little hardiness in there from dealing and doing hard things in your life scar tissues the wrong word but maybe it is but like what I was going with that whole analogy is that even now you know this is 40 years 30 years for 40 years later you will not find me leaving a trailhead without the raincoat without the extra layers, without the hat. My kids used to laugh at me. But once you've seen the impact of what happens when you're unprepared, once you've seen the

capriciousness of nature, you just go, it's not a big deal to be carrying an extra pound or two. You know, I do a lot of crazy stuff down in the Ventana. And I carry a spot, you know i always you know i do a lot of crazy stuff down in the ventana and i carry a spot you know the a radio you know i am uh whatever that's called satellite locator but you know that's just that is that mitigation no that's just being careful you know and that's learned back when you're freaking 13 years old there you go bringing it forward it's you go it that happens in business all the time as an entrepreneur i'm lying in bed at night thinking about is my sleep figuratively is my sleeping bag left out what am i going to do if it rains and you're preparing in your mind for all these contingencies that could happen because, again, startups are like nature.

Who the hell knows what's going to happen? And you think through as many as you can. You think through how will I respond. And then bad stuff happens. And lo and behold, you've thought it through. And everyone goes, how did you know that was going to happen? And you go, I didn't. I prepared for about 20 other things that could have happened.

And the same thing goes in the positive direction. Something breaks your way. And lo and behold, you've thought about it. But not because you anticipated that one thing. It's because you thought of 20 things, 19 of which was wasted thought. There you go. Very cool framework. And I also love that you are particular with words.

So I said scar tissue just to rewind a moment ago. And you said, ah, it's not that. And so I love that you, yeah, because like this is, so I feel like you and I could calibrate because of your sensitivity to words. And I don't mean sensitivity a bad way. I mean, like refined. Yeah. And so I'm imagining you do that with most people in your life. Like, no, I don't mean sensitivity a bad way i mean like refined you mean yeah and so

i'm imagining you do that with most people in your life like no i don't quite see it that way i see it this way and then you go on and maybe even tell a story to help calibrate is that close to how of course because when you use the word scar tissue that's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and my little mind was like quickly zipping in and going, that sort of means that it's envision this thing, which is permanent and inflexible and always influencing you. And I go, it's not really that. Yeah.

I was trying to get, I'm not picking on the scar tissue one. I'm trying to say that you're absolutely right is that words are important because words conjure imagery in the people who hear them yeah me too and and i'm interested in people helping people i'm trying to transfer an idea from my head to someone else's head i'm trying to transfer as the old stupid saw from the public speaking world, that they don't remember what you told them. They remember how you made them feel. So it's much more important to get the words right, not because the words are right, but because how you make them feel is right. Okay. How about this thought? It all comes down to... What does it all come... What's it all about, Alfie?

Oh, wow. You know, stumped. That's a really good one that I can't riff off the top of my head because it's too important. I love it. Let's go downstream from that just a minute because it's not that I would imagine you don't know it. You're going to get an email from me like in like three or four weeks going, I finally figured out what it's down to. Okay. How about if we go downstream from it?

What are some of the core guiding principles in your life that influence your thoughts that influence the words that you choose the actions you take or don't take like what are some of those guiding principles uh so probably one of the big ones is you know i was even going to call my book this but nobody knows anything which is that all the wisdom um is usually needs to be validated individually um then when someone tells you your idea will never work um they don't really know the only way to find things out is to try them for yourselves. That's a big piece of this. And it also applies to the things you tell yourself. That'll never work. Wait, wait, wait, back up.

How do you know? Let's try this. You know, it comes rock climbing where you look up at a cliff and go, I can't do that. You go, well well maybe if i start up i'll see the root lower clearly a little bit further up uh i have a business idea that'll never work well wait a minute let's just what can we do to begin gathering some evidence about whether my intuitions are correct or not um it's a big guiding principle for me it's like I said earlier that I realize how little I know. And then how important it is to actually experience things to understand them.

Okay, so if you were so you're, you are a legend, a titan in your industry. Okay, so let's just spend that moment for a moment, like, if you were to sit down with somebody who is a master of craft and or self – and I'm more interested in people that are in reverse order, master of self and then craft, right? But let's say you were to sit down with somebody who's a master. What would you want to ask them? One question. I don't know how to do it in one question. I was going to say, wow, that sounds interesting, which is my sitting next to someone at a bar statement. My son, you know know he's an adult but he he had to write a recommendation

for me for something and it was really interesting he goes my dad is the kind of person who will end up sitting next to someone at a bar and no matter what they do or who they are or where they're from he'll end up talking to them for like an hour because he's so genuinely curious about who they are and where they came from. And it's so completely true about me. You know, I'll meet someone who is a sanitation worker or I'll meet someone who is a cafeteria worker or I'll meet someone who's a brain surgeon. And I'm just insatiably curious but wow that sounds really interesting and off it goes there you go okay so curiosity is a big part of your framework you would use that on them not not on them but with them and you are more interested in who they are than what they do.

They're, they're, they're linked. They are linked. They inform. Yeah. And, and the thing is, cause at least in this country, who you, what you do is so tied to who you are. I mean, it's interesting when you travel and you speak to, um, you know, in the United States, we go, what do you do as the way of defining who someone is you know in england they'll go where are you from i mean it's like different ways of defining people but um all of these things are interesting to hear people's background and what's interesting to them and what challenges do they overcome i mean i think what probably makes your job at least the podcast host part of your job, so fascinating.

Oh yeah. People are amazing. You know, like human capacity and capabilities are amazing. I don't think we understand human limits yet by any means. And I'd say, you know, we are governed in radical ways that is yet to be untapped. And the main governor at this point is committed focus to the present moment and a ridiculous, and I use that word purposely, fear of what other humans are going to think of us when we express. And so we're not going to get to human potential, one's own or collectively, unless we figure out how to stay in the present moment long enough and to authentically express. And if you don't match that with some sort of risk and the most, sorry for the soapbox here, but the most dangerous thing that people are engaging right now is the risk of what others

think of them. And it is ridiculous at some level, but it is so primal at another that I understand it and I've lived it and wrestled with it most of my life, you know, early days, I should say the anxiety of others approval. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated by human potential and we have so far to go. Oh, it's really interesting what you just said, which is that that is the most powerful fear of not belonging, of being drummed out of the tribe that we all needed back prehistorically to survive. And that just is something we have to fight against all the time.

Well, it's happening right now with the Corona, um, let's call it social isolation, but it's really social, social distancing is that there's going to be a, an, a point of flexion here where as we start to distance ourselves and the threat is invisible, you know, the Corona virus is invisible, but the host of the threat is our people, our humans. And so there's a weird thing that's taking place where we don't know how to fit right now with each other. And I'm sure it's going to pass, but it might pull us deeper together post, you know, like as a pendulum swings. Yeah. But we got to get this thing right now. We really got to get it right.

Really interesting. Yeah. Listen, Mark, I've really embraced this conversation. Your intelligence is obvious. Your empathy is high. Your commitment to take risks and to explore and to create space for other people are part of your crown jewels. And at least from this conversation and it feels to me that you learn so much from mother nature, um, that you, you carry that forward into how you work

with people and do you work with decision-making? So I, I, I just want to say thank you for your time. And, um, you know, I just appreciate the tone that you operate with and it just feels warm and thoughtful. Well, thanks, Michael. This is actually really, really interesting. Usually I spend all my time exploring other people and it was kind of fun to be asked these questions that made me kind of explore who I am too. There you go. Okay. So where can people get your book? Where can they follow along? What can the next steps be? The book is That Will Never Work, The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, available at booksellers near you, as they say. And it's not a business book, but it has all those tips and tricks and secrets that I have

learned over my career. Or you can follow me on Twitter at MB Randolph or on LinkedIn, Facebook, all the usual places. I've so appreciated the framework that we've, uh, you know, kind of chiseled out together on this call. So I want to encourage people to go get your book, um, to follow along and, um, to be better because of the commit you've made to help people be better as well. Well, it was a pleasure talking to you. Thanks again for your time too. Okay, Mark, All the best to you. Take care. Cheers. Okay. Bye. the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple

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