Living The Red Life - Legendary Interview with Steve Forbes - Chairman of Forbes Magazine

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

In this podcast episode, Steve Forbes discusses the history and evolution of the Forbes media empire, starting from its origins with his grandfather, an immigrant from Scotland. He shares insights into how his grandfather built the company through determination and innovation, even during challenging times like the Great Depression. Forbes emphasizes the importance of adapting to change, particularly in response to the rise of the internet, which transformed the media landscape. He highlights key initiatives like the 30 Under 30 list, which showcases young entrepreneurial talent, as examples of how Forbes has continuously innovated to stay relevant and successful.Forbes also delves into the mindset required to navigate crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many businesses, including Forbes, to pivot quickly and find new ways to operate. He discusses the challenges and rewards of maintaining a prestigious brand and the need for constant differentiation in a competitive market. Forbes advises entrepreneurs to focus on understanding their customers' needs and to be prepared to innovate and adjust their strategies in response to changing circumstances. He underscores the importance of persistence, adaptability, and having a strong team to support business growth and success.CHAPTERS01:12 - Welcome to Living The Red Life with Steve Forbes02:10 - The Origins of the Forbes Media Empire03:33 - Lessons from the Great Depression04:50 - Adapting to the Internet Era06:47 - The Importance of Innovation in Business08:02 - Navigating Unpredictable Events09:40 - Entrepreneurial Mindset During COVID-1910:26 - Balancing Crisis Management with Future Planning11:30 - The Evolution and Future of Forbes13:26 - The Constant Need for Differentiation14:43 - Maintaining Momentum in Business15:56 - Advice for the Younger Entrepreneurial SelfConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

You are the pinnacle of entrepreneurship, I think. And I, you know, big entrepreneur community, and it's everyone's goal to be in Forbes. And then for a few of us that have really audacious goal to be on the front of Forbes, right? That was always my goal growing up as a kid. Was it so intentional to build that prestigious brand and collective brand that you've got?

Or did it just kind of happen over time, just being great at what you do? So it's recognizing what is it you're trying to do and then pursuing it and constantly innovating. One of the innovations that we came up with, one of our people was 30 under 30 and so it's that kind of constant innovation but people sense we're on their side. What still drives you to just be going, going, going? The world doesn't stay still. And it's like a bike. If you're not moving, you're going to fall down.

I love it. If you could go back and give advice to your younger self of your entrepreneurial journey and business journey, what would it be? My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. And I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill,

join me in wonderland and change your life. What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. I have a very special guest today who I know you're going to know, Steve Forbes. Steve, welcome to the show. Good to be with you, thank you. So you guys know who this man is, a legend in the entrepreneurial world. We just did a panel judging some entrepreneurs' business ideas. And now we're going to dive into a bit of behind the scenes of one of the biggest media empires in the world, something that's inspired myself and I know yourself over the years and got a lot of us into entrepreneurship.

So Steve, I don't know where to start, but, I mean, a good place to start is how did you get this to what it is over the years? And, you know, what were some of the biggest lessons over time building this giant empire? Well, it started with my grandfather. He was an immigrant from Scotland, one of 10 children. Great school education, came here. And he wanted to become a business writer and eventually start his own company. But when he came over here, got off the boat, no one would hire him.

And so he recognized that if he just did what everyone else did, it was not going to get very far. So he went to an editor and said, I'll work for you for free for several weeks, show you my worth, and hopefully you'll hire me if I meet your expectations. He had no idea whether the guy would just take his free labor and then toss him aside. But he got the job. But he was so full of ambition and energy that he used a different name, went to a different editor, and got a job there. And probably one of his happiest moments was when the two editors got

into an argument one day as to who had the best business reporter. It's my grandfather. And then when he started the magazine, he was a Scotsman, lived up to the stereotype, very tight with money. And one day he started to buy a couple of suits, which in those days was a big expenditure of money, and then rented a room in the a couple of suits, which in those days was a big expenditure of money, and then rented a room in the Waldorf Astoria, the poshest hotel in New York. So his friends thought, are you losing your mind? And he said, no. He said, the makers and shakers and finance and industry in those days went to the Waldorf, had rooms there. He figured if he was there properly dressed, he'd get to know them on a personal basis and get information that you never would in a formal interview across the desk.

And so that kind of spirit lived on. You also learned from that kind of history, the ups and downs. Did very well in the 20s. William Randolph Hearst, who was the big ghoul of the day, offered to buy his company for tens of millions of dollars. He turned them down. Independent. And three years later, the company was broken all but name because of the Great Depression. And so he had to use freelance earnings.

He instituted what they called Scotch Week, which every fourth week he didn't get paid. Wow. But people were just happy to have a job in those desperate years. Yeah. So you learn very quickly. It's not always a smooth line. We went through a very turbulent period with the rise of the internet.

Schumpeter talks about creative destruction. Creative part is nice. Destruction part is not so great. Yeah, right. And everything we had learned went out the window. And that's why most print publications didn't make it or became a shadow of their former selves. And so one of the things Peter Drucker, the late great management guru, said, he said, every organization should ask yourself, what is your purpose? What is it you are trying to achieve? If you do that,

then you don't get quite as caught hung up, get hung up as how you achieve it. People get stuck on the means and not the ends. And so we evolved out of the print industry. We still come out several times a year. But one of the first things we, well, one of the things we did was our website, going back to the 1990s, we put in a separate building. Don't put it in part of an existing organization. They'll crush it. Not crush it, but use it for its own purposes. And then we used content outside of the magazine. Most publishers at the time just used content in their publications.

And so we eventually had over 3,000 contracted contributors. So whereas when we had the magazine, we'd do several hundred articles a year, 800,000, we were doing now 100,000, 120,000 submissions each year. So adjusting to the times. And again, I think people sense with us, one reason I think, one of the reasons in addition to epitomizing success is that entrepreneurs around the world recognize that we see them as heroes. We don't see them as scoundrels and criminals being constantly watching by the regulators and government bureaucrats.

And so we believe in them. We're not naive about people. We're like a stage critic. We love a good production. Hate it when it's not done right. But the key thing is we believe in what they're doing. And so I think that has helped us around the world in a way that most companies don't have. So it's recognizing what it is that you're trying to do and then pursuing it and constantly innovating.

One of the innovations that we came up with, one of our people, was 30 under 30. Finding entrepreneur people of the age of 30. Around the world, there's a lot of ferment. The over 50, it ain't over as Yogi Berra, the baseball player said, it ain't over till it's over. And so it's that kind of constant innovation, but people since were on their side. Yeah. And I think like when I look at what you've done and all that your family have done, you are the pinnacle of entrepreneurship, I think. And I have a big entrepreneur community, and it's everyone's goal to be in Forbes. And then for a few of us that have really audacious goals to be on the front of Forbes, right? That was always my goal growing up as a kid.

And I still believe I'll do it one day if i work hard enough and get big enough yeah yeah thank you and and i i would love to talk to you about is it was it so intentional to build that prestigious brand and collective brand that you've got or did it just kind of happen over time just being great at what you did uh It's trying to meet the needs of your customers, your readers. And so provide insights and information they don't get elsewhere. And we went through some rough times, I mentioned with the Great Depression and the aftermath. But so we evolved over time. We innovated over time. So it's not sitting down and having a grand plan. Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, once made the observation, he said,

events control me more than I control events. Harold MacMillan, the Prime Minister of Great Britain back in the 50s and 60s, was asked by a reporter, how do you determine policy? And he said, events, dear boy. Yeah, so you have to respond to what's there, but you also have to take the initiative. And one of the things about the Internet, you learn very early, it's relentless commoditizing. It just can't depend on a name. You have to have something that people trust. You have to work at that, because otherwise it will crush you,

which is why a lot of these startups, they reach a certain level and then peter out. Yeah, I think, you know, coming back to the innovation part with, you know, obviously I've not been in business as long through the Great Depression, but for me, I think the first big one was COVID, right? I've been in business 12 13 years and when COVID hit I think me and a lot of my network and community had two options right you could either pivot or you could just sit there and hope that it's going to figure itself out and you know the more successful entrepreneurs I think pivot and adjust and we we created a

20 million dollar company out of. It didn't exist before COVID. It launched off COVID because of what was happening. And we grew it to $20 million already. And I have friends that were doing similar to me and they went out of business, right? And it's because, I mean, you're given two paths as an entrepreneur. And that's the thing. There's no playbook. There's no painting by the numbers when these things come along, which is why the saying, you live in an era where you can eat well or sleep well, but not both. And it is true. And for example, when COVID hit, we do a lot of live events. Well, that suddenly disappeared. That's where 40% of my business came to. That's why I... And so then you had to learn to do online.

And one of the things that you have to realize too, everyone else is in the same boat. So even though initially everything got canceled, people realized, well, you got to move forward. And so you adjust and you move ahead and you innovate. You try to come up with things that people say, oh, okay, that'll differentiate me from others and let's go with it.

What I mean part of it's the mindset too, because we innovated, pivoted, and now the events have restarted for us and we do make a big percent from that. But now we host virtual events with 50,000 entrepreneurs on it virtually. And I would never have done that, or I probably would have took longer to get to that point if COVID hadn't have happened. And I think entrepreneurs, you have the positive entrepreneurs that like see a problem and then find a solution. And that's, I think, so important for survival. Like, do you feel that too, where like when you're hit with a problem, you work around it and look at the positive outcome of it versus dwelling. Well, you also have to make sure you're keeping the fires going even as you cope with a crisis or try to look to the future. You've got to get to the future.

And that takes skill and determination and a good team to help you get through that. But again, it's sleepless nights. You don't know if you're doing the right thing. You think you are, but there's no sure result. Yeah. My team, we spoke about this recently because one of our businesses isn't doing well a lot. And the team said, well well what's happening with it i said you have to trust the process and do your best and and you know make sure you're on the right path and then slowly stuff turns around and i think a lot of people quit too early and they panic and make

bad decisions during those hard days or sticking with something too long the opposite yeah i love it the opposite yeah when you shouldn't yeah yeah uh what about like how do you see the future now because i think this last you know 15 or so years with social media it's probably changed so much in the internet right for for your sort of business how do you see the next 10 20 years uh i think uh trying to figure out uh how you provide something that somebody else doesn't how you keep that community going. And so we're constantly doing a lot of small initiatives, but also bigger initiatives. Again, figuring out why would somebody want to come to your site?

Why do they want your service? You've got to always put yourself, easy to say, but you've got to put yourself in their shoes. Wear shoes. Sneakers. But why would they want to, what do they get by coming to you? Well, and I think that's so great because people listening, like, this is Forbes, right? Like, people listening, why would you, you're the most prestigious brand out there. Why would we have to think about that?

But that's why you're successful because you are still thinking about that. Well, history's replete with businesses that prospered and then didn't. And it's not that they didn't see the future. I mean, Kodak was once a mighty company. And they saw the rise of digital. It wasn't that they were ignorant of it, but they couldn't make the adjustments. IBM nearly went down in the early 1990s with the PCs. They had a PC business, but they couldn't pivot fast enough on it.

So it's not just enough to see something changing. You have to make it happen in a way where you're ahead. Yeah. And they say with legacy companies, oh, make yourself like you're a startup. Well, that's easy to say, but when you have a legacy company, darn hard to do. Yeah. And that's why, you know, there's the old cliche, nine out of 10 questions, the answer is money. When you're managing, a nine out of 10 often is personnel.

Cool, yeah. Yeah. Good. And I think last couple of questions that well first one is in question it's a highlight because we've been speaking offline during this panel talking about my crazy travel schedule you flying and traveling and and i just want to say i admire like the hustle right like we're talking about you're still going to these business events and networking and what what my father liked to say if you think you've arrived you're ready to be shown the door good

well i was going to ask you what still drives you to just be going going going and i guess that's it right yeah the world doesn't stay still and uh it's like a bike if you're not moving you're gonna fall down i love it and last question i always love to ask this from experts and people that have been in this game for a long time. If you could go back and give advice to your younger self of your entrepreneurial journey and business journey, what would it be? I wish I could see the future better. Come up with the answers sooner. Yeah. But the thing is, you don't know what the answer is.

And you got to keep trying on it. And that's why you have to do the job yourself. It's not something, if it was easy, anyone could do it. Who would need you? What are you bringing to the game that others are not? Good. And that's what you have to keep reminding yourself. What are you bringing that makes it so many worthwhile for somebody else? I love that. Well, we'll wrap there. You heard it here. The legend himself.

What an iconic brand. And I'm so excited for this episode. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care, guys. you