Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Billionaire Jim McKelvey on Building an Unbeatable Business | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic | E69

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

There are two types of entrepreneurs: those who copy other people’s businesses and those who create an entirely new market. When you disrupt an existing market, you run the risk of being lumped in with your competitors. For example, you can probably name five of your local coffee shops off the top of your head.  While some entrepreneurs thrive off of copying other business ideas, the most successful businesses are the ones who solve a problem that nobody else has solved. If your business idea is completely original, then whoever needs your product will come to you because nobody else is filling that hole in the market.  Over the years, Jim McKelvey has become an expert at building businesses that solve problems no one else is addressing. He has founded several groundbreaking businesses like Square and LaunchCode, both of which fill a hole in their respective markets.  In this episode of YAP Classic, Hala and Jim break down the two different types of entrepreneurs. Jim tells Hala about how he met Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Square and Twitter. They also talked about why money is a weak motivator in entrepreneurship and how Jim and Jack survived an attack from Amazon.  Topics Include: - The impact of his mother’s suicide  - Jim’s relationship with social media - ‘Don’t do’ list  - How does Jim define entrepreneurship?  - Pros of copying someone  - Our copy-centric world - Becoming aware of solvable problems - Why money is a weak motivator - How Jim met Jack Dorsey - Age bias - Starting Square  - The Innovation Stack  - Competing successfully against Amazon  - Writing The Innovation Stack  - And other topics… Jim McKelvey is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Square. He also founded Invisbily, LaunchCode, and Third Degree Glass Factory. He still serves as the owner of all seven companies he started, but does not hold a leadership position at any of them. In 2017, he was appointed as an independent director of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.  He’s the author of three books, the most popular being The Innovation Stack, an inside look into the world of entrepreneurship that details Square’s battle with Amazon. He also wrote The Birth of Baking, a graphic novel about The Bank of America’s conception, and The Art of Fire, a beginner’s guide to glassblowing.  Sponsored By: The Jordan Harbinger Show - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Indeed - Visit Indeed.com/YAP to start hiring now. Resources Mentioned: YAP episode #69: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/69-the-innovation-stack-with-jim-mckelvey/id1368888880?i=1000478091591  Jim’s Book, The Innovation Stack: https://www.jimmckelvey.com/books/  Jim’s Website: https://www.jimmckelvey.com/  More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review -  ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course

Today on the app, we're pulling from the young and profiting archives and resurfacing my eye-opening conversation with billionaire Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square and author of The Innovation Stack. Tune in to hear the story of how Jim met Jack Dorsey as a 15-year-old intern, who fast forward to today is the CEO of both Twitter and Square, and learn how Jack stood out to Jim as a young worker with extraordinary potential. Jim goes on to tell us why you don't need to be a natural born leader or even like leadership to become an entrepreneur, and we hear the not talked about enough perspective of how we can win big in business without ever having to be a CEO. Lastly, we get the inside scoop of how Squares Innovation stacked helped them compete against

Amazon when the e-commerce giant tried to put them out of business and replicate their payment processing model. If you want to learn how to build an unbeatable business and rock entrepreneurship, without ever having to be the CEO. The NIAP fam, I advise you to get out your notepad and keep on listening. So my first question is taking it way back. I've listened to a lot of different interviews that you've been on. And I know that they usually start off with talking about how you met Jack Dorsey, who's the CEO of Twitter and how you guys started off with Square.

But I'm looking to take it way back. I know that your mother suddenly passed away. back in December, 1989. And my father actually passed away about a month ago, and I know how difficult that can be, but also how motivating that can be when somebody really close to you passes away. So help me understand, like, who you were as a person prior to your mother passing and the type of changes that went on both mentally and physically after she passed away and helping you to become the person that you are today. Wow. So mom died very subtle. suddenly it was suicide and it was not something that we were expecting. And it really blew my world up

because up until that point, I had lived in a very, very isolated world. There were no real problems. My dad was a professor, so we never, you know, we were never rich, but we were never worried about money. And a lot of the world's problems seemed to not bother us. And when mom got ill, we thought that sending to a psychiatrist would make it all go away. And she led us to believe this. My mother was very, very tough. And she didn't tell us how bad she was feeling because she didn't, I don't know why. But the bottom line is her suicide really knocked me over. And at the moment when it happened, I realized that I was actually mediocre in everything that I did. So I had three jobs at the time. I had my own company that was making storage cabinets for compact discs and basically

stereo cabinetry. So that business was going pretty well. I was actually working full-time for IBM at the time, but I was working in the Los Angeles office, so I didn't have to actually physically go into the office. I was one of the first remote workers. And then I was a glass blower. So I had a glass studio that I was working at. And I would basically blow glass during the day, do my IBM consulting at night, and then run this other company in the sort of interstitial moments. And then mom died, and I realized that I was mediocre at everything. Like my company wasn't that good, and I wasn't a very good IBM employee,

and I was a mediocre glassblower. So I decided the day my mom died that I would focus on something. And so that was Mira, the company that actually I still own. I'm in their office right now. But started Mira, basically the night mom died, and I quit IBM, and I, for a time, stopped blowing glass, and then I stopped.

I basically got rid of my company. So I put it all into this little software company, which then, well, didn't make any money for the next five years. So I went five years without an income. Wow. That's so cool that, I mean, it's a terrible thing that happened. And I didn't realize how traumatic it was. So I'm sorry that I brought it up right away. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough interview, you know? This is good. I mean, it's good content, I guess. But it was like, I've never, I've never had an interview start off with bomb suicide, like, ever. That was. phenomenal. Yeah, well, there's a silver lining in all of this, and that's the fact that her death kind of was a wake-up call for you to not be mediocre. And I did want to share that lesson with my listeners, the fact that you don't have to wait until somebody passes away in your family to kind of get that fire under you. But a lot of the times, like those situations do bring out a lot

of drive and motivation. For example, like I said, my father died from coronavirus last month. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was really really. bad. For me, I feel like I can take over the world and, like, I have all this passion because I just want to make him proud. And I know that other people have had similar situations like that. So also, during my research, I found out that you were quite a nerd growing up. Still am. Oh, yeah. It does. You don't grow out of that. At least I didn't. Yeah. And so you didn't really fit in as a child. And you decided very early on that you weren't going to care if you fit in or not. And I think that probably helped you as well as hurt you

later on in life. Could you talk about that a little bit? So it wasn't so much that I wasn't going to care. It was that at some point, I couldn't do anything about it. So caring too much wasn't going to help anything. It wasn't like I was this stoic guy that says, I don't care what other people think. No, no, I really care what other people think. But at some point, it doesn't do any good. So at some point, the rational part of my brain just said, look, you've got to proceed whether or not people are pissed off at you or think you're an idiot. So I've been called a lot of names. And at some point, I just gave up putting any energy into it. But I guess I still care. I just don't do anything about it. But yeah, it was a big wake-up call because what I became was

this thing called an entrepreneur. And at the time, people weren't calling people entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is this sort of popular term these days. But when I started doing it, it wasn't very popular. And people thought it was weird to start your own company. And I thought it was stupid if you didn't go to work for a big company. So it was good to have that thick skin. And I hear a lot of people say, oh, don't care what other people think. Like, that's not a good piece of advice because most people can't do that. But what I would say is don't care too much what other people think. And, you know, if you can get away from a lot of the social dopamine drips that you get from trying to get followers or likes or things like that, that may help.

Yeah. And I believe you don't use any social media at all. Is that true? I don't. So it turns out I wrote a book and my book publicity team has set up Facebook and Instagram accounts and then Twitter, of course, because Jack started the company. But I don't use it. If you connect with me on one of the social accounts, it's not me. It's my team. That's to sell books. And I have to say, I don't have anything against social media, but I don't choose to use it personally. I feel the same way about drugs. Like, I don't use drugs. I got nothing against drugs.

If you want to use drugs, we can still be great friends. A lot of my friends, you know, use a lot of drugs. I just don't do it because to me, drugs are probably not something I should be using. Yeah. I feel the same way about Facebook. I mean, it's kind of crazy because you are a multi-billionaire. You know, we haven't had many billionaires on the podcast. The last billionaire I had on the podcast was Naveen Jane like 40 episodes ago.

And maybe there's something to it, like having a laser focus, not getting distracted by trying to impress people in this fake virtual world. But Hala, I don't have a laser focus. Like, I do six different things. Like, I'm on the Fed. I'm going into the glass blowing studio today. I'm going to spend an afternoon blowing glass. I wrote this book. I do work with Square.

I got another company. Like, focus is not one of the words you would use. to describe me. But I will tell you this, having a surplus of time is very valuable. So I'm one of these people that I think if I got into social media, it would be probably the same way if I got into drugs is like I'd probably use too many of them. Like I'd probably be really concerned about what people think or trying to be clever or trying to look cool or trying to be accepted. Like I think the sort of weaker parts of my personality would dominate and I would just get sucked in. And so I've explicitly eliminated that.

I also don't play video games, and I know that's uncool too. But to me, I would rather spend time talking to people or working or hanging out with folks in real life. I mean, even if it's, you know, these days over video chat. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes total sense. I'm kind of similar. Like, I don't watch any TV, you know.

I just don't because I'd rather, you know, work on my podcast. I have a full-time job aside from just working on my podcast. So you have to choose where you spend your time. And like you said, social media might not be a great use of your time. Well, I mean, let me phrase that a different way. Yeah. You have to choose where you spend your time, but you should choose where you don't spend your time. Okay. In other words, and this is a different way of looking at the equation. Like most people say, well, I should do more of this. Like I should learn how to play the piano. Well, where's that time going to come from? And I was taught years ago, a trick by Jim Collins, who told me to have a don't-do list. And the don't-do list is this, I mean, it was life-changing for me because I got rid of all sorts of things that I shouldn't be doing.

And this was pre-social media. So social media wasn't even an option. But I got rid of my TV. I don't watch news. Yeah. Especially with everything going on now, you still don't watch news? I don't watch news. I mean, look, I know what's going on.

I know about Black Lives Matter. I'm going to marches and I'm actually heading to the NDAACP office. NDACP is my neighbor at launch code. So I'm going to go into their office and do some things to hopefully help them today. But I don't know. I haven't seen the videos. And it's not because I'm trying to avoid it. It's just because the news cycle is tremendously draining.

If I get little snippets of news here and there, that's enough. Now, I do read, but I read typically weekly. publication so I don't get the daily hammering of stuff because it's like I just get too depressed. Like if I, if I soaked in all the news right now, I probably couldn't leave this room. Yeah. I wasn't paying attention to news for a really long time until coronavirus happened. And then I just became like obsessed with it. Well, yeah. But I mean like so so a great example of coronavirus. Like I learned everything I could about coronavirus. And then I kept watching in the news and everything

in the news was stuff that I already had learned. So I went to the scientists. I work with Washington University's medical school. I'm actually funding some research to try to get us a vaccine, and more importantly, to try to get us some testing. So I'm deeply involved in this, but I'm not learning stuff on a daily basis that's new. And if I get a piece of information two or three hours or two or three days after somebody else does, I still get it. People call me all the time and tell me stuff that they think is important. That's how I get my information. Yeah, that's really interesting. So I want to move on to the topic of entrepreneurship, and I want to talk about your book, Innovation Stack. So from my understanding, you prefer to build completely new markets. You like to do things that have never been done before rather than copying a proven solution. You call this being a true entrepreneur. Could you define what an entrepreneur means to you? Because I know you have a very specific definition. Yes. So the word entrepreneur was first popularized a century ago by an economist who needed a word to describe somebody who was doing something different. And that's different from business. So you can be very successful in business and basically do what somebody else has already done. So my friend Howard owns a bunch of coffee shops. He's made millions of dollars. And coffee shops have been done before. He opened a really successful coffee shop. But there wasn't anything really that different about his coffee shops.

shops versus all the other coffee shops. And he would be a very successful business person. In history, we needed a word to differentiate people who did something different from people who were doing stuff that had already been done. And so that word was entrepreneur. Now, in the last hundred years, the definition has morphed to mean anybody in business. So if you start a coffee shop, we call you an entrepreneur today. But I don't use that definition. I use the archaic definition because I need a way to differentiate doing new things with copying. And by the way, I don't have anything against copying. I always try to copy.

Right now, I'm in the studio. I'm designing a piece of glass, and I am trying to steal everybody else's techniques. Like, I am trying desperately to find a way to make this shape through copying other people. And I keep failing because nobody's ever done this thing before. So I'm going to have to go invent. But invention is the last resort. But the problem is, most people don't even have a word to describe somebody in business who does something new because the word entrepreneur these days doesn't mean that.

It means just anybody in business. So the reason I wrote this book was because I stumbled upon this super powerful concept that allows Squared to become a multi, multi-billion dollar company that allowed us to survive and attack by Amazon and allowed us to do all these really, really powerful things. And then I noticed that we weren't the only company that had done this, that there was actually hundreds of companies throughout history that had exactly the same experience. And I was like, oh, my God, one of the things that these companies all had in common was that they didn't begin by copying another business. They began by creating a new market. And that's super powerful. And if your

listeners wanted to do something to change the world, I think there's more powerful in creating new than in copying what's already been done. Well, to your point, that you can get super successful if you create something completely new. I think you can reach new heights in terms of success. But what is the pros of copying someone? You know, I think it's less risky. Tell us about that. Yeah, so copying's great.

Like, you should always try to copy. So what I talk about in the book is this idea of the perfect problem. This idea that some problems are unsolved and some problems are unsolved and unsolvedable. But if it's solvable, but it hasn't been done yet, that's a perfect target area. And if you do something in that area, you will almost certainly be very, very successful. That said, I don't want a bunch of people running out there and saying, well, McHelvey said, don't copy, so I'm just going to, like, reinvent the chair. No, chairs work.

Like, I'm sitting in a chair right now. This chair is great. And I would not have any time at all if I had to reinvent everything every day. So, yeah, absolutely, copy. And if you, by the way, if you just want to make a bunch of money, don't be an entrepreneur. Just be a business person. Find a business that works. Copy whatever else is doing.

You can go to a trade show. The trade show can teach you what you don't know. You can hire a consultant if you don't like. It's a formula. And all you have to do is work the formula. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in solving problems that the world has not figured out yet. And you can't copy the solution the first time.

And that's the thing. we are such a copy-centric world. All of school is copy. Basically, your entire schooling experience. Up through a PhD. Because even if you do a PhD, which is supposed to be original research, like you're really supposed to copy the way other people have done original research. Like, it's just a formula.

And run that formula. That formula works, but it's not going to solve a new problem. And that's what I want to do. And so that's why I wrote this book. And then in the process, I discovered that it was resonating with people. who also felt frustrated that they didn't have the right tools that they could copy to solve all the problems they wanted to solve. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.

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Hiring, Indeed, is all you need. Young and Profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand.

your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lensione and he is a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do

is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role, which I do have, K on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel, and it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. Yes. So you mentioned the concept of the perfect problem. So I know that you founded several companies,

Square, Invisibly, launch code. What are the problems that you're trying to solve with those companies? Well, I mean, Square was a question of getting small merchants paid. So I was a small merchant. I wanted to be able to take credit cards. So that was the original problem that we solved. Invisibly is trying to solve the problem of people's identity online. Basically, you don't have a voice. in how your content is created if it's advertising supported because an ad doesn't allow you to pay more for something that you like and less for something you hate. So in other words, if I steal 20 seconds of your time and piss you off, I'm still going to make the same amount of money as if I give you 20 seconds of pure joy. And you'd rather be able to pay more for 20 seconds of pure joy, but there's no mechanism for doing that online. And the reason, one of the reasons that,

you know, we're losing journalism and we're losing news and we're losing great content is because these economic models are broken. So that's what invisibly does. And then LaunchCode, launch code was an attempt to basically allow people to become programmers for free, because I knew we had this worldwide shortage of programmers. And I thought, well, the best way to get somebody to do something is to give them something great for free. So at LaunchCode, we give you a world-class education in six months that gets you a job. And there's no charge for that. And because it's free to everybody, we have thousands of people now that have gotten free training and real world jobs as programmers. And it is life-changing. Launch code, I mean, Square's kind of a big deal, but launch

code is probably more impactful on daily human lives because you're talking about people who were, half of them were unemployed and probably other half of them, the average salary would people start launch code with 17,000. And when they finish the program, it's 55,000. So we're taking people 3x their salary. And I mean, it's just life-changing. So yeah, I do stuff like that. That's amazing. That must be so rewarding. So I think a lot of my listeners, they want to start companies. They want to start businesses, but they don't have the ideas. They're unable to find the best business ideas. So how do you become more aware and alert to the perfect problems that are out there? So what I recommend is that people find something that appeals,

of them. Here's the problem, Hala. Entrepreneurship in its current definition, just start a business. It's like starting a business ship, is super popular. It's cool these days. And because it's cool, a lot of people are going into it just because that's the way they want to make money. And in those cases, I think those people would be well served by just copying an existing business. Find something that's working in Cincinnati and move it to Des Moines. or find something that works in San Francisco and copy it in New York. That's a good formula for making money. I am not the right guy to talk to about that stuff.

I believe if you want to be an entrepreneur, you're probably not going to succeed. But if you succeed, your success will be 100 or 1,000 X what a normal business person would be. Think about the problems that you're going to encounter and understand that money is a very weak motivator. the difference between being a middle-class person in the United States and being a billionaire is not that great. And I'm just telling you, like, there's not anything really that money

makes that much of a difference. Like, if you're basically in the middle class, it doesn't get much better than that. You know, you're still going to sleep indoors. You're still going to have Netflix. You're still going to have, like, just all the stuff is pretty much the same. Like, maybe you'll have a fancy our car, but you know what? Who cares? Maybe you'll fly in a private plane as opposed to a regular plane. And you know what? Who cares? There's no big difference. So money's a very weak motivator if you get into real problems. So pick a problem you care about. So I'm not interested in talking to people who want to start a business. I want to start a business. Well, I don't care. But somebody who comes to me and says, hey, Jim, I want to fix this problem that I care deeply about.

So look, I mean, just look at your window. Look at the issues we have in society, okay? They're terrible problems going on right now. I spend every morning working out with a guy, he's a 76-year-old African-American. Like, he's been through the civil rights movement. He's been through all these situations. Like, he and I talk every morning for an hour and a half about what's going on. And he's telling me all these things that there should be solutions for.

Now, are those going to be good businesses? Well, some of them will be. some of them will be great businesses because what I talk about in the innovation stack is the massive power of serving the unserved. And that's different than most people when they're thinking about opportunity. You know, there's like, oh, well, I'll make this product that rich people will buy. Well, there aren't a lot of rich people. But if you make a product that every person can buy, well, that's amazing. So one of my projects right now is I'm trying to figure out a way to make a five-cent diaper. You know, diapers cost 25 cents. Poor women can't afford it. Poverty starts a lot of times when a young mother can't afford diapers for her kid. And then horrible stuff happens because the kid can't go to preschool or the mother can't hold down a job. Like it's, if you look at what poverty starts, that's one of the places. And I'm like, why is the world paying 25 cents for a diaper? I think we could do it for five. Now, can I build a five cent diaper? Absolutely not. Will I ever be able to? I don't know. I'm literally investing in investigating, investigating a,

hyper-absorment materials right now because that's a problem that I care about. If you don't care about that, don't work on it, but find a problem you care about. So you just gave a great example, this diaper issue that you're working on. You're certainly not a diaper expert, right? My two-year-old daughter would differ with you, but yes. I'm not, no, I'm not a diaper apers. I don't know anything about diapers, except I'm a user. Yeah, so how do you deal with all that uncertainty? Like how do you get comfortable with uncertainty going into a problem that you don't know if you can solve? How do you get past that? So the answer is, and again, this is one of the reasons I wrote the book because I wanted people to know what it was like firsthand to feel that.

You're not going to get over it. There is no trick to getting over the uncertainty. There will, if you are doing something that has never been done in human history before, you are going to feel really weird. you're going to feel alone. You're going to feel scared. Probably your friends who love you will tell you that you're stupid. Not because they want to criticize you, but they'll say, they'll say, holla, don't do that.

Yeah, it's because they care about you, most likely. They care about you. And they are looking at a world of copies saying, well, what she's doing, I've never seen before. So therefore, it's never going to work. And, you know, don't get in that flying machine. And I say, yeah, most of the early flying. machines killed their operators. But then the Wright brothers got it right, and we have the airplane

now. And think about Orville and Wilbur Wright being the first pilots, because neither one of them were qualified to be a pilot. I mean, nobody had ever flown a plane before. Like, how could they be qualified? So I think you're not, and this is the thing that pisses me off. People expect these sort of simple answers. Oh, here's a way to not be afraid. No. You. You're not. You. You're you probably are going to be afraid. Here's a way to not be scared. No, like, I'm scared. I've done it 20 times.

And I still, every time I have to do something new, I get scared. But the difference is if you're expecting that, you're better prepared to handle it. So an analogy I use in the book, it's a difference between being an adventurer and being, or I should say an explorer or being a tourist. Like if I'm going to go be a tourist, I expect to sleep indoors and have room service. Like I just, I've got this sort of tourist thing. Now, if I'm planning to go visit someplace that I've never been before, and it turns out that that place has been unexplored in human history, and I get off whatever the vehicle that drops me there, and I'm in a jungle. And I've brought my laptop and a visa card, I'm probably going to die.

Okay. but if I know I'm going to be dropped off in a jungle, well, I'll probably bring flashlights, band-a-machette, I'm going to pack for the trip. So if you're going to be an entrepreneur, at least you should know how to pack for the trip. I love that analogy. So when I was doing my research and studying, I found out that you don't consider yourself to be a good leader. And that's very different than a lot of the people that I've interviewed in the past. You never really take the CEO role. You know, Jack Dorsey is the CEO of Square. You're really quick to give up that role when somebody competent comes along. So help us understand how did you realize that, like,

you weren't a good leader, you weren't a good manager. What made you decide that I'm not going to be a CEO for any companies that I found? Well, so I tried it for a while. And it was one of these things like accounting, which I can do accounting. I like I know how to do accounting, but I'm not a natural good accountant. I'm not that sort of person. And I could force myself to do this thing that was unnatural for me, and I would do it poorly. And then I met somebody who was a great accountant, and he loves it, and he's just phenomenal. And I was like, wow, I can, like, pay you to do this thing that I'm not very good at and shouldn't be doing probably anyway. And that just was this light bulb of one on my head.

And then I looked at the other things that I was doing. It's like, wait a second, I'm actually not very good at running these meetings. And I don't really enjoy measuring the weekly progress of the teams. And I don't enjoy, you know, motivational retreats and all this. I mean, it's just like, ugh, I wasn't very good. So I realized pretty early on that I was sort of a terrible leader, but I still wanted to solve these problems and I still wanted to start companies. And then I realized that, wait a second, there are people who are great leaders who love that.

So why not work with them? So, you know, like when Jack and I started Square, there was like this, you know, there's that awkward discussion. You know, like two people start a company. Like, who's going to be the boss? We had zero questions. It's like, I was like, well, I don't want to be the boss. and Jack's like, I want to be the boss.

I was like, great, you're the boss. I mean, that was it. That's amazing. It took like a minute and a half. Yeah. I love the fact that Jack's the boss. He's doing way better than I would have. So since you brought up Jack,

let's talk about how you guys met. I think it's a really unique story. So I hired Jack when he was 15 years old. His mother owned a coffee shop, and he was this little kid who loved working with computers. and came into our office and we put him to work and he pulled it all-nighter with us on his first day at the office. So we ended up becoming friends after that. I mean, sort of worked friends,

but he, even as a 15-year-old, was incredibly competent. So I kept giving him bigger, bigger assignments. And after a while, we did a special project, just him and me, which turned out to save the company. And so Jack and I stayed friends. Not, you know, I wouldn't see him every year because he moved out of town for a while. but after they kicked him out of Twitter, he came back to St. Louis, and we caught up again, and he suggested that we started another company together. He invited me to start a company with him. I thought, well, that's cool. What do you want to do? And he was like, I thought you had an idea. Like, I don't have anything. So that's kind of what we started. Yeah, so I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned with your relationship. So he started out as your intern.

You were still young. I think you were like 25 or 26. Yeah, and he was 15. Yeah. So you were still young. but you were more experienced than he was. How was it, you know, becoming kind of business partners with somebody who was so much younger and less experienced than you at the time? Like, how did you trust him? And did you learn anything from that?

So it turns out that there is a huge age bias in this country. So at LaunchCode, we place a lot of people and we placed programmers. I placed a programmer six months ago who was in his 70s, 70-year-old programmer, like a programmer. The number one bias in programming is not gender or race. It is, in fact, age. And if you are prejudiced, which I guess to some extent we're all prejudiced a little bit, but if you see people of color or a certain gender or a certain age and you say,

they can't do this job, then you're really limiting yourself and those people. So to me, the fact that somebody is really young, like 15 years old, doesn't mean that he or she can't manage a team, do great work. So I don't know. It's like I just never saw Jack as a 15-year-old. Like he was just somebody who I'd give him a task and you'd do the task right. So I gave him more tasks. And after a while, I gave him too many tasks that he couldn't do them all.

So I started hiring people to work for the 15-year-old. Now, the people I was hiring was in their 30s. So, you know, they were basically working for somebody who came to work on his bicycle. But he was still there. boss, and I made sure they knew he was their boss, and Jack did a great job. So you got to get over this idea. Don't prejudge. So what if they're 15? So what if they look a certain way? I mean, but that's so baked into everything we do that I think, look, there's phenomenal talent out there. This is, okay, so you want a trick? Here's a trick. Go where the people ain't. If everybody's

got a problem hiring women programmers, which statistically they do, for some reason that bias still exists, which is insane. Wow, that means that you, if you can hire women programmers, will get better programmers. Just so simple. Like, we're seeing right now that there's huge biases in society. Well, that doesn't mean there isn't talent. It just means that the talented people don't get the same opportunities. Well, if you can give them the opportunities, well, you'll get better, I mean, it's good for everybody. So just get over whatever the bias is. Try to accept the fact that your new programmer may be a 65-year-old black female. Oh, and by the way, if you need one, I've got a few that will crush you, you know, on JavaScript. Like the launch

code, like, we let everybody in. And some of our people defy the stereotypes. And I love it. Yeah, I think it's a really important topic to discuss. Like, there's ageism, and it goes both ways, whether it's young or old, people just have their prejudices. So something I was, I was looking at the news today, unlike you, and I saw that Twitter and Square will make Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery on June 19th, 1865. It's going to be a permanent company holiday. So I thought that was really cool. That is really cool. And thank you for telling me that. You didn't know? It just happened yesterday. They announced it. I don't read the news on a daily basis.

Yeah. And I have to say I haven't checked by Square email in three days. So. Yeah. I get hundreds and hundreds of pieces of email. So that... Yeah. Well, do you know what Square is doing in relation to supporting Black Lives Matter and anything with their, you know, inclusion and diversity plans and how they're doing there?

Look, I would say this. There's sort of two general things that we can do as corporate citizens. One is treat our employees really, really well. Try to quash biases. And look, we all have biases. Like, I got caught the other day on something that I, it was a bias that I had. And somebody pointed it out to me. And I was so embarrassed.

Like, I couldn't even, like, I felt terrible for about a week. Somebody caught me on something. And I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe that I would say that. But it was this thing that was just sort of, it was sort of in there. And somebody exposed it. So we tried to be good citizens that. way. But the second thing we could do, and I think Square's done a wonderful job of this, is build tools that connect people and payments and allowing small businesses and small individuals.

Like if you're using Cash App, Cash App is phenomenal, and it connects people and people who don't have access to the tools that middle class Americans have, we're making those tools more available. And we do it for small businesses, and we now do it for individuals through Cash App. And I think those things are just great for society. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts.

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But I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff. I'm really good at marketing, sales, growing a business, offers. But I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting an official business. I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting Yap Media. And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwest Registered Agent is. They've been helping small business owners launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years.

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So you guys had very little financial experience. experience. How did you turn your lack of knowledge in the financial space into an advantage when starting square? So this is the process that I outlined in great detail in the innovation stack, and it's super, super powerful because this is the formula that essentially unlocks the power of these world-changing companies. And we stumbled upon it. It was sort of accidental. And actually, a lot of world-changing companies sort of stumble upon the same formula. Very simple. you try to serve somebody who has been excluded from a market. You take a group that wants to do something but can't. In our cases, it was merchants who wanted to take credit cards but couldn't. In Southwest Airlines case, it was people who wanted to travel in the air, not on buses, but couldn't afford to. Well, I mean, there are hundreds of examples. I won't bore you with them. But you start with that premise. And even though you don't know anything about it, and this is where entrepreneurship comes in, if you are doing something where there is the potential for expertise, then you are almost always going to get your

ass kicked by an expert. So if I want to go out today and fly an airplane, I will probably kill myself, but if I don't, I will certainly not fly it as well as a trained pilot. But if you are trying to fly the world's first airplane where there are no pilots in the world, then you can have an even playing field. So Jack and I knew nothing about payments. So we went into a world where nobody else did either because we were building payments and credit card processing for this group that was completely unserved. And because the group was completely unserved, our total ignorance was not as big a disadvantage

as it would have been in a known market. So, and this is, I mean, like, Hala, this is so important for your listening. understand. There are no experts at new things. Like right now, are there any experts in world economic shutdown? No. And I'm on the Federal Reserve. Like, I talk to the world's best economist, and we don't have any expertise because we've never done this before. We haven't shut down the world's economy before. Okay. So now, six months from now, we'll have some experts because they've all lived through it. Okay. But if you're doing something for the first time, it's like magically the playing field levels out. So the playing field is so steeply against you in a world of businesses

copying. But all of a sudden, once you get past where the market ends, the playing field becomes perfectly level. So the fact that Jack and I knew nothing about payments didn't hurt us because nobody else knew anything about this type of payments because it didn't exist. We invented a new market and then we kept most of it to ourselves. That's super, super. Super. And Interesting and very eye-opening. So when Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product. It worked better, according to you. They marketed it very aggressively.

They undercut the price by 30%. From my understanding, you were trying to figure out why you were able to compete successfully against Amazon when so many other companies have failed. And that's how you discovered the innovation stack. So can you explain to us what the innovation stack is, like your definition? of it. And then also what your innovation stack was that helped you compete successfully against Amazon. Yes. So the odds of surviving an Amazon attack are basically zero. If Amazon takes your startup, copies your product, undercuts your price, and adds the Amazon brand, you'd die.

And that happens, well, basically 100% of the time, except in Squares case. And when we survived, I was happy that we had survived, but I couldn't explain why. And so as somebody who was raised by a scientist, I got obsessed with answering the question, why did, like, why was Square the one person spared? It's sort of like one of these guys that falls out of an airplane. Like there have been cases of people who have literally fallen out of airplanes and their parachutes don't open, and they live. And I'm like, well, what do they do differently?

And the answer is, if you're in that person, if you're that situation, At least I became obsessed with it. It turns out that Square had this thing, which I now call an innovation stack, which is the thing that protects you. And an innovation stack is this thing that you build in response to a harsh environment where you have to invent new things. So this is why entrepreneurship is so important because entrepreneurs, by my definition, the archaic definition, do new things. And if you do new things and you can't copy, then the process you go through is fundamentally different. So what Square did, because we were trying to serve merchants who were totally out of the system, we couldn't just copy what all the banks were doing because the banks had systems to exclude these people.

So we had to invent new underwriting, new hardware, new terms of service, new customer support, new software, new settlement rails. Like we did 14 things that were different. And these 14 things, if you add them up, form what I call an innovation stack. And it turns out that if you build an innovation stack, you end up with this thing that, at least in all the cases that I've studied, ends up dominating the market. So whenever I found a company with an innovation stack, that company also always became the biggest in their market, biggest furniture store in the world. IKEA, Innovation Stack, biggest airline in the United States, Southwest, Innovation Stack. And this is many times in the case of, in the face of ruthless competition. So how does a little startup survive Amazon? Innovation Stack.

And by the way, Amazon, I got to give them a plug here. When Amazon quit, they mailed all their customers a square reader. They were really cool about it. They were really cool about it. Like I have to praise Amazon here, even though. I sort of tease them a little bit, but they were really classy in the way they sort of got out of the fight. So, you know, hats off to Amazon. But look, I want people to have this power because this is the power that brings society forward. Like if you're fixing stuff that's already been fixed, that's useful. But if you're inventing the new fixes to problems that nobody else has solved before, that's super useful. And nobody gives you a handbook on that. Because, well, I mean, we don't even have words to describe it. So your book Innovation Stack has excellent reviews.

I would recommend everybody to go out and get a copy. It's really fun. It's really engaging. I heard that you rewrote that book eight times. Yes. Well, Square just took like three weeks to launch or three weeks for you to design that product. So help us understand why you wrote it so many times and if that was like a very difficult thing for you to do.

So when I answered my question, when I figured out why Squares survived the Amazon attack, I did all this research. And I found most of my research in history. And so the problem with historical research, Hala, is that you can delude yourself into thinking you're right, but you've just cherry-picked examples. So if you want to prove any example, just pick the right subjects and it'll always work, right? I can prove any drug works if you let me pick the people that I get to use it on, right? So I had all this historical example, and I thought, well, this is no good. I need to speak to somebody who's still alive, because most of the people I studied were dead. But I was able to meet Herb Kellorher, who was a legendary founder of Southwest Airlines. So I took all my research to Herb. And I said, Mr. Kellerher, am I right? Like, is this phenomenon that I think I live through the way you see it? And he's like, yes. He was like, this is an incredible thing. You need to do something about it. So what Herb did was he basically said, get out there and tell the world. Herb Keller, Herb basically told me to write this book.

And I was so excited because Herb is a legend, or was a legend. He unfortunately died that I was so excited that I decided to write a graphic novel. Because I thought business books, by the way, suck. They're boring. They will put you to sleep. Like if you could listen to one if you have insomnia problems. They're terrible. Even like the best sellers.

They're just poorly written. So I was like, I'm not going to write one of these. So I wrote a comic book. And I called up Herb and I was super excited. I said, Herb, you're not going to believe this. It's taken me a year. But I've written this as a graphic novel. And he was really disappointed because he thought that was trivializing this very important subject.

And he thought all that research that I'd done, he just didn't see it. So Herb said, look, Jim, I can't stop you from doing that. But I can't tell you to leave me out. of it. And I was like, well, I'm not going to leave Herb Keller her out of this story. So I rewrote the thing again as like half graphic novel and then half regular book. And then that's what I sent to the publisher. That was draft number six. Sent that to the publisher. And the publisher said, well, you can't have this schizophrenic book that's like graphic novel and then back to text and then graphic novel and back to text because that's not going to work on e-readers

or audiobooks or anything like that. So my publisher basically said, look, you've got a great book, but just rewrite the thing as a book. But they did let me keep a really dirty joke in there. I don't know if you caught it. But they really let me. I mean, so yes, it's a business book, but it reads more like what I wanted, which is stories.

Like there's a burning city. There's murder. I mean, there's just a bunch of stuff that blows up. Because, look, entrepreneurship is actually really good theater. Because a lot of the times when you're doing something new, there are disasters and disasters and disasters and disasters. And disasters are great stories. Like you don't want a story of a nice normal functioning nuclear family. That's just boring. Like you want somebody who's a space alien. So like he said, it's a very fun engaging book.

Make sure you go out and get it. The last question that we ask all of our guests is what is your secret to profiting in life? And that can be financial or personal. I would say my secret, which I've already sort of shared, is create space. So don't fill. Leave some room in your garage for that extra tool you might acquire. Leave some time in your day for some joy or to talk to a stranger. Leave some space in your head by not filling it with, you know, stuff that it'll sock you up. I mean, like, it's not that I don't want to know the news.

It's that I can't know the news. If I know all the news, all the creative thoughts get sort of like stomped to death by whatever sort of headline I just ingested. So space is, it's so easy to fill space up right now. We've got all these wonderful tools. And here, I mean, honestly, I guess as an author, I'm asking you to give me some space in your head by, you know, taking three hours and reading or listening to my book. And like, where's that space going to come from? Is that three hours less sleep you're going to get? You have to have space.

And so if I'm asking for space, let me try to justify it by explaining this. The person I wrote the book for is a certain person. And I had her in mind what I wrote the thing. She's incredibly competent. But every time she encounters a new problem that has not been solved by mankind or by anyone she knows, she hesitates. She quits. She just qualifies herself because she says, oh, well, people can't do that. You know, they can't start a, you know, top 10 Apple podcast and keep a full-time job.

Like, whatever, like, whatever that thing is. And I looked at her and I was like, how many millions of people are disqualifying themselves just like my friend did. And by the way, just like I used to do, where you have the potential to solve the problem. But that doesn't mean you get to copy the solution. It just means that you have this potential. So don't sit on the sidelines. So the reason I wrote the book and the reason I'm asking people to give a,

give this time to this thing is to understand when you are disqualifying yourself. Because right now we have so many problems in the world that it can't just be up to a small handful of elite superheroes to solve it. Like every person has the potential to do it. I mean, look, I'm a guy who's basically a glassblower, no payments experience. Look at Square. I mean, it worked. Jack and I, zero experience.

Doesn't matter. You run this formula the right way. You don't need to be an expert because there are no experts. But you do need to be prepared to live in a world where you don't have expertise. And that's a different thing. And that's what I've tried to prepare people with. I love that. That's so inspiring and motivating.

Jim, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? So I, again, I'm not on social media. So don't, I mean, you can follow me. I guess it'd be flattering to my marketing guys, but they're, marketing team. Actually, it's not guys. My marketing team is all female. Like everybody who works on my team, I have a 100% female team. I shouldn't use the word guys. Sorry. But don't follow me on social media. I do have a website, jimmikelvey.com. If you go to jimmikelvey.com, I will give you a free copy of the graphic novel because actually I did produce the book as a graphic novel as well.

And I'll just give it to you for free. So you don't have to buy the book. It's not the whole book. It's just chapter nine. But it's a great story. there's a murder. There's a... Oh, that looks really cool. Yeah, there's a city burning down. Yeah, I mean, get the graphic novel. I'll put that in my show notes, so everybody has a link. Yeah, I mean, it's good stuff.

So that's at Jim McKelvey.com. Very cool. Well, thank you so much, Jim. I think this was an awesome conversation. How, what fun and good luck to you. And I'm terribly, terribly sorry to hear about your dad. I mean, I know what that's like. Oh, thank you.

Because I was like parents too, so. Yeah. Yeah. It stinks, but, you know, life. goes on and just going to keep on going up and up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're in my office right now. So, look, that's the photo of my dad. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, he died seven months ago. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's recent, too. Yeah. I know it's like, good luck to you. Thank you so much, Jim. Have a great day. Thanks. Bye-bye.