Welcome to Impossible Dreams, Bill Gurley. Thanks for being here.
I sort of appreciated in watching your talk that you gave at, was that at Texas a couple years ago?
Yes, it was at the grad school MBA program in Texas about eight years ago.
And that's where you did your MBA.
Yes. Yeah. In watching that talk, did you know at the time it was going to be a book? Because it's clearly like, wow, that's a blueprint for a book.
Yeah, I didn't. I mean, my day job was a venture capitalist, so it's not something that I... the topic wasn't core to what I did. In fact, one of the reasons I, during my venture capital career, I blogged quite a bit and so it was very common for me to scratch down ideas trying to figure out where the world was going from a technology company perspective and then I would build these theses and write them down. And I had done that in this case when I was reading these biographies, but it didn't really have a place in the venture world. And so when I had a chance to give the talk, I did. And then they put it on YouTube oddly and a few people noticed, including James Clear. And a few after it had kind of been out there for a while, people like James started poking me with the idea of a book. But at the time I gave the talk, it wasn't on my mind.
That's so interesting. I mean, the idea that you at that point had spent your career from, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, from being an engineer then a top research analyst to one of the world's most successful venture capitalists. Those MBA students get to hear from one of the best, right? And within that becomes the seed for something that you're super passionate about now, which is like, all right, well, what is life after venture capitalism? How do you give back in the way that so many of the people that you talk about in the book, the Bobby Knights and Danny Meyers, and that's sort of part of this, how you thrive is sharing, right? And you know, nobody's impossible dream when they're a kid seems to be what they end up like. There's very few people are like, oh, I knew at six, seven years old. Did six-year-old Bill Gurley know he wanted to be a venture capitalist?
No. No. And in fact, when I had, I worked with a co-writer and researcher and it probably took us five years to turn the presentation into a book because we went and did a lot more work and we probably combed through hundreds of biographies and there are a few. There's this great anecdote that I don't know if you've ever heard of Steve Harvey, the comedian who's on Family Feud now. So Steve Harvey in his chat with Oprah, a master class, tells a story about when he was seven years old, his teacher had an exercise and asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. And he went last and all the other kids had gone. And he had written on a sheet of paper, I want to be on TV. And the teacher thought he was making fun, like that he wasn't taking the assignment seriously and yelled at him and sent him home. And when he got home, his mom yelled at him and sent him to his room. And he's sitting there in his room, wondering what all these adults, they told me to say. And his dad comes home and his dad asks what happens, listens to the whole story and says, 'Do you have the sheet of paper?' And he pulls it out and he goes, 'Let's put this in the drawer by your bedside and I want you to look at it every day.' And so his dad gave him that permission. And your question was, do most people end up there? And I don't think they do. I think that our society has decided that, and I think it's very well-intentioned. I always want to say that because I don't think anyone's out to stifle creativity, per se, but they worry about the kids' economic well-being. They worry about their ability to have a family and put food on the table and they push people towards safer jobs and they tend to steer away from the incredible life that you've had and those kind of things.
I was going to ask you, on your Wikipedia page, it says you took the MCAT. I wanted to understand why because it relates to this question, I suspect.
Yeah, it totally does. When I look back, when I was a kid, I was doing theater. I have no memory of doing theater consciously until I did my first play when I was like 12 or 13. And then in high school, I started doing musicals. But it was never like I'm going to do this for a living. It was like, oh, this is fun. And even in college, I went to Duke to be a doctor. So that's, I took the MCAT there because it was there, where you're finally a young adult and you're like, wait a minute, maybe I don't want to do that. And maybe I can go and roll the dice and take a chance. Of course, being an overachieving type A guy, it was like, well, we got to have a backup plan and there was no what I am advising my kids now.
Dylan was much more of a kind of a historian, like this ultra studious historian, than most people would know. And unfortunately, the movie missed that part.
I know. I thought about what I learned from you in context of watching the film and I wish that they did. The Woody Guthrie stuff is definitely there, but that idea that you're talking about becoming a really an expert. Um, you know, which actually, before you go into the next principle, I want to push back a second on your own career with regards to this. Like if you're not the expert analyst that you were, you know, like that's you being able to study, right, a company. Do you think you become the successful VC?
Well, I think, well, yeah. I mean, my journey's a little different in that like at both of these stops as an engineer and then as a sell-side analyst, even more so as a sell-side analyst, I did fairly well. I did extremely well, I would say. But for one reason or another, I had this discussion with myself late one night while I was still in the office and I said, 'Do I want to be doing this 30 years from now?' And the answer was no, despite the success. So yeah, that was my journey on that front. But when I was doing it, I loved to study public companies and what it is that makes for an undervalued or overvalued stock. I still do that today in my spare time. But the venture thing was more of a calling and once I got there, I never asked myself that question again.
Um, all right. So, let's go into the next principle.
Yeah. So, the third one is titled 'Embrace Your Peers,' and it's probably my favorite. I think that this ultra competitive path to college and the fact that we get everyone gets pushed into a lot of sports and whatnot causes a lot of people to have a zero-sum game mindset that they're like sharp-elbowed and 'I win, you lose.' And in most fields, and I'm sure this is true in theater even though I've never worked in it, there's tons of winners. And the people that learn how to create a peer group of people that are along the journey you're on and share best practices with them, share your network, root for them, have them root for you, have them support you when you're having a bad day and you do the same thing back. I have found across all these stories that that becomes a superpower. And I don't think it's intuitive. But I have some amazing stories of people who kind of all rose together.
Yeah, I love that. I think having not heard the final three, but having researched what I think I've heard you talk about them, I would agree with you. This is probably the most important one. I mean, it's also one that speaks to your character and how you do business in the world. And it's something I teach my kids, right? Like these boys are in an ultra competitive environment, whether that be for college or for basketball, you know, playing time. And it's like I always say to them, 'Guys, there's enough to go around. There's always enough to go around. Don't compare yourself to anybody.' And kids today and everybody today have these phones and screens where you can look up anybody doing anything, and they're all doing it at the highest level possible at a ridiculously young age, you know, like we didn't have that. So, you didn't have that pressure and that mindset particularly ingrained as young as this generation does.
Yeah. And I think unfortunately that can hurt the fascination and curiosity part of a child. So, and especially like in athletics, it used to be, you know, you'd be the best tennis player in your county and you'd win every match maybe until you went to the state final. These kids today, if you're exceptional at 10 or 12, they start ranking you nationally. And an Instagram page and yeah.
Yeah. I've seen these incredible kids that in the day and age I grew up would have probably gone undefeated all season and their record's eight and eight because they're flying them around the country and making them play the best and best. And I can't imagine that's helpful to developing a lifelong love of a sport, you know, just because there's a point at which you're developing and you need to feel like you're having fun doing it and that just doesn't sound fun to me.
No, I'm living that. You know, less so with my older son, but with the younger one, he puts all this pressure on himself to be the best and, you know, as if he's got to get drafted to the NBA tomorrow. And I'm like, I see it take the joy of the game away. And so my job and his mom's job, right, is to take all that pressure off and say, 'Buddy, you're not a businessman at age 14. Let's take the pressure off. Just find flow. A performance where you love the game.' And he'll be, you know, if he goes as far as he dreams that he will, he'll be an interesting player who he's not playing because he cares about winning a gold trophy. He's playing because he wants to see how good he can get. And that's always been my thing. It's like he'll enjoy. There's an anecdote we have in the book where Kobe Bryant's already won three or four championships. He's had three or four MVPs of the NBA. And that summer he calls Hakeem Olajuwon and asks if he can fly to Houston to work on in-the-lane footwork. You know, so this is a two-guard basically that has already achieved more than almost everyone in the sport, say maybe four others. And that's what he does in his off-season, like begs a center to teach him how to move in the paint. And so it's that I think it shows that the best, once again, the best and the brightest think like artisans and they're working on their craft, you know, and nuance matters and being studious matters and it has to come naturally. It can't feel like work. And I doubt it did. I doubt he felt like he was working that day.
Yeah, that's awesome, man. That's super inspiring. Excuse me. What is principle four?
Okay. And so just I always have to think back through the... So one was to chase your curiosity and two was on your craft. Three was mentors. Four was peers. So we had already touched on it. Got it. But and five wasn't in the original presentation. We added it. And it's titled 'Move to the Epicenter.' And for certain industries there is a place. And in theater it's New York. Like it is New York City or maybe London, but it's like there is a place in this country where it's very different than anywhere else and for Silicon Valley, I mean for high-tech startups, that's Silicon Valley. And I think in the book I list 10 reasons why you're better off being there than somewhere else. I would shorten it for this and say all of the previous principles we talked about get easier in the epicenter. Learning's easier, mentoring's easier, peers are easier, they're all around all the time. It's people I think don't do it because they fear it's too much competition, but there's also way more jobs. So, there is more competition, but there's way more jobs. And then there's all these other benefits of learning and mentors and peers. And then the thing that I would just say that puts the real cherry on top is most people in their career have a story that sounds like luck. Like there's some super fortunate thing that happened and the probability of luck goes way up in the epicenter because the chance meeting is just much more likely to happen, you know.
Oh yeah. And I mean you tell the Danny Meyer story. I mean, I was living in Madison Square Park, like right off of Madison Square Park when he opened the first Shake Shack. And it's such a great example of like, all right, if you're a restaurant guy, well, New York's got to be the most competitive place in the world. What are you crazy? But like, where else can you open 16 restaurants? You know, and do business in one day? You can probably visit half if not more than half of your plates, you know, because it's such a compact environment. I mean, that's the epicenter, right? And for a songwriter, that would be Nashville, you know, and there's this great documentary on Netflix about songwriters in Nashville that just felt exactly... I just saw so many parallels to Silicon Valley for startups. I might be the only one, but I'm a big music fan. But I'm just sitting there grinning when I hear these people talk, you know, because the ability to just on any given night to go to some event or go to some networking seminar, like, and it's probably that way with theater, like there's just something all the time where you could learn a little bit more if you're industrious.
Yep. Yep. Yep. And I see the guitars in the back.
Uh, that's more of me projecting what I'd like to be.
Well, that's your next impossible dream, Bill.
So, the last one is titled 'Always Give Back.' And I'm trying to teach especially young people that are moving from that first rung of the ladder to the second to have a give-back mentality and kind of consciousness all along the way. And I think a lot of people feel like you're supposed to postpone that to the end of your career and then you flip a bit and you become gracious. And I think learning to be gracious from the very beginning has, in addition to being the right thing to do, it actually has a bunch of rewards for you along the way. I think you feel better about yourself, you reinforce your mentor-type relationships, you get more people rooting for you. And so, and it starts with little simple things like you achieve the first step like maybe for you, you finish your first production on Broadway, send some notes to the people, the guy that pushed you into doing it. Tell them, you know, 'Hey, I'm doing this thing that we all thought was possible and that you helped me do.' And you send out enough of those letters and throw a little gift in and it really helps reinforce your journey in a lot of positive ways and I think karma also will be on your side.
You guys, I just want to take a second to say thank you to you the audience. This show doesn't happen without you. I am from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply grateful to you because I started the Impossible Dream as a platform to help myself heal and to help other people heal. This podcast is all about that and without you that can't happen. We help each other heal. It really does take a village. So, if you could just take a second to click and subscribe, like us, rate, and review the show. Your comments really do help. Not only do they help us bring you other guests that you want to hear from, but they help us improve the show, they help us grow the show. Your engagement helps us expand what's possible for the reach of Impossible Dreams. So, thank you. Truly, thank you. Um, thank you for being a part of the Impossible Dreams team. I think that's a beautiful principle. Like my mom was always, 'Send thank you notes, send thank you notes.' So when I got to New York, I mean, one of the ways that I hustled everywhere with obsession, you know, was I'm going to reach out to every casting director that I've auditioned for with a thank you note. And even if it was just a small job, you know, and sometimes I would hand deliver. I mean, sometimes I definitely overshot like you said, but the power of a personal note. And the president of Fox, Charlie, I'm now blanking on his last name. When I was doing a series at Fox, gave the series regulars, he gave us a Christmas gift and it was a box of beautiful personalized stationery with our names on them. And his note to us was, 'You can never underestimate the power of a personal note.' And I thought, 'My mom was right.' And my parents, it's just a quick another story about this. One of my first acting teachers just passed away a few days ago from high school, Celeste McMenamin. When I got a job in my first Broadway show and was going on, I was understudying one of the lead roles when I was going to be performing as that role. My parents bused up 200 people from my hometown. And that particular teacher, Miss McMenamin, she is in the picture that I have framed when the Philadelphia Inquirer did a weekend cover story called 'That's Their Boy on Broadway.' She is wearing a t-shirt with my headshot on the back, you know, pointing at the Phantom of the Opera marquee in Times Square. Because my parents were willing to give back knowing that it was these teachers, you know, that had such a powerful influence on my life.
And that's another reason that it's so powerful is it takes you very little time to show that appreciation, but the positive energy it creates for the people that invested in you is so great. And they still talk about it, the people who were there still talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. I was talking to Danny Meyer this past Monday. We did a book launch dinner at Union Square Cafe, which is appropriate considering his place in the book. And he was talking about why he wrote a book. His book is called 'Setting the Table.' And first of all, Danny's had such an impact on the entire industry that he's a part of. People study his work and if you meet a chef in San Francisco who went through New York as part of their training and happened to work at a Danny Meyer restaurant, they hold it dear to their heart, they're very proud of having been through that organization. But he said, 'I can only open so many restaurants. If I really want to impact people more broadly, I had to write a book because that way my best practices and principles get shared even wider.' And it's just an incredible mindset that if you studied all the way up and if other people were innovators and you were learning from them, then you have this kind of responsibility as you get higher and higher up, I think, to turn around and do the same thing. And I think all the greats do it.
Yep. Yep. Yep. And I love that you're saying, you know, you don't have to wait until you're a great to do it.
Nope. Do it all the way. Make it a part of your practice.
Yeah. And then it doesn't feel like work too. If it becomes one of your moves, you know, one of your moves in your daily life, then it's not, 'Oh, I don't remember. Oh, my mom told me to write notes.' Like you develop an intuition for it. And then you can do it more of the time and in more unique and innovative ways. Um, so it's a great skill to have.
