In Conversation with Dan Schulman, CEO, PayPal

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Hope Global Forum: Resetting America, Healing a Nation, Opportunity for All. This next guest is a special soul. You'll recognize it more when we get into conversation. He is, of course, the CEO of PayPal. He has been recognized as one of the top ten CEOs in the world by Fortune, named one of the top 100 most creative people by Fast Company. Prior to joining PayPal, my friend Dan served as Group President at American Express. But that doesn't nearly describe who he is, just describe what he does. I met Dan at a meeting that's all heard off the grid, and I met him through a mutual friend, John Donahoe, CEO of Nike. And John just thought that Dan and I would get along. I didn't know Dan, he didn't know me. And Dan shocked me almost instantly after he realized that we had this shared passion. He displayed the first identifier of true wisdom. Wisdom is different than education or intellect. He asked a question. God gave us two ears and one mouth so we listen twice as much as we talk. One of the great attributes that you have, you're a great listener. Ambassador Andrew Young, a great listener. All the people we admire are great listeners. And Dan sat there and he listened. Then he asked a question. He said, 'John, I want to take a good chunk of my income, and it's a lot of money so I won't mention the number, and I want to donate it to my employees.' I said, 'Don't do that.' I'm sure the employees are now like, 'Why'd you tell Dan not to do that?' And he said, 'Why? There's been all this inequality. Why wouldn't I do this to try to level the playing field?' I said, 'Because if God forbid you leave next year or two years later, or something happens to you, the next leader won't do that. No one's going to give up their own paycheck for somebody else. You're an extraordinary, unique individual. Don't set people up for an expectation that can't be sustained. How about we talk about a way to share the wealth, about reinvestment, about inspiring people to be part of the uplift of your platform at scale? And then if you do that, you can do that for a lifetime.' He was like, 'Wow, okay.' And he started talking to other people. I think he talked to Ed Bastian at Delta. He's learning, gathering information. It's like he's building a whole new division of PayPal or something. Then I find out several months later he's launched his major commitment of $500 million to transform Black America, or let's try to transform the social justice conversation, and specifically to help Black America and others left behind. And I'll just tell you that was multiple times larger than what we were talking about that he would do as a gift. And then he's done much more than that. I want him to get into that, but I wanted to introduce him as a human being. I know that he is as much heart as he is head. No one's perfect, but he's perfectly himself. Dan Schulman, honored to be with you, honored to have you with us, brother.

Can you get into why you care so much? Why does this bother you at the soul level? Because I didn't understand it. I mean, you're the definition of wealthy and powerful and privileged, if you want to be in a bubble, which you choose not to live in. What resonates so much with the plight of those left behind that got you, that keeps you up late at night, and has you do... and then let's talk about what you're doing after that.

Yeah, I know you're going to lean in here obviously whenever you see fit, because you're going to ask different questions than I am. I'm just so fascinated with... you'll keep me on balance because you're going to go left brain on me, but I'm just so fascinated with his heart. Like I'm just, I don't understand people like this. I don't understand. Well, he's grounded. I'm happy for it. I don't understand it. Like, why do you care so much? I'm glad about it. And you have this in the civil rights movement. You, I mean, his dad said, a white man, you know, by our standards is white. He's technically a minority I guess, but everybody would see him as a white man flying down to Mississippi to reverse an act that I'm sure only he thought should be reversed. It put his life at risk. And to have his son anguish over things like what's happening to Black people and George Floyd and all this injustice and just saying it's just wrong. You can intellectually say that but still disconnect yourself from it. Yeah, but Dad modeled the behavior. Can you talk about or did your dad talk with you about why he did that? Because obviously, Dan, if you're pictures with the FBI along with so many others, but you were a little child, so you saw, you had a front row seat for all of this growing up. Did your dad talk at all about this? Because it sounds like this helps shape the tenor and the tone for who you are. Not just that act, but that was one I'm sure of many that you saw growing up.

Yeah, consequences exactly to doing those kinds of things as well. Well, it sounds like he cares because it's in his blood. Yeah, John, like from your grandfather to your father and your mother and how you've lived your life, because to proactively move into an integrated neighborhood, I mean, I grew up here in the South, John grew up on the left coast, but what we saw when one Black family moved in was what we called white flight. Everybody that was not Black, which was 99% of the neighborhood when you moved there, actually left. So for your family to actually move, parachute in right, is counterintuitive. So we know you're so passionate about the role of business leaders with social issues, as demonstrated by your response to, and I'm not going to say reaction because that's emotional, your response to the bathroom bill in North Carolina. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you're doing and how you're doing it, because it is a model that other companies are looking at and looking for. Quite frankly, people are still trying to find their courage, Dan. Everybody doesn't have necessarily what you have. And I'm not trying to blow sunshine up your pant leg, I'm just saying, speaking to other CEOs, they tell me they're nervous, not only about shareholders and shareholder value, but they are personally afraid that someone's going to come after them, a la death threat, or make some comment about their company. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing and how you're doing it at PayPal. And Dan, talk about what you're doing internal with your employees and externally with communities as well.

That's right, absolutely.

You're also helping small businesses every day through PayPal, just in the normal course of what you do. You can give us a little bit of some of the statistics on who PayPal serves as well. But something that you said to me is the whole ballgame of this conversation. It's that we need this is a movement not a moment. And it's something about capitalism is not working, not working for the least of these God's children. We need, it's not about throwing it out because capitalism and democracy are a horrible system except for every other system. Well, it works, you just keep working, you keep upgrading the software so the outcome is better. You don't throw it out, you upgrade the software, you improve it. And we've got to get a software upgrade on capitalism and free enterprise. We have to include more people in the system. We've got to reimagine the promise that if you start at the bottom, you have a reasonable belief that you can get to the top. But also we need a new constituency. And this is what I'm talking about. We're experts in the streets, my peers, my people who from my family who I know, the experts at the protesting in the streets. Now we need a business plan for partnerships and prosperity in the suites, the C-suites. We have to build a new coalition in the suites. And I think Dan is a founding partner of that new coalition of the willing. That's what I hear him saying, is that we're sitting in a moment in history right now, but history doesn't feel historic when you're sitting in it. I said this yesterday, it just feels like another day, but it's being built internally.

I think this is such an important time for all of us. So Dan, we're winding down, we have about a minute left. We could sit and talk with you all day because we are thoroughly enjoying this and we are being educated and enlightened all at the same time. Can you talk just briefly about your peers? Because it seems like there's a tectonic shift in what business leaders, particularly large company business leaders, are doing today. Before it was all shareholder value, shareholder value. There was not stakeholder value necessarily, nor was there a broad holistic look across the enterprise and across the country and the globe. So can you talk about yourself and your peers who are thinking broader than just shareholders in your particular quarter? The quarter more other than quarter court. I have a PayPal account so I'm going to use it even more now listening to all that you're doing. Thank you very much.

That's great. This is fantastic, Dan. As you know, we could do this all day and still have things to talk about. It just so happens that the incoming chairman of the Business Roundtable is joining us today, which is Doug McMillon, our friend, CEO of Walmart. So coincidence, coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous. Supporting Ambassador Andrew Young. Thank you for your leadership, Dan. Thanks for leading in the gap. And I gave him the opportunity to talk about some statistics on PayPal. He did not. He wanted to talk about us and not me. We, and not just me. And that's a great sign of a great leader. Dan, God bless you. And to the prosperity so you can help spread the wealth to others as well.