Follow Your Different
168 Conscious Capitalist Navin Chaddha of Mayfield
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In this episode, we continue our run of top Silicon Valley venture capitalists with Navin Chaddha, who leads Mayfield, one of the oldest and most storied venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley startup world. Navin has been on the Forbes Midas list for a long time and is a top-five investor according to Forbes.
We have a wide-ranging conversation where we deal with everything from diversity to philanthropy, Navin’s backstory, what he calls superhumans, and pay special attention to why Navin thinks that biology is a technology.
Leading a 50-Year Old Company
Navin leads the company Mayfield, which is on its 51st year of operations in 2020. He considers this opportunity as a real blessing and one that is filled with responsibility as well. He is optimistic about the future, but is wary of serious impending issues of the world such as this widespread disease and racial disparity.
“We have to ensure it’s all about people because one of the founding mottos of the firm is people make products, products don’t make people are everything. So whatever we do, we want to live by the people and do good by others, at the same time, do well as a firm and for our investors and entrepreneurs. – Navin Chaddha
Becoming A Conscious Capitalist
Navin shares how venture capital needs to change. Instead of investing money and helping entrepreneurs, Navin challenges his fellows to become conscious capitalists. Mayfield pledges to this movement, as they aim to contribute yearly 1% of their management fee and 1% of their carry, to give the opportunity to underrepresented students and entrepreneurs.
“There we take a balance of what we can do, not only financially, but what can we do for human and planetary evolution in the form of giving back some of the financial resources we have, but also giving back our time.” – Navin Chaddha
Entrepreneurship & Underrepresented Communities
Navin shares his thoughts about underrepresented communities and entrepreneurship. He encourages them to reach out to VC’s such as Mayfield, who will launch the program Access For All, with the premise of making capital available across all boards.
“It has to be done by people who want to be entrepreneurs. They need to just lean forward and make the plunge. They need to go make sure they get good mentors, whether it’s their advisors, whether it’s former entrepreneurs, whether it’s potential customers, whether it’s legal firms, or people like you, beyond venture capitalists, whom they can look upon and get some advice and I call that mentorship capital. Once they have those things in place, please come approach the venture community because we are all focused around funding innovation, and helping people achieve their dreams.” – Navin Chaddha
To hear more about Navin Chaddha and becoming a Conscious Capitalist, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Navin Chaddha leads Mayfield. He has ranked on the Forbes Midas List of Global Tech Investors 12 times, including being named a Top Five investor in 2020.
During his career as a venture capitalist, he has invested in over 50 companies, 17 of which have gone public and 20 have been acquired. Some of his investments include Lyft, Poshmark, SolarCity, Hashicorp, Elastica, CloudGenix, and CloudSimple.
As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded or led three startups including VXtreme, a streaming media platform, acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media.
Navin is a committed philanthropist who directs Mayfield’s 50-year tradition of philanthropy to support many causes including diversity, health, hunger, and education.
Interests: Cricket, Bollywood.
Links:
Top VC Unveils Crisis Leadership Strategies For Entrepreneurs
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
167 The State of The United States w/ Asha Rangappa, Ex-FBI Agent, Yale Lecturer & CNN Analyst
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Imagine being able to sit down and have a meaningful conversation about the state of the United States. We speak with a woman who is a Yale-educated lawyer, a graduate of the FBI famed Academy in Quantico Virginia, and a former FBI counterintelligence investigator. This woman is a senior lecturer at Yale and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. That woman is none other than Asha Rangappa.
We have a powerful conversation about the state of affairs in the United States and the decline of social capital. We talk about the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement, and more. This is a big insight into what’s going on in our world today.
Shakespeare and Current Events
Asha narrated how she became a Shakespeare aficionado. She even found herself playing roles in several Shakespeare theatre adaptations. She shares how she finds Shakespeare’s stories as universal, which also explains why these get a lot of modern adaptation.
“You can actually look at characters and understand motivations of people today through his words. So I’m a big fan. I don’t know if that answers the question of why Shakespeare but I find him especially relevant to current events.” – Asha Rangappa
30% of Americans Don’t Trust Each Other
Asha recounted to Christopher how the United States is at a moment of the lowest level of general social trust since World War Two. Social capital is referred to as “the value that we get from our relationships with other people.” She further explained that strong social capital is essential for a healthy democracy.
A high social capital means there is a generalized social trust. In short, people care about the well being of their fellow man.
“Most Americans don’t trust each other. This is actually a question on the General Social Survey they’ve asked, but asking it since 1972, and we’re at the lowest response, which is about 30% of people say that most Americans can be trusted.” – Asha Rangappa
Worst Possible Choices Being Made
Asha believes we are currently in a crisis point. She agrees with Christopher that circumstances are forcing people to decide on the future that they want to live in.
“On the roster of choices have been made, whether it’s with the pandemic or the economy or in response to the protest, and I’m talking about, the Trump administration. So, I think that it has brought to the fore what I was talking about before that, we are at a precarious moment. I have felt that this has been a precarious moment, even before this. I think the urgency of it might be brought home to a greater degree, because of this kind of critical state that we’re in at this moment.” – Asha Rangappa
To know more about Asha and her thoughts on the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement and the general state of the United States, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School.
Prior to her current position, Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations.
Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work.
While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms, and the use of deadly force. She has taught National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Haven.
Asha graduated cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia.
She received her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is admitted to the State Bar of New York (2003) and Connecticut (2003).
Asha has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post among others and has appeared on NPR, BBC, and several major television networks.
She is an editor for Just Security and is currently a legal and national security analyst for CNN.
Asha lives in Hamden, Connecticut with her two children.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
166 Radical Business Transformation | Doug Merritt CEO of Splunk
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Today, we speak with a very special guest about a critical topic: radical transformation. Doug Merritt of Splunk joins us for a conversation about Splunk’s journey, their radical technology, delivery model, and business model transformation.
Pay special attention to Doug’s depth and breadth of detail about their business, their technology modeling stack, business model, and their financial model. I think you’ll find it fascinating to hear what it really takes to be the CEO of a high-growth, high impact company.
Radical Transformation
Christopher shares that almost all aspects of the world are going through a transformation right now. Doug agrees about the uncertainties and changes in our environment. Likewise, he shares how Splunk has undergone and is continuing the process of radical transformation.
“We targeted over four years ago, four simultaneous transformations. First was shifting our business model. The second was completely rethinking and delivering a different product portfolio. The third was the market shift. Fourth, complete rethinking and reimplementation of our business processes and infrastructure technology. It’s been a lot of work. We’re not done. We’re not done yet, but we continue to make good progress.” – Doug Merritt
Risk and Reversibility
Doug shares an important point if you plan to have a radical transformation, that is to consider risks and reversibility. He relates sheltering in place or shifting to a work-from-home arrangement as a reversible decision. On the other hand, transforming the business model or pricing has an irreversible effect, or would entail a lot of work to reverse the risks.
“Jeff Bezos talks about it and I think it’s very catchy: is your change a one way door or a two way door? Obviously a one way door, you may get back in, but you have to get an axe and maybe a wrecking ball. It’s going to be a lot of pain and effort to get back in to a door like that. A revolving door in a hotel you go out, maybe you don’t like it, you can choose to go back in. It’s easier to reverse.” – Doug Merritt
Growing Splunk
Doug shares how fortunate the Splunk team is while undergoing a radical transformation. They initially have revenues and drastically improved it while transitioning, and while maintaining their public status. They also continue to acquire companies, such as their recent $1B SignalFx.
“To be able to take on that degree of change of disruption, of difficulty and somehow still over-deliver versus expectations, I think that we are in a category of one right now, but I’m hoping that there are more that come behind us.” – Doug Merritt
To hear more about Doug Merritt, CEO of Splunk and more about radical transformation, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Doug Merritt has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board since 2015.
Previously, Merritt served as Senior Vice President of Field Operations at Splunk from 2014 to 2015.
Prior to joining Splunk, Merritt served as Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions Marketing at Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking company, from 2012 to 2014.
From 2011 to 2012, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Baynote, Inc., a behavioral personalization and marketing technology company.
Previously, Merritt served in a number of executive roles and as a member of the extended Executive Board at SAP A.G., from 2005 to 2011.
From 2001 to 2004, Merritt served as Group Vice President and General Manager of the Human Capital Management Product Division at PeopleSoft Inc. (acquired by Oracle Corporation). He also co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Icarian, Inc. (since acquired by Workstream Corp.), a cloud-based company, from 1996 to 2001.
Merritt holds a B.S. from The University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
A Call For Unity | Yesterday In Santa Cruz
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Monday June 8th, 2020
Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I cried at the vigil for Sargent Damon Gutzwiller, of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s department.
He was shot to death on Saturday.
Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I paddled out for George Floyd.
With over 500 people (A paddle out is how surfers mourn).
There have been paddle outs for George Floyd all over the world. Yesterday in the Ocean of Santa Cruz, people of many races screamed “Black Lives Matter”.
Together.
Yesterday the people of Santa Cruz showed that you can stand against evil racism, and stand for good cops.
At the same time.
Because both are the same thing.
Both are stand against violence.
Both are stand against evil.
Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I cried for these two men. And so did countless others. Of virtually every race.
Of all the tears that were cried yesterday in Santa Cruz, every single last one of them, was colorless.
Now, I’d like to share a deeply personal story with you.
A story I have never shared before.
Last year, one of my best friends was brutally murdered, in Santa Cruz.
It will always be unbelievable and unbearable.
A walk-through fire I wish on no one. If you are ever in this situation, you’ll discover how badly you need the cops.
In the moments after I learned what happened,
I was over-come by a Mavericks sized wave of horrible emotions and a profound sense of helplessness.
Which is not a feeling I am used to.
Sometimes, life gives you no choice. You have to grapple with a soul-crushing reality.
You have to accept an absoluteness you cannot change. As this washed over me, I realized something.
I desperately need the cops.
Because, police have the authority and ability to solve heinous crimes in a way that no one else does.
In our case, the agency in charge was the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department. After 231 days, over 3,000 hours of work, by countless professionals, across multiple peacekeeping agencies, in multiple states, the Sheriff’s Department caught them.
The four evil men took my brother’s life.
Now, you should know, he was a “brown guy” (his words).
The four men who killed him are white.
Over the past months, I’ve had a front-row seat to a massive, complex murder investigation.
He’s what I learned.
There are legendary cops.
A lot of them.
The dedicated public servants at the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department, lead by Sheriff Jim Hart, worked tireless to bring this evil to justice.
We saw the sleepless nights the investigators endured.
They fought as hard as I have ever seen anyone fight.
We are forever grateful for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department.
If I were to name all of the amazing people who worked this case, you’d stop reading this post.
What I’d like you to know is, they cried with us.
They comforted us.
They exhibited extraordinary kindness.
Above all, we got to see peacekeepers with an unending commitment to justice.
I share this with you, because I have experienced the positive power of policing.
I have seen women and men, of every race,
get up every day, put on a bulletproof vest and a badge to risk their lives.
To serve and protect us.
So, the time has come for all of us to demand justice for George Floyd.
To demand equality for African Americans and all people of color.
And to demand real police reform.
It is critical that we remember, that it is possible to demand justice for George Floyd, to demand reform and equality, and support the good cops.
At the same time. There are some in our country who would divide us.
Let us remember there is no us and them.
There is no difference between Black, White, Brown or Blue.
Because evil comes in all colors.
And tears are colorless.
Bless you.
165 The Gladiator Way w/ American Gladiator Dan “Nitro” Clark
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Today, we have a super fun episode with American Gladiator superstar Dan Nitro Clark. He’s a former NFL player, best selling author, speaker, fitness freak, and heart attack survivor. For a big, manly, strong, muscley looking dude with a reputation like his, you might be surprised to hear he is incredibly open, candid, and vulnerable.
We dig into his life as an athlete and a celebrity. He talks about what it’s like to be among some of the earliest athletes in America to take steroids and what he learned from that. We talked about coming back from major setbacks and a whole lot more!
Steroids Use
Dan shares he started using steroids back when he was a freshman College. He wanted to secure a football scholarship badly and he resorted to the “in” thing at that time. Back then, it was unregulated and the only information available about it is that the body recuperates faster.
“I think the fallacy in the misinformation is, anybody who takes steroids is going to get huge. No, you’re not going to get huge. You still got to wait. You got to move waves. It still takes in a tremendous amount of work and effort and diet. Man, you got to go be willing to die, every workout.” – Dan Nitro Clark
The Downside of Steroids
As a strong promoter of steroids use, Dan still warns of the responsibilities one must take before, while and after using steroids. Steroids make the blood clot more so there are indications with regard to medical operations and procedures. It also increases estrogen levels in the body which explains why some men grow “manboobs.”
“It puts you out on a fair playing field. So in that sense, I don’t know if there’s a lot of harm. I think the harm comes when you start to do monstrous levels. With anything excess, and there’s equally when you have low testosterone, there are increased cardiac incidences. All these other side effects, as well and both sides too much too little. The idea is to be in the optimum range.” – Dan Nitro Clark
Wearing The Meatsuit
In a rare moment, Dan shares his personal experiences growing up. Looking back, he shares what he experienced with his divorced parents, the untimely death of his older brother at 12 years old, and how he coped with life as a broken young man.
“I didn’t have anybody to console me. His death my mom was Japanese, she barely spoke the language. So, you know, I learned to take care of myself emotionally. I learned that big boys don’t cry. I learned you don’t talk about your feelings. I learned you sucked it up. I think that was the thing. Nobody can hurt me. Nobody is going to touch me. I think that was the whole idea Why? You know, I wanted to be bigger, stronger, faster. I wanted to have this meat suit on.” – Dan Nitro Clark
To hear more about Dan, the American Gladiator, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Dan is a former pro football player, American Gladiator, #1 Bestselling Author, TV Host, Entrepreneur, and Speaker.
He has been featured on Good Morning America, The Early Show, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, ESPN, EXTRA, People, Time Magazine, Esquire, Men’s Health, Sport’s Illustrated, and the Huffington Post to name a few.
If you’re looking for an extraordinary speaker on the topic of resilience and motivation, you just found him.
Dan is a thought-leader and storyteller with the rare capability to not only inspire your audience to change but also teach them how.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
164 How to Build Billion-Dollar Startups | Osman Rashid founder Chegg & Convo.com
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Today, the second in a two-part series on entrepreneurship with none other than Osman Rishad, the founder of $8B, publicly-traded Chegg and now Convo.com. This is an inspiring conversation with a legendary entrepreneur about building billion-dollar startups.
This is an inspiring, timely conversation between Christopher Lochhead and Osman, as the former believes entrepreneurs are going to play an outsized role in carrying us forward in recovering from the situation we all find ourselves in, and most importantly, in designing a future that really works.
Fear of Being Irrelevant
Osman narrates to Christopher how some people are still asking why he is continuing to “fight” or spearhead more companies and projects. He shares that he has given this question a thought and realized a lot of things why he keeps on pushing forward.
“I felt that I wasn’t adding any value. Frankly, that’s when I realized maybe my number one fear in life is the fear of being irrelevant, that you have nothing to do. I actually love what I’m doing. I mean, I love building things. So it is not ‘work’ for me.” – Osman Rashid
He further shared that nothing will stop him from doing what he loves, because everything else fell into its righteous place, such as marriage and building a family.
Do Something of Value
Christopher points out how hustle porn stars sold us a false narrative that entrepreneurship should equate to airplanes and Lamborghinis. Both agreed that although there is nothing wrong with financial independence, there are other important goals that should be celebrated.
“I get happy when people around me get financial independence, economic freedom, as you said. But the goal is to build a great company. If you are doing something of value, then the financial outcome happens automatically. But if that’s your actual focus, I would say the failure rate is going to be even higher than that.” – Osman Rashid
Hallmark of Legendary Entrepreneurs
Believe it or not, both Christopher and Osman believes you have to be a special kind of stupid to become a legendary entrepreneur. Being stupid means small and ordinary issues do not weigh you down.
“At that time, I had no idea, I thought I was just being dumb about the whole thing. That’s the beauty of it because I never thought about being a legendary entrepreneur. I’m not even sure I’m one right now. There are some amazing people out there. It was all about ‘look, I’ve got this problem to solve for tomorrow. If I don’t solve this, I’m in deep doo-doo. So I’m going to solve this thing. The way I think of entrepreneurship, you have to be a little bit crazy in the head to go for it.” – Osman Rashid
Osman further advises to find a specific problem that bothers you and try to solve it and within those process, you become an entrepreneur.
To hear more about building a billion-dollar startup and for more information about Osman, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Osman Rashid is an executive and entrepreneur in the field of education technology.
Currently he is the founder and CEO of Galxyz, an intergalactic science adventure that he founded in late 2013.
Previously, he was co-founder and CEO of online textbook rental leader and student hub Chegg, remaining involved until early 2010 after dramatically growing the company from its inception in 2005.
He was also co-founder and CEO of Kno, Inc., (acquired by Intel in November 2013) a digital education platform company. Kno, Inc. has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs, FLOODGATE and GSV Capital, while Chegg was funded by KPCB, IVP, Gabriel Ventures and others.
Currently he is involved with ChildLife Foundation as a member of the Board of Trustees.
Osman Rashid was born in London and did his early schooling in Ghana and finished middle and high school from Islamabad, Pakistan.
He later moved to the United States where he received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Minnesota in 1993.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
163 How to build a breakthrough | Mike Maples, Jr. Floodgate Capital
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Today, the 1st in a two-part series on entrepreneurship, we have entrepreneur, Co-Founder of FloodGate and host of “Starting Greatness” Mike Maples, Jr. He recently wrote “How to build a breakthrough: the secret of back-casting” and we’re going to go deep on it today!
Watch out for our next episode, we’re having founder/CEOs Osman Rashid. He started $8B, publicly-traded Chegg and now Convo.com.
Status of Silicon Valley
Christopher and Mike starts their discussion about the state of Silicon Valley. Both agreed that most of Silicon Valley companies are the first adopters of sheltering in place and work from home arrangements. It has definitely benefitted some companies who have adjusted early on.
However, they also Mike also describes this coronavirus pandemic as a “hand of God” who “punished” some companies and catapulted some to success.
“I’ve never really seen a situation where you have a tale of two types of businesses. Most recessions, they affect some worse than others, but they affect everybody badly to some degree. Whereas what we’re seeing in this one is: it’s almost like a lot of things that were already starting to gather, got accelerated forward — telemedicine, remote distributed work, distance learning, remote work infrastructure. So you could make the case that this has had a dramatic impact in both directions ironically.” – Mike Maples Jr.
Moving Forward By Looking Backward
Mike recently created an interesting piece about moving forward by looking backward. He mentions that the future doesn’t happen to us. It happens because of us. He further explains why he wrote the piece and how it can help entrepreneurs plan their future.
“Great founders design the future. Design is the right word. It’s not just about drawings or how things look or even how they function or perform. It’s about people with a determined idea of what a better future should be. Not only building that better future, but convincing people in the present to change the trajectory, that they’re on.” – Mike Maples Jr.
Create A Movement To Move A Market
For Mike, entrepreneurs don’t discover markets. They create movements that become markets. They move people to their point of view and they move people from the present to a better future.
“I thought it might be useful to try to help entrepreneurs get some lessons that I’d received from some of the super performers that I’ve worked with on how do you build a breakthrough. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to deconstruct what they do and how it’s different from what normal startups look like. That is why I wrote this post on backcasting.” – Mike Maples Jr.
To know more about how backcasting can help you design the future that you want and for more information about Mike, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Mike Maples, Jr is a Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and was also named one of “8 Rising Stars” by FORTUNE Magazine.
Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.)
Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce.
Mike is known for coining the term “Thunder Lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations. Mike likes to think of himself as a hunter of the “atomic eggs” that beget these companies.
Interests: Calligraphy, cinematography, and sporting clays.
Links:
How to build a breakthrough, Medium
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
162 Tangentially Speaking w/ Dr. Christopher Ryan Bestselling Author & Podcaster
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Today, we continue our run of legendary authors and podcasters with Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of New York Times bestsellers, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. He has a chart-topping dialog podcast is called, Tangentially Speaking,
We have a fun, some times provocative discussion about everything from Muhammad Ali, what’s wrong with modernity, how the world is fundamentally changing, why living in a van is awesome, to what it’s like making a living as roving, smart person.
The Legendary Muhammad Ali
Christopher Ryan and Christopher Lochhead went into an insightful exchange of stories about Muhammad Ali. Chris shares during this lockdown, he discovered a YouTube channel that featured several classic fights and he enjoyed binge-watching on these.
Chris mentions Pete McCormick, the guy behind a documentary called “Facing Ali” and he interviewed guys who fought Ali. The interesting backstory was, during these tune-up fights, Ali would handpick his opponent.
“He would tell his agent, he heard one guy, his wife had been killed in an accident, so he will get a quarter-million dollars. He’s beating people up in a charitable, generous way.” – Christopher Ryan
Podcasting Has Been Instrumental
Lochhead describes Ryan as “an insanely smart Ph.D. dude who seems to make a living being a smart guy, writing smart shit, podcasting smart shit, generally being the smart guy in the world.” He says podcasting has been instrumental in getting his message across.
“It used to be, if you want to sit down and share your opinions to a hundred young smart people who are interested in hearing an old guy like me, you had a gig in the university. Universities are designed to filter out people like me or Joe Rogan or you, people who are liable to say something outlandish, to challenge this status quo.” – Christopher Ryan
He further shares that he is generally pessimistic about the modern world, but one of the wonderful things that happened recently is that podcasting exploded.
“It is almost like a printing press, it just exploded, the opportunity to have direct contact between someone in the audience and the audience chooses whether or not it’s worth listening to. It is not the administrators of the university or publishing house, you know the gatekeepers.” – Christopher Ryan
What It Is Like Living In A Van
Christopher says he owned an apartment for a while until last fall when he spent 5 months in the van. He ditched his apartment, rented a storage space, and continued living life on the road since then. He traveled across the United States during the summer and flew to tropical countries during the wintertime.
“When this stuff got weird, end of January, I flew back. I didn’t want to get stranded in Asia. I rented a house in a tiny little town in Colorado. I’ve been here, it is fantastic, there’s no problem with social distancing. I like solitude. I like a good solid chunk of quiet and distance.” – Christopher Ryan
To hear more about Christopher and what’s wrong with modernity and how the world is fundamentally changing, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic.
Chris has been a featured speaker at TED, SXSW, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, the Einstein Forum in Pottsdam, Germany, and is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and many other podcasts.
He’s also provided expert testimony in a Canadian constitutional hearing and appeared in dozens of documentary films and television shows.
Even before co-authoring the New York Times best-seller, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships (translated into 18 languages), with Cacilda Jethá, MD,
Chris was on a wild ride.
After receiving a BA in English and American literature in 1984 he spent the next two decades traveling around the world, pausing in unexpected places to work at decidedly odd jobs (e.g., gutting salmon in Alaska, teaching English to prostitutes in Bangkok and self-defense to land-reform activists in Mexico, managing commercial real-estate in New York’s Diamond District, helping Spanish physicians translate and publish their research).
In his mid-30s, Chris decided to pursue doctoral studies in Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, in San Francisco, CA, using his dissertation to critique mainstream views of human sexual evolution — providing the core arguments later advanced in Sex at Dawn.
Chris’s latest book, Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress (Simon & Schuster/Avid Reader Press, 2019), questions whether civilization has actually been a net benefit to our species. He hosts a weekly podcast, Tangentially Speaking, often recorded from the road, while traveling in his van, Scarlett Jovansson.
The podcast features conversations with famous comics, bank robbers, drug smugglers, porn stars, authors, and rattlesnake experts.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
161 What IBM’s Experience In The Great Depression Teaches Today’s CEOs | Kevin Maney
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Today, we continue our run of legendary authors with Kevin Maney. He’s the world’s leading authority on IBM’s history. He shares some amazing insights into what IBM did during the 1930’s that ultimately positioned them for greatness. We also have a fascinating talk about what changes C19 might bring to the world and what that could mean for our businesses and careers.
Writing About Thomas Watson
Kevin is a multi-time best selling author of Unscaled and Play Bigger. He’s also a co-founder of Category Design Advisors, where he helps companies design and dominate their market categories. Today, Kevin shares how fortunate he was to be able to write a biography of Thomas Watson, the man behind IBM.
“I have been watching what’s happening and there’s all this economic damage and talk of a long term recession or depression everybody has to get through. Seeing companies laying off people, right and left and the jobless rate going through the roof and all these pain that is being caused made me think back to IBM in the 1930s during the Great Depression.” – Kevin Mahey
IBM and The Great Depression
Kevin narrates the amazing story of how IBM took the lead during a crisis. It was just a few years after the great depression. Instead of ceasing operations just like any other major corporations, he allocated funds to manufacturing and research and development.
“Imagine the tension, there’s no revenue coming in, spending all this money keeping these people, building machines and he is running out of time. Then this amazing event happened.” – Kevin Mahey
Then-President Roosevelt devised programs to assist companies wherein the government will be needing a lot of reports on salaries. IBM, being the only capable company to fulfill this demand then stepped into the picture. This made IBM as it is now and Thomas Watson, one of the greatest CEOs of all time.
Crisis As An Opportunity Rise
Kevin shares that similar to the Great Depression crisis, this current crisis could also be an opportunity to build something up, get ahead, and come out of even stronger.
“These kinds of moments in time can be seen as a tragedy but it can also be seen as an opportunity. If you can invest in the business, be wise and be careful, come out of the other end in a better position than you went in, and everybody else around you is devastated, I mean you’re in a great place.” – Kevin Mahey
To hear more about the inspiring story of Thomas Watson, IBM as told by Kevin Mahey, download and listen to this episode.
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Book: Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy of the Future
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