Transcript

Bonus: Reid’s 2020 Commencement Speech: In a crisis, steer toward the emerging opportunities

The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet When it comes to their own wealth. Most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

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Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. Hi, listeners, read here. And a special hello to all you twenty twenty graduates.

Graduation is a time of extreme emotions. It is a key moment in life where exciting possibility and optimism. Meet uncertainty. And change. It is at once exhilarating.

And unnerving. Hope filled. Yet disquieting. Twenty twenty graduates are facing this transition during this time of unprecedented global upheaval. And we still have no clear sight of the new normal.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And on May sixteenth. I published a commencement speech on LinkedIn. I called it. My twenty twenty vision for graduates.

How to be optimistic. In terrible times. I'll read it to you today the way commencement speeches are meant to be. Out loud. With the great optimism.

That you deserve. I hope my new words will go some way toward helping you new graduates make sense of this time. But most importantly. I wanna congratulate you all. And wish you the best.

on the exciting journey ahead of you. Shortly after I graduated from college in nineteen ninety. America entered a recession. The unemployment rate. peaked at seven point three percent in nineteen ninety one.

That same year. The US experienced a record number of murders. The world was also in the midst. Of the AIDS epidemic. Tens of thousands of people around the world were dying.

From a virus. There was no cure for. My generation. Dubbed. Generation X.

After a popular novel of the same name. was typically characterized as being aimless and cynical. Prematurely embittered. By dead end jobs. The generally awful state of the world.

And an overall sense. In other words. Compared to you guys. We had it pretty sweet.

Congratulations, Class of twenty twenty. As the title of a movie for my early post college years puts it. Reality bites. In twenty twenty Entering the real world means staying at home.

Sheltering in place. Finding your dream job. Never an easy endeavor. Із еспоненці хар. In an environment.

Where any job is hard to come by. Obviously. This is not the best time to be making a major life transition. It's a terrible time. But

It is your time to do this. So you have to try to make the best of it. And one thing. We can say with certainty. But the current moment.

is that no one really knows what's gonna happen. As we move forward from here. Society. As a whole Experience cataclysmic shock.

Things we assumed were indelible, immutable, parts of our lives. Where suddenly. No longer. Parts of our lives. Is it temporary?

Is it ongoing? In many ways. Your generation. will be the ones who end up determining This the most.

How much change will you tolerate? How much change will you demand? In moments of uncertainty. І моментів грай чай каос. We all have the instinct.

Hunker down. And cling to the familiar. The known. The predictable. The things we're comfortable with.

That makes Perfect sense. And in this particular instance By all means. Hunkering down and maintaining social distance is saving lives.

Keep doing that. But Keep looking forward to when we talk about what happens next. We often frame the conversation.

In reactive terms. We talk about Getting back to work. A return to normalcy.

In my opinion, that's the wrong orientation. We should be thinking in terms of moving forward. As the saying goes Невер а ґуд крізис.

Go to waste. At first That might sound cynical. Opportunistic. But I believe

It's an incredibly optimistic, idealistic. And resilient way. To look at the world. It recognizes that forces that create chaos and confusion are Also upend.

Deeply rooted habits. And patterns of behavior. The status quo. That often block. Potential innovations.

And more productive ways of living. Now with so much influx. Where do we go from here? Who flourishes? In a quote.

That's often attributed to Charles Darwin. But was in fact a Louisiana State University management professor paraphrasing Darwin in nineteen sixty three. It's not the strongest. of the species that survives. Nor the most intelligent that survives.

It's the one. That is most adaptable. To change. And that I would say

is your superpower. At the moment. You're young. You haven't been living.

A specific way. For ten. twenty. Forty years. This is not to say you don't have huge challenges ahead of you.

Or significant obligations, expectations, and dreams that predate This new moment. We find ourselves in. Because I'm sure that you do. There's a good chance you've got student debt.

You may have achieved a certain level of training and expertise in a field that That no longer seems as viable as it did just a few months ago. But meeting this new world with an adaptive mindset. right now is critical. And as a person.

who was most likely in their twenties. You're at a more adaptive point in your life. than those who are both younger and older than you. You have. A level of autonomy.

And that's a capacity. Make your own way. Those younger than you. Don't yet have. You have a receptivity to new approaches.

That those older than you will likely have a harder time summoning. So how then? Do you make the most important thing? Of this crisis.

Here is the language of standard commencement speeches. Trust your heart. Listen. Tear in her voice. Follow.

Your intuition. Even in the best of times. I think this is insufficient advice. In our current moment. It's extremely

Insufficient advice. I mean I get it. Graduation day is a moment of great transition. And uncertainty.

You're giving up. Your familiar identity. As a college student. You're on the verge. of assuming some new

and probably not quite clear identity as an adult professional. You're about to embark on a journey through unknown and potentially inhospitable territory. You're going to have to say goodbye. to old friends and a familiar way of life. And hello. To new living arrangements, new routines.

And probably New student loan bills. So you need a resounding celebration of self. To shore yourself up for the journey. That means

You focus on your heart. Your inner voice. The unique glory. And magic of you. Here's the thing, though.

While you should trust your heart. You should also get A second opinion. While you should follow your intuition. Don't just follow it reflexively.

Talk. To the smartest people you know. To get the lay of the land. So what am I really saying here? Instead of optimism.

I preach pessimism. When others say hope. I say fear. Absolutely not. In this moment.

You must be optimistic. Bold. Passionate. Idealistic. There are hard times ahead, and you will need those emotions.

To power you through them. But also be strategic. And intentional. Dispassionate even. What's the best move for you?

Right now. Given circumstances. And opportunities. Instead.

Be willing to experiment. That doesn't mean leap before you look, though. Just the opposite. Plan. Now

We're all moving forward in a largely unmapped territories. But that's why preparation and information gathering Matter most. You have to learn as much as you can ahead of time. What's the weather gonna be like?

What kinds of threats Should you be prepared for? Bears? Desert? mountain passes that are all but impossible to cross in the winter?

My point. Is that making progress in life is never just about your passion. And your confidence. Or even your grit. And your specific skills.

It's also about how well you foresee. Comprehend. And react. In the world around you.

To elaborate on what I mean here. Let me tell you a story. From my own career. A while back A reporter asked me if passing on a chance to become the first lead outside investor in Facebook was the biggest mistake.

I'd ever made in my professional life. Well That was a pretty big mistake. But I thought about it for a while and I told the reporter No, that actually

The biggest happened. Much earlier in my career. In nineteen ninety five. At that point.

I was a few years into my career and was working as a project manager at Apple. And then I got a job offer. From Fujitsu. I'm sure it sounds unbelievable today. But in nineteen ninety five.

Fujitsu was a much bigger company than Apple. About Twelve times bigger. So getting an offer from them. Was exciting.

The job they were offering. Was better too. And had a lot more responsibility. Than my Apple job did. And had a fancier sounding title.

Product manager. It came with a big raise. So naturally I took it. What a mistake.

Not because Fujitsu was a bad place to work. It turned out. To be a good place to work. But taking that job. Meant I stopped thinking about another option.

I was lightly considering at the time. But never ended up pursuing. That option involved trying to get a job at a young Silicon Valley company that had just gone public and would In a few short years. Crash and burn.

Lay off everyone. And quickly fade into oblivion. Yes. I passed up. All that.

And I regret it. To this day. Why? Because that company was Netscape.

The company that released. The first widely adopted Web browser. And my dream Was to create some kind of software product.

That can positively impact people's lives. At massive scale. I wasn't exactly sure. what this software would do yet. I just knew.

That subscription based dial up services Like Comp you serve and America Online. And the one I'd been working on at Apple. Ewor.

Information in far more powerful ways than you could do with books. T V. and other traditional forms of media. At the same time. I was beginning to realize that the internet

Was fundamentally different. From closed proprietary online services like CompuServer Eworld. It was a much, much bigger deal. A new open incredibly generative way of connecting and empowering people.

Already. Thousands of people had started creating their own globally accessible web pages. Focus on whatever they wanted. They were posting constantly updated photos of their coffee pots. They were publishing lists of their favorite Beatle songs.

They were selling hot sauce. One guy named Jeff had even launched what he then called Earth's biggest bookstore. Big or small.

You could build whatever you wanted on the world wide web. And you didn't need to get permission from the government. or corporate gatekeepers. He had just started building. Because of the internet.

And especially Because of the world wide web. Things were starting to move. Very quickly. In Silicon Valley.

In nineteen ninety five. And Netscape. was at the heart of the action. It was the fastest moving Most innovative company.

In the fastest moving, most innovative sector of the high tech industry. At that point, in fact. Netscape was undergoing a process. I now call Blitz scaling.

Which essentially means it was growing at warp speed. on a trajectory to become the dominant player. In its realm. In January nineteen ninety five It had around a hundred employees.

A few months later, it had two hundred employees. One of those employees was a friend of mine, and when I heard him talk about what was going on there I sometimes thought to myself Maybe I should try to get a job there too. But as much as Netscape intrigued me.

I still had that dream of creating some software product. Of my own. that could improve the lives of millions of people. And what I'd already learned. From talking to venture capitalists.

Was that nobody would invest in my ideas until I had more experience. Shipping products. at existing companies. And so

I thought I needed to get a job. As a product manager At a well established company. The bigger. The better.

In retrospect. I really should have been trying to get a job at Netscape. Whatever its title was, Whatever it paid. Because Netscape

Was where а тай. У вас загрейтість концентрація смартпи. Designing the future. I knew I wanted to be part of. It was the central node.

Of the consumer internet industry. And that meant It was the best place for making high value connections. that could have had a major impact on my overall career arc. and professional interests.

In nineteen ninety five, though, I wasn't truly Network literate, yeah. I understood. That professional relationships and alliances were important.

I just didn't realize. How important. And I didn't fully appreciate how the internet And all the connectivity it was enabling. would actually amplify this fact.

So ultimately. I wasn't thinking strategically. Or intentionally enough. Instead I was listening to my heart.

And I thought that a job as a product manager Was the fastest route. to get to where I really wanted to go. The thing is my heart and my intuition are We're thinking primarily about me and my dreams.

They weren't paying enough attention to the larger world around me. And how fast the internet was changing things. So that's why I say Don't just trust your intuition. Trust your allies too.

Don't just Listen to your heart. Listen. To your smartest friends. Follow.

Your network. Be passionate, sure. but also think about where your network is strong and what opportunities that strength creates. А не спешли на Consider market realities.

An overall industry. and cultural trends. Because it's not just That were in some periodic But predictable.

economic contraction. Yes. І за ра ситуацію. Where unknowns abound. And major societal shifts.

may be underway. Are face masks a new standard part? Of business casual. Ar in person office meetings. History.

Our offices History. What new behaviors, trends, and opportunities are emerging out of the confusion and change that coronavirus. has brought to the world. What are the second and third order effects

might produce. Obviously. Thinking like this right now is an extremely difficult task. You're already facing

Much more immediate questions. How do you stay healthy and safe in the current environment? How do you achieve Some level. of economic security.

But as much as you can. Incorporate an adaptive Forward looking mindset too. By anticipating Or tomorrow's best opportunities.

may arise. You increase your optionality over time. And position yourself. To pursue productive New career paths.

For example If you were paying close attention to the rise of YouTube in the mid two thousands, You would have understood It wasn't just going to create New jobs for software інженіers.

but also a much larger number of new jobs in video production. Advertising. Entertainment. Education. And more.

If you were paying close attention to the rise of Facebook, Instagram The same deal. Social media manager. Podcaster.

Instagram influencer. None of those jobs existed when I started my own career. Thirty years ago. Most of them. Didn't even emerge until the last decade.

So what's the YouTube or the Facebook? of twenty twenty. And what's the new kind of jobs? They'll create. As new graduates.

At the start. You should be spending serious time. investigating these questions. And how do you do that?

By cultivating. A strong professional network. Relationships matter. Behind every new breakthrough technology. Every new industry trend.

There are people. That Where everything starts. And while knowledge Creates awareness.

You might know that Company X is growing fast because you read about it in the news. Relationships. Create opportunities. As your parents have probably already told you. If you start making annual contributions to your retirement count at twenty five, you will end up with a lot more money than someone who waits.

Until the thirty five. To start saving for retirement. That's the power. of compounding interest. And it works.

For professional relationships. And alliances too. Research has shown that people graduating into a recession are Can suffer negative економік консеквенція та прес. Over a decade.

Or longer. There are multiple reasons for this. But generally what happens is that people end up getting First jobs at smaller companies with lower salaries than they might otherwise have had. And thus

Are playing catch up. From the start. Unfortunately. This is the reality. You're faced with right now.

So how? Do you adapt to it? First. You have to figure out. the problem you're trying to solve for.

And along with the fact that people who start their careers during recessions tend to start at lower salaries than people who enter the workforce. During better economic times. I believe there's another component to this phenomena. It's not just a salary issue. It's a social capital issue.

Think about it. If the world's biggest and most established companies are hiring less when you graduate, That means you will have fewer opportunities to get your first job at a place where you can build relationships with people who are already experienced. And well connected in your field. You will also have fewer opportunities to build relationships.

With lots of other new hires. We're on the same trajectory as you. What this means then Із вату адап. to this new environment.

You have to create new opportunities and pursue new strategies for developing the kinds of strong professional relationships and networks that naturally arise. If your first job is at a company with hundreds or even thousands of employees. So how do you do this?

Figure out ways to put yourself near the hubs of the networks that matter most in your given career domain. Because the sooner you begin developing your professional network, the earlier you will start benefiting from its compounding value over time. For me. In nineteen ninety five. Putting myself near the hub of the network that was most relevant to my own career goals would have meant doing everything I could to get a job at Netscape.

But for you in twenty twenty When jobs are hard to come by. What does that mean? Like I said earlier. Relationships matter.

Indeed, five years after I ended up not pursuing a job at Netscape. I made what I consider to be the best choice of my career. It was nineteen ninety nine. After leaving Fujitsu a couple years earlier, I had co-founded a company called Socialnet.

And was in charge of product there. The idea behind Social Net. was to create a place where people could establish online identities based on the real world interest. And connect with each other. As our name suggested, we were a social network well before places like Frenster.

My space and then Facebook. took that concept mainstream. While we had fundraised successfully. We are running into scaling issues. And our board and I were having major disagreements.

on strategy moving forward. So I'd started thinking about leaving and what my next move would be. Initially my thoughts was to start another company. To put everything I'd learned through my social ed experience into another shot on goal. As a founder.

But then a friend of mine from college Peter Thiel. Asked me to join his company. PayPal as a full-time employee. I'd already been serving on PayPal's board for over a year.

And now, since I was thinking about leaving social net, Peter exclaimed Why not? Just join PayPal full time. And Peter was right. PayPal had extraordinary momentum at that point because of the way eBay sellers and buyers had begun to use it.

as their payment method of choice. Incredible things were happening there. Hugely talented people. We're working there. It was in effect.

Another shot. at a netscape like situation. A chance to work at a key hub. of the rapidly evolving. Internet universe.

There was risk there too, and lots of unknowns. and other more predictable options I could have pursued instead. But this time I knew enough about the power of networks to know that this was an opportunity.

I should take. at PayPal. I learned something new about how the consumer internet works almost every day. I connected with valuable allies who continue to function as some of the most trusted members. Of my professional network.

Working there was really the start of my identity. As a well connected Silicon Valley professional. with an established Track record of success. It's where I started really developing the personal network.

I'd later draw upon as an investor. If I hadn't joined PayPal. my career might have gone in a completely different direction. If I hadn't had a good understanding of the opportunity it represented. versus the risk it entailed.

Through my conversations with Peter and others. I might have made a different choice. And that right there. Is the value. of network intelligence

Now I want to say a few things about luck. Timing. And how quickly. Things change.

Thirty years ago. When I graduated. The internet existed. But not in any way. Or I or any of my friends had been thinking.

Yes. I'm going to spend my career Building things for the internet. And then In the space of a few short years.

Things change completely. Especially Where I was fortunate enough to live. Silicon Valley. Where there had once been a recession, there was suddenly a dot com boom.

Every day. New companies were forming. New jobs were being created. People were coming from all over the world. To the San Francisco Bay Area.

to stake out a claim on this incredibly powerful new platform for enabling human activity. The news media. described it as a second Gold Rush. Then in two thousand

After five crazy years where founders could attract millions in venture capital based on little more. Than a good URL. The dot com bubble burst. Hundreds of high profile startups. Flamed out in a matter of weeks.

In this regard, I was extremely fortunate. PayPal was one of the few companies that survived this era. And in two thousand and one Ebay acquired us.

But overall. The flame out. Was so spectacular. That a lot of people were saying The internet was over.

It had all been A pipe dream. The future still belonged to newspapers and Television. Department stores.

A mall. In reality, of course. Was just beginning. Tremendous opportunities lay ahead.

My point being Things change. And they change fast. Over and over. In the end.

Much of our lives are determined by timing. And how we respond to both good luck. And bad luck. Right now. You're starting out with a lot.

Eventually. Something new. Like the internet. We'll come along.

If you invest in strengthening your network, you'll have a better chance of spotting it. When it does. Can we better position? Take advantage of the opportunities it creates. So my advice to you today.

Із лісень то я з At liest as much. As you listen to your inner voice. Believe in yourself. But believe in your network too.

Because your network creates the map of the world that provides the context You need to make good for progress. In your life. And in times like these But there's so much confusion.

And uncertainty. You will definitely need. That map. Asters of Scale is a Wait What original. The show is recorded remotely with sanitized audio gear. Our executive producers are June Cohen and Darren Treff.

Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi. Our producers are Chris McCloud, Adam Skuse, Jenny Cataldo, Jordan McCloud. Catherine Clark Gray. Hali Bondi, Christina Gonzalez, and Ben Manila. Our editor at large is Bob Safian.

Original music and sound design by Ryan Holiday and Daniel Nissenbaum. Audio editing. by Keith J. Nelson. Mixing and Mastering by Brian Pugh. Special thanks.

Appreciate Elisa Schreiber. David Sanford, Saida Sapiava. Adam Heiner Emily McManus. Kelsey Capitano.

M Cronin. Sarah Sandman. Charlie Manessis and Colin Howard. Visit MastertheScale.com to find the transcript.

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