Make it epic, w/will.i.am

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And on number, when we do boom boom pow, I be rocking them beats. I had everybody in the light up suits form an arrow and lean forward. So they could point to the bee. I was like, look, I have an arrow that's pointing to what you need to pay attention to.

That. Well I am. You know. Will I am? frontman of the black eyed peas, among other distinctions.

He's describing. his Super Bowl halftime show from 2011. But to understand the triumph in his voice. I think we need to start the story a bit earlier. We were rehearsing for the Super Bowl.

While we were on tour in Brazil. While I was Writing a new album. Right when me and Mark Biniovs Relationship began.

Mark Benioff is the co-CEO of Salesforce. Will had partnered with them. brought their new app called Chatter. And he saw an opportunity. And I said, Hey Mark, why don't you do a Super Bowl ad

He was like, Yeah, we've been thinking about that. I was like, you know, we're playing the Super Bowl. The ads? They'd feature a cartoon Will I Am. walking out of the animation and onto the live stage.

Just before he walked on the actual live stage. There were obvious challenges to pulling this off. Not the least of which. was the lack of ad spots to buy. Will called up Fox, who was broadcasting the game.

Hey, this is where I am, you know, we're playing on the Super Bowl this year. I wanna buy some time. And they were like, Well, it's already sold. It's like well you could create a new And bye. Will pitched Fox on creating two new ad slots. That would bookend.

The half time show. That's a new unit. You can sell. At a premium. If the person's performing has eleven minutes and they purposely forfeit

A minute, thirty seconds. And they only play ten minutes. That's a awesome business model. Will was giving up his own time. But he knew those ads were worth more than the extra time on stage.

In fact. The bookends would make all the stage time more valuable. They linked his Superbol performance to his other project. With Salesforce The network finally agreed.

The ads ran. The animation worked. And that's Why I believe Oh no no, check this out. And then

I was like, yo, can we get the black IPs? Logo to be on the field. That's right. having pulled off a previously unimagined sponsor integration Well I am.

is just getting warmed up. The Super Bowl is a pretty big gig. But Will knew. He could make it bigger. not content to simply perform on stage.

He wants the black eyed peace logo. On the field as part of the choreography, but the NFL had a strict no-logo policy on their turf. There's like you cannot write anything. On our field. I was like, but what about U2's logo?

You two wrote love. What about Rolling Stone? They had their lips, that's a logo. There's no words. What about prints?

Print had his symbol. No words. What you want to listen for is the way Will strategizes. Not just for the black eyed peas. But also for the headphone company Beats.

in which he was a part owner. Okay, what if we use Love. Uh

But The stick of the L. and the old creator beat. They're like, Okay.

The NFL. Said okay. And during that epoch 2011 halftime show. The word love

Did appear. Colossal and glowing with LED lights. On the darkened field. But here's the thing. The word love

Doesn't light up. Until nine minutes. Into the ten minute show. And the rest of the time It's just a bee.

A bee that stands for black-eyed peas. But also just happens to look exactly like a certain logo. So I put a massive beach logo. The center of the field. So the NFL didn't know what we were doing.

And on number, when we do boom boom pal, I be rocking them beats. I had everybody And the light up suits. Form a arrow. And lean forward. So they could point to the B.

I was like, look, I have an arrow. That's pointing to what you need to pay attention to. Most musicians would consider the Super Bowl a big opportunity. in itself. They prepare their performance and take the applause.

But Will didn't see a single opportunity. He saw a way for his opportunities to multiply. He leveraged the Super Bowl to the benefit of three brands: the Black Eyed Peas. Beats and Salesforce. Think of each brand as one panel.

And a trifold mirror. У іх панекс на часто Бан і Бранд. but each other's reflections as well. Angle it just right. and the compounding reflections will stretch into infinity.

I believe. You should never settle. For a big opportunity. When you can leverage it. Into something epic.

A win on the scoreboard isn't enough. When you can change the whole game. You gotta have incredible talent at every position. Like this gives a huge push. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. We're gonna have a free bedroom apartment. It just seems absolutely nut all ten years later, I'm like, well that's just how you do it. We haven't made it just how you do it. This

is masters of scale. I'm Reed Hoffman. Co founder of LinkedIn. Partner Craylock. And your host.

And I believe. You should never settle. for a big opportunity when you can leverage it. into something epic. A win on the scoreboard isn't enough.

when you can change the whole game. And before we go any further I have a confession to make. I am. A Super Bowl skeptic.

Will and I'm not going to be able to do couldn't help but laugh about this during the interview. I frequently get pitched on Oh, we should go do a Super Bowl ad. Right. Because it's like well, let's say it's your debutante moment and you know, everyone will pay attention to you.

And I'm usually like ah that's totally vanilla. Don't do that. That's the generic thing that everyone's doing. And so I'm usually the negative voice on this. And yet You did some amazing things around the twenty eleven Super Bowl ad. Oh we d why did we Will I am Super Bowl story.

Clearly challenges. My longtime view. And it also shows how you can take the big opportunities that come your way, the ones most people would just be grateful for. and turn them into something bigger still. I wanted to talk to Will I am about this because his ability to identify and

And compound opportunities is like nothing I've ever seen. You probably know him as a musician, the founding member of the Black Eyed Peas. He was also an original partner in the headphone behemoth. Beats. And he's had a wearable consumer tech company called

I am plus. And there's this foundation. Bringing STEM programs to schools. Then there was that time he was the director of innovation at Intel. And that other time, he wrote the song for the iconic Yes We Can video during the 2008 election.

By the way. Well I am. Also co hosts A great podcast. called Pivot to the Future.

And I had the fun of being his guest. His co host is Omar Abbash. The group chief executive at Accenture. His guests Some of the biggest names in business.

The topic How companies Reinventing themselves to thrive. In our digital age.

And reinvention. comes naturally. To will I am. He rejects The received definition of limits.

And it starts. With how he grew up. I was raised really poor. But My creativity was my currency.

It kept me out of trouble. Trouble meaning the local gang didn't bother me. Trouble meeting. being bullied for being poor going to a a very rich school didn't happen because Yeah, I was the creative

That was William. William. Do that little rap you were doing. You can hear in that story how well learned to move between worlds. So if people call me William, they know me from school.

They call me Willie, they know me from my neighborhood. They call me Will. It's work. When Will was still in high school, he formed the hip hop group that would eventually become the Black Eyed Peas. They gain some traction in the underground hip hop scene of the opening for bigger acts like Macy Gray, and they had some regular play

On MTV. They had a distinct sound and a devoted Niche audience. And then There was the stylistic shift towards something a bit more mainstream.

Like any entrepreneur. Who spies a bigger audience? Or bigger opportunity. Well decided. To pivot.

That was Rebellion. Not a pivot. Sorry. There was this rebellion.

You know, we started off as a underground jazzy hip hop group. And my ex girlfriend worked at this uh underground record store. She got upset with me. The community got upset when MTV chose it. Play our song. Like seven times a day.

And she said, That's why you guys are pop. Like, what do you mean we're pop? We're not pop. And she used that as a stabbing thing and I was hurt. That she said that. So I was like, you know what? Just to show them, I'm gonna leave this world and I'm gonna shoot for a bigger audience.

Will took that insult. And turned it in a possibility. His band was already finding success. Consistent MTV and radio play. Touring gigs, screaming fans.

The works. But Will wanted more. He saw a window to create a bigger opportunity. He changes sound, but And change the game.

I wanna make music for people. Not just people that like what I like. And that's harder. than making underground music. Making music for people that like what you like that's pretty easy.

You know exactly what they want here. Trying to get Old young Muslim Jewish.

You know, black and white. Male, female That is freaking hard. Notice the way Will articulates the This crucial insight about scale.

I wanna make music for people. Not just people that like what I like. Will wanted to move beyond the people who already knew him and liked him. In the music world That's called

Going pop. But it relates directly. to the business world. In startups, we might call that Gain traction.

Or expanding. Beyond your early adopters. Will has a lot to share about going mainstream without losing What made people love you? I asked them.

About his playbook. You said, Okay, I'm gonna go do this. What was the next step? Oh to study The people that have done it over and over again.

I studied Lana Ritchie and Commodore songwriting, Stevie Wonder songwriting, Bob Marley. Bob Marley was making Rastafarian music. But thing in common that he had with the Beatles was the chord progressions. You know, like one four five's and all these different Chord progression.

That's the commonality between a hit and not a hit. Why jazz is jazz. And obscure music is obscure music. The ones that work. Share a lot of these core progressions.

This was much more than a marketing push. The change was foundational. We'll wanted to create music. that created leverage. And to do that. He had to build a different foundation.

Underneath his music. Foundation. The could sport massive. Compound growth. The key is it turns out.

was chord progressions. One four five I find it as fascinating. as will did. Like

Get the F out of here. Are you serious, bro? I studied more and more and more. and applied that songwriting to the black eyed piece. This new approach to songwriting. Set the black eyed peas up for massive growth.

But Will's insight. applies to more than just songwriting. It's a kind of leverage that starts at the beginning. At the foundation.

In business. You might need to innovate on the go to market strategy. Rebuild your code base. Or create a new differentiated hiring strategy. Whatever your foundation.

A metaphor. Might help. Imagine You're a kid playing with wooden blocks. You want to build the tallest sky scraper.

You can. You want to be The Frangiri. Of your kindergarten. As an industrious little builder.

You realize that a super tall tower. Starts with a solid foundation. But there's a limit to how stable that tower can be. Because it's still made of blocks. That can slide apart.

A strong breeze. A careless door slam. That tower's coming down. Now swap those wooden blocks.

Say Lego bricks. That tower can go higher and higher. It can be 114 feet tall. with five hundred fifty thousand pieces That's the current record anyway.

Interlocking bricks. Give you leverage. Instead of a single precarious tower. You can build. An entire skyline.

And it was this kind of leverage thinking. That Will brought to his music. He didn't randomly write catchy tunes. He strengthened His music foundation, based on the building blocks.

Proven the work. And he brought this thinking to the band itself. He knew they needed a brand he could leverage. Into ever bigger opportunities. It's a page.

he took from the business world. When I started working with ad agencies. They had a brand Bible. Where for every product that had a font, a color scheme. That's when I started applying all that stuff to the black IPs. We had a color scheme, font,

and chord progressions that associated itself with that. When did you start realizing that you'd had to be creative not just in songs and performances But also in the way that you thought about music as a industry, music as a product, music as a service.

Yeah. It was because I had a manager that was from New York and didn't know how to drive. So I had a car. And I would

Drive him to our meetings. And sit in the meetings. And listen. Driving your manager around town. might strike you as an obligation.

But Will saw an opportunity. To gain leverage. Like what what what do you mean? Publishing? Oh. There's a separate deal I have to get other than just a record deal? What do you mean mechanical royalties? What's that?

Will started train his eye toward ever bigger opportunities. But his focus. was still on making records. Then he wrote. His first song

For a T V commercial. And a light bulb. Turned on. Once we had music out. I saw how much money I made selling records.

Versus how much money I made being lucky. To have You know, made a song for Dr. Pepper. I move my mom out to ghetto. With a thirty second song.

Meanwhile. The two albums that I made. That we're like Two hours worth of music. I had twenty thousand dollars in a bank.

So that's when I realized that there was a different world. This realization that there's a different world may resonate with many of you listening. Because it's not just About a musician who discovers marketing budgets. It's anyone who realizes there's more money to make, more value to create, more impact to have.

When you gain Leverage. So we'll learn a lot. In those early meetings. The biggest lesson.

The value of meeting. With producers, with marketers, with brands. Each new connection. Creates a new way to find leverage. So I like to

Network. Because those fields usually never come across the talent. There's always some medium there, some manager, some agent. I wanted to interface directly with the executives at record companies like Jimmy Iving or the executives at ed agencies.

Jimmy Iovine. is of course the legendary music producer and co founder of Inter Scope Records. He's also the co founder of Beats Electronics. So you can tell. He's going to stay in the story.

Jimmy's first big hit as a producer was a collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and Patty Smith. And he built his career. On unexpected pairings. Working with artists. From you too, and Tom Petty.

To fifty cent. M Doctor Dre. Jimmy told me something one day that sticks with me. He was like, Well, you're the kind of person that if you stay at the table long enough. You'll figure it out.

You just gotta figure out a way to stay at the table or be the table. I'm like, what be the table? Mind blown. B The table.

It sounds like a Zen mantra. But it's great business advice. Being at the table. means you're in the room when the life changing opportunities present themselves. Being the table.

means you're the one creating and leveraging those opportunities. It was in meetings with Jimmy himself. Or will. Learned how it was done. Jimmy loved having different disciplines in the room.

So say for example it was one PM I had a meeting with Jimmy. Classic Jimmy Ivy is that your one PM would start at two. But you'll be sitting in the room with a meeting that lingered And here's the guy from Activision.

So now there's three people in a meeting. And then your meeting that was supposed to start at one that started at two Now his Three o'clock is there.

Now there's four people in the meeting that's three o'clock is the guy from MySpace. And then we're all in a room. trying to figure out how to get in front of the eyes and the ears of people. If sitting in on its managers meetings taught Will how the business works.

Sitting in on those meetings with Jimmy Showed him something else. How partnerships create their own leverage. Whether it's finding a co founder for your startup.

or a brand collaborator for your company. Teaming up with unexpected partners can grow opportunities. Not just linearly. But exponentially. It's like the scene in Ratatouille.

Pixar film. Remy the Rat is explaining to his brother that Why two complimentary foods In combination with tastes better than each one individually.

They taste first berry. Then cheese. Then berry and cheese together. Colorful fireworks flash in their minds. Message.

The whole Really is greater. And the sum of its parts. And this is the insight that lets you leverage a big opportunity.

Into something Truly epic. I wanted to show you another example of how this plays out. So I took a look at a stunning project. Beginning on the New York City waterfront.

It started. Like many epic projects. In the wake. of disaster. Lower Manhattan, along with a lot of neighborhoods in New York City, were very hard hit during Hurricane Sandy.

the Connet substation on Fourteenth Street Blue. And it's famously caused everything south of thirty fourth street to go dark. That's Jeremy Siegel. An urban designer.

with Bjark Ingalls Group. Also known as Big. And the first thing you need to know about big Is that they share Will's capacity to leverage big projects.

In the something epic. In one of their most famous projects. They want a bid to redesign a power plant in Copenhagen. A four season artificial ski slope.

which also had the world's highest climbing wall. On its exterior. In New York. They won the bid. To protect Manhattan from future storms.

It was a billion dollars. In federal funding. And the goal. U shaped shield around the southern tip of Manhattan.

But Jeremy. Wanted to build more. Than a wall. When we started our work, we were basically looking for Opportunities to take

What could be You know, really burdensome ugly Completely uniform flood protection infrastructure. And turn it into something that would be a benefit for the city. Jeremy and his team are

knew that a giant wall around half the city Would be a desaster. Cutting entire communities. Off. from the waterfront.

So instead They teamed up. With those communities to find out. what their infrastructure needs were. We basically just started working with the communities and neighborhood by neighborhood.

put forward a series of options from really basic flood walls that would block people off from the waterfront to, you know, what if it's urban furniture that's helping to stop the water? What if it's buildings? What if it's parkland. neighborhood by neighborhood, we started to see what the needs and desires and that's what ended up informing our proposal. So the big U is actually made up of a series of little Us. Jeremy's team. Won three hundred and thirty five million dollars. To implement this series.

Little Coast Protecting Use. New Yorkers, if you don't know about the Big U project. You will soon.

It's size and scope. Goes way beyond. What could have just been. A law. Essentially rather than building a wall.

We're building an elevated park. So the park itself will be what stops the water uh from coming in when you have a big storm surge like Hurricane Sandy. We're adding all kinds of recreational spaces, space to sunbathe and have picnics, the kinds of spaces that don't really exist in the park today. You know, it's also not just big. We're working with Huge teams of engineers. Ландска архітс, екологіст. economists to make the right decisions.

You can't do this stuff alone. Jeremy. And his team at big. Took the big opportunity of protecting the New York City coast. And leveraged it.

In the something epic with the help of partners. This. is the skill will I am started cultivating while sitting at the table. with Jimmy Iovine. And others.

I was curious if that helped him spot the opportunity with Apple. Right, so you succeed. And then you start applying that and doing the same kind of synthetic fusion other things. So you see, for example, the iTunes platform coming and you go, There's some amazing stuff we can do here. So iTunes was uh

At that point in time nobody knew for me to be like, Yo, I knew it was gonna be big I didn't know. Will may not have known. That iTunes would be big. But he knows an opportunity when he sees it. So when Apple needed a new song to help launch their brand new product,

The iTunes. Will saw a big opportunity he could leverage into something with epic potential. And so did Jimmy. So Jimmy says uh You know well, Apple's coming out with this new product called iTunes.

Like what nobody knew what that was. It's gonna help us fight Napster. 'Cause he brought the catalogue from Universal Music over to Apple. And at this point. Will has been a little bit more than in the room enough to know he had to get leverage.

Early on. He started angling. For his percentage. When they came to us and said, Hey, they want To use a Black Eyed P song for the commercial. My first instinct was, Well, how much are we getting paid? Cause Dr. Pepper paid me a whole lot of money. They were like, You're not getting paid any money.

Apple doesn't have that type of budget. So they said they'll give you some Apple computers, some laptops. This was a curveball for Will. If the iTun store was going to be such a big deal.

Why wouldn't they pay for a song? And it would have been logical to pass on the commercial. And wait for something that gave him more leverage. But something about This potential partnership with Apple.

Captured. Will's imagination. He had a lifelong love of Apple as a brand. Dating back to his youth. And using an Apple two C.

The apple is my instrument. I'm more a coder. Then I am a musician. And I've just wanted to share my, you know, enthusiasm and love for Open Apple everything.

This is a language for me. I create with this. And I just wanted to share that. Will had no way of being sure the iTunes store was going to take off. But he loved Apple as a brand. And he said yes.

The Black Eyed Ps helped unveil the iTunes Store in two thousand and three. And if you're wondering how it all worked out. There's a reason. You're hearing my voice. On eight.

Hard. Cast. Will and the black eyed peas leverage that launch into numerous product launches that followed. Like when Verizon started to V cast, we were there.

When Nokia Started comes with music, launched that with them. Will started looking closely. at the business model he'd been a part of. In which the art

Is used. To sell the product. It's a model. That's existed since before the gramophone. A fact that Will talks about.

regularly. When the music in the ads feels vital and current, consumers will want that music. and that device right now. we'll saw a new and epic opportunity in the making. and we'll hear all about it.

After the break. When you build substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious. Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years.

Building. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative plating dot com slash masters of scale. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies.

Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone.

Every week I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely. From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode.

I hope to see you there. Before the break. Will had worked with Apple on the launch of the iTunes store. Followed by a series of other products. We'll saw the massive potential of using art.

To sell a hardware product. Another light bulb went off. He pitched. Jimmy Iovine. On an idea.

So one year I two thousand and six I come home and I'm like, Jimmy Why don't we make our own Hardware. And use our own music. To sell our our own hardware.

Mm. Will saw a path. To greater and greater leverage. If version one point oh Was a soda company will license our song for a lot of money.

Vers 2.0 Was Apple. We'll license our song. For no money. But will leverage.

An epic brand opportunity. And version three point oh. Well. Jimmy needed some convincing. I'm like Jimmy

Why don't we make our own Hardware. To sell our our own hardware. He's like, William, that's why they call it hardware. It's hard. What do you mean? Make our own hardware. Let's do our own hardware, Jimmy. That'll be amazing.

And that's how we started beats. But what was that initial like Well actually in fact this channel by which we're using music Could actually be the way of creating an entire industry which people wouldn't have normally thought of around Like you know, headphones.

Around А хай кваліті хардве прот, в і се Is hard. I saw the trust that people have with musicians. Especially the good ones, the great ones.

They're vulnerable. And the audience knows they're vulnerable. And the audience leans on the musician t to relate to them. And there's no other industry that exists that way. Not politics, not corporations music and people. It's just

Other world things. If Bob Marley was alive today, he would have I don't know what product he would have, but he would have A product that people will adore. Maybe maybe medical marijuana. Maybe maybe you have Bob Marley C V D or something like that. But now that it's legal. Exactly.

Um 'Cause that was among the kind of the thing that is not just being creative in the music, but creative about how the business comes together, about how different industries touch each other, how they can Actually reinforce each other. It would take some time.

Before Jimmy would bring this hardware idea. to Dr. Dre. As the story goes, the They ran into each other, but On the beach in Malibu.

And Jimmy learned that Dre was thinking about starting his own Sneaker line. Famously. Jimmy retorted. Forget sneakers.

Let's make Speakers. Interestingly, Will I am isn't often mentioned in the official Beats Origin story. But Jimmy never forgot where the inspiration to get into hard work came from.

The kind of person Jimmy is, he could have Just ignore that. Brought up the hardware discussion and Finders fee.

Or seed creation money. Just shows his loyalty in building those networks. The Beats Brand.

Exploded onto the music and lifestyle scene. And true to form, just as Jimmy Iovy didn't forget Will. Will Didn't forget beats. He did everything.

And it's considerable power. The highlight. The Beats Brand. Beats headphones and speakers are everywhere.

Videos and songs. As we'll mention earlier, there's a line right in the middle of their song. Boom boom pow. I be rockin' them beats! We'll even war them.

While being interviewed live on CNN. In two thousand and eight. He was on screen. Next to the legendary poet. Maya Angelou

Talking about Barack Obama's Presidential campaign. Sporting. A pair of beats headphones. With their signature lowercase B.

Casually around his neck. And now we've almost come full circle. Back to Will I Am. At the Super Bowl. Sneaking a giant beats logo.

Past the NFL. But wait. There's one more level. To this partnership still. In twenty fourteen.

Beats was bought. For three більon dollars. Creating a massive payday. For its founding shareholders. The buyer.

None other than Apple. It's very tempting to end our journey here. We've traveled. From Well's Apple two C in his childhood classroom. To a post jobs.

Apple. Buying beats. For a record sum. But if you think that this sale ended Will's quest for ever larger opportunities, you haven't really been listening. Will has ventured.

deeper and deeper into the tech world since that 2011 halftime show. And he's continuing. to develop ideas that could turn into the next big. Really big.

Tell me about your workspace. As I understand it, it's literally called the future. Yeah. When I was at Beats, I would come up with these wild ideas. And some of them get heard.

A lot of'em didn't. I would get frustrated, like, man, I just need my own team. This is a continuation of the lesson that he learned with Beats. Artist benefit. When they own the tech, not just when they help sell it.

When I got Some disposable money. I Got this building. And Jimmy was like, Why do you got this? What are you gonna do here? What is this? I was like, Jimmy, you don't understand. I may have my developers right there.

They have like a recording studio and stuff. Why are you gonna have a recording studio next to developers? Oh, and then have my C and C machine hardware stuff over there? What is this for? I was like, Jimmy, you don't understand, man, in the future. Thank you. Hardware companies

Our software companies and content companies. So I wanna prepare for that. Apple being a hardware company. Starting iTunes. Tells you.

That maybe they're gonna wanna do And make their own content. So I wanna prepare for that. I wanna have my studios and my developers all in the same house so we don't have to go and find marketers to sell our stuff. I have culture. in the place that's creating stuff that's gonna change culture

I want it all to come from us. But what's your product? How are you gonna have a building before a product? I was like, oh, we're gonna figure out the product. Turns out I was bat

Crazy for having an empty vessel. And then figuring it out later. We figured it out. In twenty twelve He founded his own tech startup.

I am plus. It began as a consumer tech company. Focusing on wearables. One of their first product roll outs. was the photo dot so show.

An iPhone accessory that looked like an instomatic camera. Another. Fash earbuds. That look exactly

Like what their name suggests. But Will was looking to go bigger. Of course. Their flagship product? It came from an idea.

he had back when he worked at Intel. When I worked at Intel I hope The futurist department, I said, Well, why don't you guys create your own operating system if no one's building operating system on your mobile chipsets? That's what gave me the aha moment that when I get some disposable money, I'm gonna create an operating system. Like how hard could it be. Anyways.

Turns out to be freaking impossible. Let alone heart. Exactly. But we did. I am plus. developed Omega.

A new AI interface that Will says will be better than Siri or Alexa. Their goal. is to create an AI voice activated interface. With Better.

Context awareness. Like a series. That has gotten to know you. In two thousand seventeen I am plus.

raised a hundred and seventeen million dollars in venture financing. A large portion of that came from Salesforce Ventures. You remember. from the twenty eleven Super Bowl. Mark Benioff has been there every step of the way. They invested in every round. As you've no doubt noticed.

Will I am career offers an almost infinite number of examples. Of how you can leverage a big opportunity. into something truly epic. From building on a solid foundation. To being the table.

Will has mastered leverage. But there's one aspect of leverage we haven't touched on yet. Timing. When you're building scale. It isn't just about moving fast.

It's often about leveraging an event. or a moment that can give you lift off. Sometimes You're racing against the competitor. Sometimes

You're racing towards the Your own rocket launch. And sometimes When your will I am. There's an actual rocket.

Leaving the planet for Mars. We'll let Will set the scene. I'm on tour and I called Ron Conway. I'm like, Ron, do you know the guy that created the segue? Ron Conway is a Silicon Valley Super Angel investor.

The Segway is a two-wheeled motorized personal vehicle. It was like I don't know the guy that owns a Segway company, but I know the guy that created the technology behind. I was like, Can you connect me with him? I wanna figure out a way to take the governor off because I found this team that I wanna test out. to take the technology and create a new type of vehicle. But

I don't wanna create a vehicle that goes Thirty miles an hour. Can you take the governor off is what I want to ask him. If you didn't catch that. Will is wondering.

Ведет пособо To remove the speed regulator. On a segue. Which it turns out is very dangerous. And its inventor.

Dean Cayman. Hold them as much. But when the two got to talking and came and offered Will a quid pro quo, I help you with your vehicle. You help me with something too.

He's like, I'll have this thing called first. I was like, what's first? That's the problem. I've been doing it for twenty years, nobody knows about it. First. is the high school robotics competition came and founded. He thought Maybe will.

could come to the event's kickoff. And lend a little star power. He says um I need you to help me make first cool. It's like I just can't help you make it cool. It's already cool.

Just needs to be a little louder. I like thinking of these escalating opportunities this way. Like a volume knob. You can just ratchet up to eleven. Loud.

Translates. Into a wider audience. A bigger impact. Loud. Let whole other communities.

Outside your own. I was like but Why don't you make a T V show? He's like nobody wants to put a robotics competition on TV. I was like, well

I just bought time on Fox. Why don't you call up ABC? And buy time. Does this sound familiar yet? Will is still using those lessons he learned from the Super Bowl.

But how to parlay airtime. how to move it around. And how to shape it. In creative ways. So I called up ABC and said, Hey, how much does an hour cost?

I wanna create a program called First Robotics. I am first. For a robotics competition. And a concert. So I got the kids' choice awards and Nickelodeon to do that. And then Dean helped me get companies like

Boeing and Johnson and Johnson to buy the ad buys. And it was great. No one lost any money. Obama kicked it off. Brought a whole bunch of recognition and eyeballs to it. Instead of begging the network to air a noble ratings loser.

We'll restructure the event and sponsorships. In a way that would attract attention. Which attracts more sponsors. He turned a favor. into a mutually beneficial gift.

Pulling this off. Required every one of the leverage techniques. We've looked at so far. A rock solid foundation.

With real scale. Unexpected partnerships. That are bigger. than the sum of their parts. Creativity.

as capital to bring value to the partnership. And just like the Super Bowl halftime show. Each separate element. Of the first robotics competition. Reflected back onto another, amplifying the event as a whole.

And what happens? Well Will doesn't just settle for that big opportunity. He leverages it. into something epic.

Because of that, NASA then calls me up to JPL. to help them think around their stuff. That's right. NASA called. They saw Will's work.

for the first robotics programme and thought This is the man. to invite to our jet propulsion lab. And direct more eyeballs. To the launch of our Mars Rover.

Curiosity. I was like wow. Why don't you have a concert at a rocket launch? You we can't have a concert at a rocket launch. A rocket launch is too loud. I was like, Well, have you been a rock concert? He was like, Well

Have you ever seen a rocket take off? I mean, yes, the rock concert's loud, but a rocket launch one, there's you're not gonna get anywhere near the rocket launch to have a rock concert. The blast radius is just No, it it's gonna be pointless. And loud. Right, and loud. Eventually.

He'd write a song specifically. For the Curiosity Mission. I was like, okay. Well what happens when the rocket lands on Mars? Oh it's in the signal back.

Well instead of sending a signal back, why come you can't send a song back? Can you do that? To all the classrooms across America? Never thought of that. Well who's gonna make the song? I I'll make the song. I can make it.

That song Reach for the stars. Became the first song ever. to be transmitted to earth. From another planet.

Students and special guests. Gathered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. To watch the broadcast. And just because Well I am.

never ever passes up an opportunity to go bigger. The event was also used Two. Let me count these out. One.

Promote a separate STEM initiative for Wills Foundation. Two. Raise awareness for NASA. And three. Promote the song itself.

Wh then appeared. On Will's solo album, Will Power. That. Is how you leverage a big opportunity. And it's something truly epic.

on an interplanetary scale. My mom called me the little engine that could. I said hey. I wanna Shoot for the stars.

It was like, but what if you don't make it? I was like, well then I'm off the planet. If I shoot Away from here. I'll get off.

the planet. I'm Reed Hoffman. Thanks listening. Masters of Scale is a Wait What original. The show is recorded on site in California and produced at the studio inside SY Partners in New York.

Our executive producers are June Cohen and Darren Triff. Our producers are Chris McLeod, Adam Skuse, Jenny Cataldo, Jordan McCloud. Catherine Clark Gray Hali Bondi and Ben Manila. Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi.

Music and sound design by Ryan Holliday and Daniel Nissenbaum. Mixing and Mastering by Brian Pugh. Special thanks. De Crichier. Alicia Schreiber.

David Sanford. Say it's a piano. Bob Safian. Христіни Канзалес And Sarah Sandman.

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