Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right.
But the bottom line is, is together,
we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
Absolute shit though. Imagine like tar and ash and,
and dirt and burnt dirt, you know, that all rolled up in a black resin.
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So let's get started. Welcome to Living in the Matrix, everyone.
Today's a special day for me because we have a very good friend of mine,
probably one of my best friends in the world because we just have two minds alike.
You're willing to admit that I'm impressed.
Absolutely, dude. Absolutely. Because here's the thing,
you and I have had probably some of the most wonderful conversations around life.
And I think everybody wants someone like that in their life where they can just be honest and real.
And you and I always have that. We always have a great bottle of wine, probably a good steak.
And it's good to do life with people like you. So that's, that's one of the beauties of having one.
So welcome, brother. It's good to have you.
Thank you, Jonathan. And if I can, if you don't mind me correcting you in front of your audience,
we never only have one bottle of wine.
I just want to get the record straight for everybody listening to Jonathan.
This notion that there's one bottle of wine. Don't listen to that. That's not how it rolls.
That's not how it ever rolls.
That's not how it happens. Exactly.
It's usually one bottle each, but I digress. Jonathan, please proceed.
No, not at all.
So I'm going to start out and really begin kind of setting the table a little bit of what I imagine for this episode.
Because this is, we'll see where this goes, but this is always an extension of one of our conversations that we have.
And we talk about everything kind of like we do on this podcast.
That's why I think the three of us have a tremendous amount of synergies because we both like talking.
We all like talking about things that really matter.
And so I think that's why we started, Kevin, and you and I talked about shit that really matters was the name of our original podcast idea.
And the truth is we're always searching for what's real and what's valuable.
And what I love about the three of us is that we can have those come.
So at some point in the future, we need to have a steak and a really good bottle of Plum Jack or something like that.
Have you ever had Plum Jack? Rich?
Of course. Yeah, I visited their winery on my 50th birthday, actually.
That's good juice.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many great Napa Cabernets. I mean, my friends bring in a bottle of Colgan out to Utah.
We're going to go out and do the wave hike, which is in southern Utah, which is only a few hundred pieces get there.
So, yeah. And I don't know if you're familiar with Sinoquinon.
And so I'm I'm I'm fond of both his son's wines.
His son's name is Nick Crenkle. He's got fingers crossed.
That's his label. And then the man who made Sinoquinon's wines for 12 years is Jim Bins.
I just cracked his and Dremeli last night.
And that was a sera for my celebration of my wife's birthday.
And we're going to crack the Morved next week as well. So it should be a fun time.
We will spend some time on wine after this.
You know, I actually that's a really good place to start because something that we all love.
Kevin, why don't you tell your story about how you found wine?
Because I think it's one of the more interesting stories I've heard from you is you had this unique apprenticeship with a Somali.
You would like me to talk about that right now. Yeah. OK, let's start there.
That is a big part of who you are.
Jesus just just drank one last night on the last supper.
Jesus just broke bread and drank a cup of wine and passed it around.
So let's let's celebrate. Good Friday. Right.
So, all right, Jonathan, I'll start there. I'll try to keep this succinct.
You know, I grew up, as you know, I grew up really dirt poor, incredibly underprivileged.
So the notion of me even knowing how to spell wine, never mind be an aficionado, is not exactly how I started off.
I escaped poverty in the deliverance country region of southern Missouri earlier in northern Arkansas, escaped to Seattle,
got a break and got to get a get a really nice Michelin star, white tablecloth waiting job when I was only 19.
They just thought I was a grad student and I never lied.
I just didn't correct them when they assumed that I was, you know, my 20s as a grad student.
We open up, we immediately close because this guy buys it. And I'm going to give your audience a little taste.
Kind of description number one.
When I pick, when I say Liberace or early Elton John, people probably get that visual, right?
Maybe five foot to the boa, the come over, get right that that's the visual.
Visual number two is big, noble, proud, little five foot to Liberace body, big seven foot six, South African big swing.
And you know what ego and voice and the third data point is the guy is the great grandson of one of the original South African diamond mind.
You know, so the cat's got, you know, his his slush money is his hundred million dollar trust fund on top of what daddy right.
And he's never worked a day in his life.
And then the fourth bullet point I'll give you is I think hopefully a lot of your audiences know what a grand sommelier is.
It's like the the grand poobah of grand poobah is of all wine.
Today in 2024, there are about 274 grand sommeliers in the world out of eight billion people. There's 274 grand Psalms.
Back then, there's only 26.
And this guy was one of the 26 grand Psalms.
So Liberace, noble, proud, trust fund baby, grand Psalm.
That's who buys the restaurant. We open it back up.
He puts in the best wine cellar in America opening night.
He sits at the end of the bar, slaps down seven or eight, 17 or 18 cocktails.
Doesn't talk to us all night. It's like, well, that's interesting.
Pushes his way at the end. I'm the poor college kid.
I need every penny. So I'm waiting the last table.
Watch the last dish sweeping the last floor because I'm still dirt poor.
He pushes himself out of the off the bar, staggers over, throws his arm around me.
And OK, you know what I'm thinking now? It's like, oh, God, oh, no, he's hitting on me.
I'm going to say no, I'm going to lose my job. I'm not going to be able to pay for food and rent.
I'm going to have to drop out of college.
My whole 19 year old life is flashing from my eyes.
But I tell him, no, you know, I just with all due respect, I don't judge.
I have no bias, no prejudice. I personally don't play that way.
Takes me a minute to sink that in.
Focuses and gives me this sneer I'll never forget.
Kevin, you young folk, don't flatter yourself.
Even if I did roll that way, which I don't, I would not want you a young ugly ass.
So I've never had I've never been more relieved and happy to hear that somebody thought I was young and ugly
and had a nasty ass in that moment.
That was awesome. I'm not going to lose my job.
I'm not good. But so what you're going to learn about wine tonight, you young folk.
So we stagger downstairs. It's now two in the morning.
And we go past the wine cellar into the wine vault.
And this is where the morgue and the pomerol and the Rothschild and the LaCoya and the screaming eagle.
And he pulls down something that would be four thousand dollars today.
Right. Inflation adjustment. A 1962 Patrus.
And here you go. Just picture this.
This weird eccentric billionaire weirdo has got the 19 year old college kid in the vault in the basement
drinking a four thousand dollar bottle of wine.
And that began three nights a week for two and a half years through my entire undergraduate.
I got three nights. I got this education from this freak.
This freak that you know, so you couldn't buy this education today.
So, I mean, talk about having the heroin needle stuck up my arm.
So the good news is, is, you know, I graduated.
I graduated with a hell of a palette and that's been good for career and entertainment and all that.
The bad news is, you know, I graduate with this Rolls Royce budget and this 10 speed bicycle.
This Rolls Royce palette and this 10 speed bicycle budget.
And boy, was that good motivation to get my ass earning some money because I couldn't afford my juice anymore.
Right. And I was like in DT's trembling like a heron addict getting off of his good juice.
So that's how I lined wine. And then and then for right wine is in every corner of art in our civilization, every corner of history.
People go to war. Right.
Napoleon went to war to go get champagne. Right.
Hitler went after the wine regions. I mean, history, romance, theater, movies, religion.
Right. The Last Supper, we had vino. Right.
I mean, everything. It is about the sexiest thing in the world.
It's the most prolific thing and it impermeates every single thing.
And finally, it's deeply personal. Right.
Because it doesn't matter how much I know, you know, it's personal.
If you think it's good wine, it's good. Right.
You can think a ten thousand dollar bottle of wine tastes like shit, but it's good to you.
So it's also deeply personal and individualized.
In addition to all that sensationalism, I just got it. So, yeah, I'm Jonathan.
I probably bored your audience enough about wine to say that I am a wine freak and a cork dork and an enophile would be an understatement because it's a it's a non-trivial part of what I when you stack up the things that I enjoy, like live sports and live music and traveling.
You know, wine is definitely a top five, if not a top three in my entire life as far as my hedonism and my debauchery and the things that I really enjoy in life.
I think the thing that I love about you, Kevin, is you're always honest.
And but here's the thing. You more than anyone taught me about palette.
And that was a very mind expanding idea to me that I had never thought about is you don't have to love every wine.
You just got to love the wines you love, which releases criticism of everything else.
I don't like to but Chuck, I don't. I like really good wines.
They have a distinct. We went to dinner a couple weeks ago and you ordered you said I want it to be chalky and I thought, fuck, he's just figured that out.
That is knowledge that is so keen. Yep. And to know your palate is to know yourself.
Your palate is nice. That's a really good. I think that is a profound and astute and I wish we could spend an hour on that statement alone because it is true.
And then the final thing is then like with most things in life, which I'm sure we'll talk about, there is the part of whatever it is.
Let's use wine. But then there's lots of other things on its own. Right.
And what good wine means on its own. Right. Very different than in context. Right.
So good wine with a piece of chocolate or strawberry and cheese or piece of red meat or right.
A fish. The definition of good wine can completely change when it's in the context of something else.
And that's a metaphor. Right. For things we like in life on their own is one thing. Very powerful, very poignant, very yummy and tasty or nasty and sick.
Right. You put it in context in this in this case. Right. The metaphor is wine and food.
But it's a metaphor for everything. You put it in context. It could be completely different. It can be really different on each different thing. Right.
So not only is that true about wine, if you really wanted to geek out about it, it's a great metaphor for kind of most of what us human beings are thinking and doing, you know, bumping around this earth.
It kind of fits almost everywhere. So another reason why wine is you can extend it into why Sherpa stuff and mysticism like I just like I just tried to do there.
And it kind of works. You reminded me of this story that I had with my team as we were starting to get into wine when I work for ADP and we won this quarterly dinner.
So with this great Santa Barbara restaurant called Citronelle and here you've got back way back when we're talking 2000. Right. So you've got a eighty five dollar bottle of Caymus.
Right. Which is a nice Cabernet from Napa from the Wagner family back then when it was less let's say cough syrupy and there's more nuance and balanced.
And then you had a Bordeaux and we like you know what I agree with that.
You know, I agree with that. Naomi, Naomi, even if the pinot is bill of gloss, all this stuff, it's like, oh God, please. No.
Fifteen percent pinot, right. So we say let's go with a Bordeaux. And I think that our palates weren't used to it.
We said, damn it, we should have just gotten that fruit forward.
Caymus and then fast forward about five or seven years, my uncle, who's married to a woman from Quebec, and so they've been drinking a lot of French wine the first time.
It's got to be the Chateau L'Eauville Barton or something like that.
It's just a great, you know, right. That's a left bank Bordeaux. And my mom's cooked this amazing buttery fillet.
And I cut into this thing. I have a bite and I go, what was that? That that compliment, that perfect blend.
And now I started to realize I've never had that experience before where you're talking about perfect balance and hominy.
And it's like, OK, Eureka. Now I think I know. And now, of course, we actually have as much or more foreign stuff, you know, in our wine cellar.
Wine is a really good and poignant example of that.
And so that's why I think you can actually extrapolate that to pairings, if you will, across every facet of your life.
So it is a pretty cool metaphor for life, too. And I'll say one more thing, because I'm guessing, Jonathan, we're probably going to hop to career and work for a second.
But it also for anybody that wants to like be in private equity or investment banking or VC or be in sales or customer service or what, right.
Wine is actually pretty good for your career, too, for those pragmatists that are not jamming on our esoteric discussion about wine right now.
We don't care. It's also goddamn good for your career. It's really, really good for your career.
You know, I'll say that as well. Yeah.
And I will jump because I could talk about wine. We could do a wine episode. But let's jump forward because you're this kid who had this ridiculous experience coming from pretty strong poverty in Missouri to sitting.
You started at Microsoft, right?
No, I was too dumb to take the Microsoft job. I wouldn't be I'd be off, you know, the island I owned right now. I passed up on the job of Microsoft in 1986.
So, so make sure your audience doesn't does what I say, not what I do. OK.
The point I'm making is that you you have consistently chosen and I think chosen is the right word because you and I have had a lot of conversations around privilege and having access to wealth. You didn't. You started from scratch with nothing.
You started from work. Yeah, you created a life. And I think that's part of the wine conversation is you don't bring a level of it's just great wine.
You appreciate it. Yeah, that to me is why wine is valuable is because it's there's a flavor profile about wine that you bring to it that you taught me that was profound.
And you've come that story of having nothing to something. Yeah.
What was that like for bro?
Let's see.
I
I don't know if I was lucky or good.
Or I'm just remembering it completely wrong. But I think one of the reasons and you articulated. Yeah, I mean, we were literally on food stamps.
We started cutting wood in July and 97 degrees humidity and 110 degree heat because we had we heated the wood stove.
We have a house by wood stove. We grew what we ate. I mean, it was it was it was real poverty like below the poverty line to you know, I didn't suck now.
I'm eternally great for that. So I kind of
somehow along the line but I think I think these were a little bit embedded and there's no way I could have articulated them when I was younger. I think looking back, you know, I can kind of articulate them now and it's kind of like my little seven things I think of the answer your question.
Jonathan's if I can have permission, I'll geek out on those seven.
Yeah, one of them is intentionality and having a plan. Yes, I think that's number one. I literally when I was slopping pigs at five in the morning at age 16 in deliverance country on the Argonne, Missouri, told myself I was going to be CEO, a white
man, and I started planning it right ever since. So I think I can kind of component one is that intentionality and having a plan and I literally fast forward at age 40 when I was going to be CEO. Well, where do I need to be at 38 in this stage and where do I need to be at 36 and where do you be
at 30 I literally went backwards. Right. And that kind of ended up being a pretty good roadmap. Like okay that's going to take me 30 steps I better start busting ass because by 21 I better be by step two and by 25 everybody step four so that that concept of intentionality
and having a plan, not just in career but in life, because it wasn't just career. All right, it was everything right. The second one is kind of this concept of not just empathy, but comprehension, because it's one thing to be empathetic but you got to understand
what you're empathizing with right. And along with that kind of communication and transparency so am I going to be empathetic, what do I want. Well, God, what do I want from my co workers, what I want from my bosses what I want from my peers what I want from my family
what I want from my teachers my professors my mentors right whatever. And more importantly, comprehending what to do with that to further my goals, right, not selfishly but right. If I'm going to do it, it's going to be because I'm helping everybody else in that entire ecosystem.
So, win with me, otherwise I'll lose right and then that transparency communication I remember telling. Remember being 22, winning sales rep of the year for a fortune 500 company, sit down with the CEO of a fortune 300 company saying, I'm going to have your job in 30 years
and I want you to tell me how to get there. Right so transparency and communication but not selfish.
I do what I do so that I can get there and you go with me right so that's a big second one is that not just empathy but comprehension and not just communication but transparency, kind of to three and I generally this is more of a life thing than a career thing
but you know, being a well rounded athlete rather than just a position player. Right and Jonathan you and I I mean we get out on the Warriors all the time.
Do you do you want the. Do you want somebody that's just a great point guard.
Are you want somebody that can actually play all four positions of five on the floor. Right, and normally right in life and in business.
How do I make sure that I'm not just a three or just a four or just a two. No, I want to be a great athlete to can play the floor. And again, the sports analogy, but roll it out to every facet of life.
That is one of the reasons why I think my magic Johnson is in the conversation of greatest of all time, all the time.
And he could do it in inner city youth and in business and endorsements right he took it in sports. He also believed it in life.
I took it in sports. I also believed it in life, right and look at people like him magic that are billionaires now because they took that approach right.
He's a career but more importantly, in his entire life not just his playing career. You also to build to develop partnerships and develop a rapport right.
The reason why Kobe every every point of the compass. Yeah, that's right. He was more beloved than MJ was perhaps the greatest but no, Kobe was more beloved when when when when if MJ and more well rounded and better corporate citizen.
You got it. And then four is kind of and again this is a life thing and a career thing.
You got to fucking have work ethic part of my friends I hope that's okay. Now we can say you need you need work ethic, you need to be willing to put in the work.
No entitlement, no silver spoon. I don't care how lucky you are I don't care how good looking you are I don't care how smart you are.
And again, I've got, I've got a pretty high IQ, you know I'm decently charismatic, you know all that. No, no. I worked my you know what offer 30 years right.
So, I do think and especially today.
I think that one's a little bit lacking which is why I wanted to make sure I said the audience is. I feel like work ethic is a bit of a dying breed, and that's not maybe in the old man grousing about the reasonable.
But it is a work ethic is my fourth one.
Seeing around corners and not being content with just looking at what's in front of you, but forcing yourself to go look at those chess moves out what's coming.
The ripple effects I mean a lot of your audience probably understands the butterfly of black right. This little butterfly here something happens around the world.
They're close.
If I do this or this is right. What's four steps ahead and around the corner that I can't even see but I'm going to force myself.
You know around the corner that that's a big one that's career in life.
The second to last one is just balance. Yeah, you can't just be in it you can't just be or class athlete you can't just be or class CEO you can't just be or class, you better have some balance, or, you know, you're just going to tip over.
Because some time or work life balance or some type of creative quotient versus EQ versus IQ.
Friendship is a social life versus working 700 hours a week. Right.
Sleep versus being the top of the leaderboard health versus right W two and money, you name it right.
People get people that are hungry for success in anything. It could be marriage it could be relationship it could be career, it could be an upcoming winemaker it could be a budding CEO could be an athlete.
People that allow themselves to get myopically singularly focused, ironically, hurt their quest to be the absolute best of the one thing, because they're so single threaded and so myopic on that one thing.
They don't even realize they're actually hurting their progress against that, because that lack of balance actually hurts them.
And the last one it's a little bit tight that is just you know life careers of team sport, climbing the ladder to it to CEOs of team sport, life's a team sport right.
You know your kids, your family, your friends, your mentors, your coaches, your bosses, your board members, your right, whatever.
Anybody that thinks that they can do it all themselves because they're that badass instead of saying no, this is a team sport.
It takes a village pick all your euphemisms we've all read in all the business books, but bottom line is team outperforms I write all the time right and you can be an elite athlete.
And solo and you put up a lot of points on the board again in life, in work, in money, in whatever, or you can be an elite athlete that surrounds him or herself with team.
Then you win championships, then you win rings in life, in money, in love, in business right.
So it's not just a career thing it's a life thing. So Rich and Jonathan there you go there's there's accorids like Sherpa, Sherpa wise guy kind of seven things.
There was a really long-winded answer to Jonathan's question is and again I don't think I was able to articulate that I know I wasn't able to articulate earlier.
But but now with some the insight of some old age and some gray hair and thinking about how that happened which is what your question Jonathan was.
I think that's kind of it is I somehow inherently had that little recipe you know and and earlier in my life I was doing it without realizing it later in my life I'm very very intentional about it to make sure that I'm hitting all seven of those if that makes sense.
Absolutely and I think that's Kevin that's one of the things I appreciate you about appreciate about you the most is.
You're not a caricature you know you're a very successful CEO you've had you've taken a company public you've taken.
Yeah that was cool.
You've been the journey of a CEO at a very large level but you've maintained your own sense of humanity and I think that's why you and I get along really well is because you were interested in that side.
For sure.
You're not a care and so I think that's what I wanted to kind of ping you on is ask you is for the world outside because that's the CEO club is an extremely exclusive club.
It is okay and there's no knock on that at all.
Yeah, that's not a good thing.
It is it is it is it is whether they like it or not whether it's good or bad it is yes right.
It's what is that life like from the inside not the outside but from the inside.
Let's see that's a great question one.
And this might be this might be the most cliche overused statement in the world because I think everybody at one point in time is heard it's lonely at the top.
That actually is true.
You don't have any you don't have any peers left right here.
You're it right.
And it makes that team and balance thing even more important.
So like I have to realize I don't have any peers.
So I like Jonathan's you know I belong to a couple of those peer to peer CEO groups not because not because we think we like should we somehow have this right to go spend a bunch of money and be elite CEO is talking to each other.
It's to say fuck you are the one that understands me because right.
I have 4000 employees right now and I love every one of them.
But none of them are me right so that that whole it's lonely at the top thing is a thing.
Number one number two.
So that one the myth and the cliche that you've heard 1000 times is lonely at the top 100% true.
The second one.
The second one shit rolls downhill is 100% false.
100% false no shit rolls uphill people.
You are on the hook and responsible and to blame for everything.
That's a man. Give me an example.
Somebody somebody doesn't tighten the bolt on plane and Boeing and who's who's be testified in front of Congress, or you go to prison, because a mechanic didn't take the ball is not the mechanic.
Right. Never, never would have let that happen. I'm glad you mentioned that I just saw the right.
Literally, everything.
Everything. And it's a double-edged sword. Right when things are going great you get way more credit than you deserve, which is awesome.
When things go sideways you get way more blame that you deserve.
And you just have to realize that that that is part of it right, but shit rolls uphill, it doesn't roll downhill.
So I want your audience to take that away. If you want to be a CEO realize that you're not the one defecating downhill you're the one receiving uphill, and just be ready for that if you want the CEO job.
The third answer to that that I would give you is that you are you need to kind of goes down to that position player if you're a CEO, you don't just have to be a really good leader.
Right, that's important. You don't just have to be a really good visionary seen around corners that's important.
You don't just have to be a very good business person. Yeah, that's important. You better be a good therapist.
You better be a good coach.
You better be a good public speaker. You better be right in that you better be right you need to be an extraordinarily well rounded person.
So you don't have the luxury of just slacking and saying that.
Now, I just want to be my, I want to be that that myopic single minded, somewhat egotistical sales rep that doesn't care about anything but hit my number making everybody else look bad and leaderboard.
Now you just don't get to do that. Right.
So you need to be your kind of, you know, everything.
And the last thing is that I can keep going.
And I think this and this again is something thing it just lays on this one but I love this one because this one is so true.
And we've all heard it right with great power comes with great responsibility.
That's the thing you have you have the power, but you also have the responsibility it's your responsibility to fill in the blank. Right.
And people really need to realize that because it sounds great.
I'm gonna make a bunch of money. I'm gonna be on the website. I'm calling the shots. It's like, well, okay, that's true.
But are you ready to change diapers and be the therapist and clean up your messes and be blamed for everything.
You know, and be lonely. And if you are awesome because it's the best job in the world and I wouldn't change it for anything.
But, you know, my perception of it when I was 20 in business school about how glorious and glamorous and easy street and awesome and carefree was going to be versus the reality of being a multiple multiple time CEO.
All that other stuff I just rattled off. It's not good or bad. It just is. So you just need to realize that if you if you're that's what you're aspiring to, you know, all that comes with it.
It's not just the title. Right. You got to be ready for all of it. And most of it is not that sexy glamorous thing we think of when we're 20.
Most of us like the real crap. Right. And deal with the white business. Yeah, exactly.
It's not all sexy with the bottle and the estate. It's the hands getting dirty. It's the harvest. Right. There's so much more behind the scenes.
Exactly. And again, if you're willing to do it, awesome. And if you appreciate that, it probably makes you a better CEO.
Right. Because you're willing to bite all that off. Right. If you're not willing to do it, the people that the people that don't like that don't want to put in the work and don't like all that.
The people that usually don't sit in the chair very long. Yeah, because they realize either they realize this is what I thought or the board of directors and their employees and their customers realize that and they get bounced.
So you need to go you need to go into that wide open if you want that job someday. I've never asked you this question. Did you ever want to quit? No. You see you.
You always wanted it like and why. Okay. Now you've been doing it for a very long time. Yeah. Why was it the was it the fulfillment that you thought it was 1000% because Jonathan, as you know, right.
I love being a father. I love being a coach. I love being a mentor. I love consulting that nurses like those 4000 employees that were a great mind.
They're like my children. They're my right. I mean, I take pride in raising my 4000 children. Well, yeah, I measure my own success. Yes, you know, Jonathan, my success measurement is no longer my career.
It's how many of my alumni assumption and so like, you know, we talk about football a lot. Well, some people their greatest claim to fame is that their assistant coaches now five of their assistant coaches are head coaches in the NFL. Right.
That's how I look at it. Now. I've been a multiple time CEO like a multiple times. Now I can go look around the table go seven or eight or nine of my assistant coaches.
My senior level ship now there in CEO jobs are there in CEO jobs there in chairman boards are there and you know running. So the the gratification level is so incredibly high.
And again, you need to be wired this way. Right. You need to this needs to what I'm talking about needs to matter to you. But if it does, it makes all that blood sweat and tears and shit rolling uphill and babysitting and therapy sessions intensely gratifying intensely worth it.
And because I am a sick bastard wired that way. I love the CEO job. Yeah, I really love it for those reasons. Yeah. Well, I had to ask you this one of the things one of the reasons why we have people on living in the matrix is because they do things outside of the status quo.
And one of the only things I think that you would follow down the cliched route of being a CEO. But when I looked at your profile, I realized that we had 40 connections plus in common on LinkedIn.
And I said to myself, I have not seen a lot of CEOs where I've got that kind of connectivity. And so my question for you is, why are you so willing and open to have such a great open relationship with so many different people from ADP from you know Seattle stuff from LinkedIn.
You have so many different shared connections. What is the reason why you're so open to have that kind of connection because your time is valuable right. Yeah, no, it is.
And again, we talked about that if I'm going to be a great athlete and play all five positions that one, I can't be selected.
By definition means I got to be broad now after if I'm going to be a developer, a nurture, a coach, a servant leader, and it is my job to develop you and make you better.
I don't want to do that. By definition means I'm going to try to broad that if I if I believe what I said that I need to empathize and understand.
The top 200 people look, smell and feel exactly like me and have the same Stanford MBA and the same CEO title. I need to understand what all 27,000 of those LinkedIn connections right.
I want my understanding and empathy to be this broad right. And one is personally gratifying and to that's the thing it makes you better.
It actually makes you better because your aperture in your worldview and your empathy and your understanding and the connections you can make and the right in your ability right. If you do that, it's work.
I mean, it's work right. But holy smokes, it makes your life better and it certainly makes your career better. If that makes sense, Rich. Yeah, I can testify rich to that.
I've sat at dinner with his line managers, the guys on his core leadership team and Kevin to me is probably one of the best examples that I've experienced where he believes in what he says like he recognizes and believes in his people.
unique time in history where the scale of the world is so big. And I think that's what makes you unique. And I think that's what makes you unique. And I think that's what makes you unique.
LI banana다고 {\an8i7 갔0 and iS Ink夢 maty abo Matcha precio 5,000ு3 ju u
so up. She said that again right here I'm going to
talk about it downward, but for sure as a busy manager and a member of that organization so I just want to remind you that you can go to extended
I'm gonna go back for a second to my third thing and forgive me for being repetitive, Jonathan, but it's a really important piece to what you just said.
Yeah.
We are the most effed up we've ever been. We're the most divided we've ever been. We're the most lost we've ever been. We're the most confused we've ever been.
We are the most against each other that we've ever been. I mean, I get to go on and on and on, right?
Yeah.
What's the first, if you want to do anything about that, what's the first thing you need to do? You need to empathize and comprehend.
Can you actually say, you know, instead of judging the 992 points of view that I don't believe in personally, which is easy to do.
I'm right. The other 922 are fucking morons, right? No.
If you take the time and not just empathize, empathy means I get it. I understand and I want to be receptive to all these other racial, socioeconomic, religious.
I mean, you name it, right? I mean, the divides are immense. Let me empathize and understand where you're coming from. Let me empathize. Feel. More importantly, let me comprehend.
Well, why do you feel that way? Why do you think that way? Because that's the key.
Oh, OK. If I understand, if I take the time to empathize and then I actually take a few minutes to just freaking get it and comprehend what I wish about a billion of us would do that, because if we did, then we'd stop taking this fuck you.
I'm right. You're wrong approach, which leads to the wars and the racial divisions and the socioeconomic divisions, the political divisions and the right, the gendered religions and the socioeconomic religions.
It's because we don't empathize. A. We're too jaded. We're too hard. We don't think we need to empathize and way more important.
We don't comprehend because we don't want to write. And if we just did that, that would be a foundation. And then if we could just be transparent and say, hey, Jonathan, I know you feel this way about pick your topic.
I know you let me be transparent. I know you feel this way about whatever guns, drugs, religion, politics, right? Same set. Whatever. Pick your dog.
Let me communicate and be transparent to you about why I feel like I do.
And holy smokes. If we just those two things, empathize and comprehend.
And then talk about it transparently with that comprehension empathy in it.
Man, I feel like we would take some pretty major steps towards getting our act together again as a planet.
And I realize that sounds very professorial or philosophical, but I kind of genuinely believe it.
And it's why it's why it's one of my key tenants, because I like I said, I don't think that's just a career thing.
I think that's a life thing. And I do think not that I not that I would ever espouse to give the human race advice.
But if I did give the human race advice, I think that's the most important one, because, boy, if we could actually just have an ounce of that, what I just rattled off.
Man, we would be a different place. We really would.
Yeah, you think that the things let me tell on this real quick.
That's the thing that I think I've learned the most about in this podcast.
I thought when we started this podcast, I thought, oh, I have a great conversations.
But I was blown away by when I interviewed people that were on the opposite spectrum of us and I listen and empathize.
It radically changed me. Yeah. Big time. Big time.
Yep. Sorry, Rich. Go ahead.
I was going to say, the person that I'm thinking of in the political debates that most characterizes what you're talking about is Vivek.
I've seen a lot of people in the audience have this confrontational. He seems like he tries to listen.
He's very good articulating his own position, of course, many times.
But does it does it feel like he's doing an honest effort in trying to bring that to, you know, at least from a political standpoint?
Or can you give an example? It does. And let me let me do that back again, because again, that's part of being a CEO role.
Sure. Because I do that.
And again, this isn't me, but just people like me that do that.
Then what is time for you to corral, take the reins, make decisions, get people behind you and go again,
whether it's leading the country or whether it's leading a company or whether it's leading a military battalion or whether it's leading a peace effort, right?
With medical or whatever.
You do have then the leader has to emerge.
The leader has to take control again.
The leader has to lead and get the following and get the conviction of the followers to go.
Otherwise, nothing works right again, whether that's a nonprofit, whether it's a corporation,
whether that's a military effort, a nonprofit effort, a peacekeeping effort, a philanthropy effort, a clean water effort, fill in the blank, right?
Everything. The leader has to step back up and lead and effectively lead and have that following come with them.
I'm just suggesting that if you take that step first, your success as a military or philanthropic or scientific or an academic or a philanthropic leader or a business leader like me, you take that first step.
The room you create for yourself to be an effective leader in the second step is order of magnitude higher than if you skip that first step.
If that makes sense, Rich, I hope it does.
It does. Yeah.
And again, that doesn't just apply to being a CEO in business like I am.
That applies to any leader in anything right across the board.
That principle applies to everything, no matter what it is.
Am I in my humble opinion?
No, I love the common thread you've got to have, right?
I mean, you find the shared things, right?
There's so much diversity, but then you find the common weavings of the humanity, of the perspective.
I mean, as diverse as that things are, right?
But there are the common threads and it's the idea of-
Find them, talk about them, be transparent, realize that, hey, and then you know what?
Let's freaking chart a path.
And the other thing I learned, hey, if 100% of us are 80% happy versus if 80% of us are 100% happy, we're way better off.
We're not all going to be 100% happy, right?
That's not what it looks like.
That's impossible in this world, again, no matter what it is.
But we're going to find some common ground.
And even when I am here, you empathized, you understood, you talked to me about it, you were transparent about yours.
So when you tell me, hey, I'm going to go to the happy medium ground in business or in politics or in whatever,
all 10,000 of those people that might be a little bit left you or a little right you, they're going to follow you.
If you skip that step, they're all going to go, hey, screw you.
Yeah, exactly.
Simple, but insanely powerful in everything.
Again, science, academics, military, healthcare, politics, it doesn't matter.
That's the approach you got to do if you want to effectively lead and have a big following versus lead and constantly be talking in an echo chamber because most of your audience is not hearing you.
And back to your, I happen to think that that specific politician is actually doing a decent job.
But I think that's what it takes.
Of course.
Yeah. So what do you think is a way through the inequality, because I think ultimately,
Oh, man.
I know I want to open a can of worms because that's what this conversation was about is you bring a unique perspective and I'm not saying throw anyone under the bus because what I appreciate about you is your empathy.
You're not trashing people. I know you're not going to do that.
But there's, we are not in the same place we were when we were kids.
For sure.
We're all relatively the same age when we were, you know, 40 years ago.
It was a very different world that we lived in and now it's expanded and AI. So, AI is going to throw a wrench into things because it's going to 100x like the internet was one x.
That's what they're equating AI is 100x in terms of change.
How do we begin addressing the inequality in a world that is really going to in the future be about superfluous abundance.
Man, that's a that's a great question. Boy.
I, I feel about 1% qualified to answer that my gosh.
That's so above my pay grade man you give me way too much credit even touch that question.
That said, even though I'm only 1% qualified to answer it.
I think there's a couple things. One, everything that we just talked about is mission critical to addressing that too. Right. So just cut paste. Right.
Two, I do think that and I actually generally think that most of the 8 billion people in the world want this.
We somehow have to figure our way back. We don't want dictatorship or tyranny. Right. Or Gestapo or banana public. We have shifted so far over to anarchy.
We don't want to have a dictatorship that is going to be a big problem for the whole world. Right.
And if we look at the previous country.
You know, and I get point. I won't. I can point to things that affect 1% of the population but make up 50% of the click bait online every day. Right.
bring the flock back in a little bit to say, yeah, we didn't like this, but can't we actually
agree that this is freaking madness?
The fact that you were willing to go shoot somebody to defend the right for assault,
right?
You're so far gone that you think that you would rather shoot 20 people with your assault
rifle before they take your gun away because they just shot 100 people in a grade school.
Can we acknowledge that might be a little far off?
Can we acknowledge that six foot four dudes that are hung like a horse probably shouldn't
be in grade school girls bathrooms?
In the answer of equality?
We're calling equality.
I have the right to be a six foot four dude that walks into a junior high girls bathroom.
No.
I have the right to keep my World War II assault rifle that can mow down 700 people in self-defense.
No.
I'm not expressing opinions.
Our personal, I'm saying we have somehow got to get some leaders that can make people realize
that most of the inequality is this extremism.
And boy, we would solve for that inequality better if we just kind of came back a little
bit to common ground, common sense, common good, et cetera.
That's my closest stab at it, Jonathan, is until we solve for that, right?
And then on top of that, unfortunately, and this might be a little bit controversial,
but I'll go ahead and say it because I don't know.
I mean, I'm in my 50s.
I think anybody in their 30s and below literally take our digital social online media as gospel.
And the lack of responsibility around there, I think, is the single biggest kind of flame
on the fire to this.
So in addition to getting some leadership that doesn't squash any of this and isn't
right or left, isn't correct, I'm right, you're wrong.
We somehow get ourselves back to leadership, again, political, corporate, academic, military,
social, that gets the seven billion people that thrive on gnawing on their particular
flavor of inequality and loving to exasperate it into realizing it's kind of group insanity
and let's just come back.
And then too, we somehow have to figure out how to because this, I realize how confrontational
is, but we've kind of allowed ourselves to just fricking like when I was in high school,
last 10 first out, LIFO was an old CPA term.
If I saw it on Instagram, it's what I believe.
And the abuse is there.
And I'm not even going to go there with free speech versus censorship and all that, but
we have to acknowledge that that is where six and a half of the eight billion people
literally have their opinions formed and reformed and reformed and reformed and reformed.
So I personally believe that there does need to be some kind, and I don't recommend censorship.
I don't recommend nationalizing the social media networks.
I don't, but so I don't know what the solution is.
But if we don't get, if we don't get the goal of ourselves to not be inequality and divisiveness,
but actually finding a way back, A, and we don't stop the flamethrower gas on the fire,
right?
That happens every second of every day.
Then I think we're doomed.
So, so Jonathan, I don't know the answer.
I do think that I know what those two problems are.
And in my mind, those are the ones we got to solve for.
How is above my pay grade, but I do think those are some of the reasons things we're
going to have to get over.
Well, let me, let me ask you a little bit more of a practical question.
And Jonathan, I have a five, I've got about five more minutes.
Is that okay?
Oh, no worries.
Okay.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let me ask you the practical question then is how does something like Boeing happen?
Is it a lack of concern?
Is it a, is it a drive for profit?
What is your perspective on that?
And I know you don't know the insides, but you kind of have a feeling of organizations
and how that could happen.
How does that?
Yeah.
Right.
That's that's that is true.
It's in your backyard.
That's right.
Yeah.
No, that is true.
My personal opinion is that it goes back to that comprehension, transparency, communication,
right?
And I'm going to give you an end, by the way, let me be very clear.
I'm not suggesting that this is the case.
I know a lot of people in news media are suggesting that case.
I am not to be really clear.
I'm not pointing finger.
However, if right, if you if you were a leader and you said the only thing that matters is
the stock price and I'm going to get you to capitulate and agree with me because I'm going
to give you a hundred RSU so you care about the stock price too.
And the only thing that matters is that stock price.
And okay, am I going to cut corners?
Yeah.
And I miss quality.
Yeah.
Am I not going to report to my superiors?
I'm worried.
Yeah.
And I'm a skip.
Right.
I mean, and again, I'm not saying that's happened.
But but it's a good example where if if I'm allowed to go down to that, well, I don't
understand why me not doing that thing right.
Because I want to get to my lunch break.
If I'm not empathetic to the fact that two and a half million people might die if I do
my job properly, if I don't understand this, isn't me getting to lunch five minutes earlier.
Right.
This is me keeping this two and a half million people safe.
If leadership doesn't communicate, hey, yes, the stock price is important.
What's more important is quality, reputation, our customers lives, etc.
And the culture of an organization isn't transparency.
You know what transparency is?
You know what?
Shit, I got to ship that product three months later because it ain't where it needs to be.
And again, I'm not I'm not suggesting or inferring.
But that's the kind of thing that could happen if you go down that path versus the one that
I'm kind of suggesting is a better path.
If that makes sense.
No, I think it's ultimately it's you and I have talked about this over dinner is I think
the culture of capitalism has shifted from when we were kids.
Unfortunately, yes.
It's not it's not about what it was.
It is a few, a few elite people that don't have empathy, don't have comprehension, don't
communicate, don't have transparency, don't believe it's a team sport, are fine with the
inequality and division for their own.
It's systemic.
Right.
And unfortunately, that's kind of where we sit right now.
And we do need to inject ourselves a little bit more into, you know, again, my now I'm
saying like a politician or philanthropist, but I kind of do.
I do agree with you, Jonathan.
I do as a person, not necessarily as a CEO, but as a person, I really agree with what
you're saying.
Well, let me let me close with this because I know you got to go is I don't think the
last question usually give me the last question.
Oh, no, no, I'll give you one quick one.
It's a fast one.
I think I got an answer.
How does the let's keep the United States begin shifting back to that sense of empathy?
Boy, unfortunately, right now, like, let me again, let me just use an example.
We cry about data privacy, the people, the same people that prepped up their privacy
are the exact same people that click.
Yes, you can use my data however you want to.
If you give me that five percent off coupon, right?
We as we as three hundred fifty two million Americans need to stop that because it's self
imposed and I'm using that just as one example, right?
I could give you a thousand more, right?
We need to stop saying out of one side of our mouth, I'm complaining about it while
on the other side, completely capitulating and feeding it.
And that was just one good example, right?
The three hundred fifty two million actually care.
Right.
And then we somehow need to get leadership again.
And this is corporate leadership, political leadership, academic leadership to break out
of the beholden sees.
Right.
And realize that, hey, what good looks like.
Right.
And again, another example.
I mean, imagine this, Jonathan, and I knew this is a pipe dream.
What if the boards and Wall Street rewarded your stock price for social good?
Rather than right or for philanthropy, right?
Or for empathy, right?
What if there was a metric about how well you actually did around corporate responsibility,
diversity, equity, inclusion, environmental and social governance, right?
And giving back.
Right.
What if half of your stock price value was those things versus just your EPS and your
revenue?
Because what happens is all those things are in the way of my EPS and revenue.
So I do bad things against all those things, because if I don't, I'm a CEO and I could
care about wage rates in my factories.
I could care about clean water in my service center in Africa.
I could care about diversity.
I get all the things I personally care about.
But the only thing that my stockholders and Wall Street and my board is caring about is
this and I'm going to get fired if I don't deliver this and I have any luxury at all
to go influence those things.
How we're measured, right?
The collective we how we're measured needs to change.
If that makes sense.
Absolutely.
The problem is our leaderships are measured in a way that is antithetical to the things
that we need to change.
And that is a truism that I will stand by.
That one I'm happy to go on the record on.
Our leadership is measured, compensated, and the job security is completely dependent on
stuff that is antithetical to the things that are wrong in our society right now.
And I'm talking about the United States specifically.
If we can't fix that, we ain't going nowhere.
Yeah.
Rich?
Well, it could be pretty fast.
It might not be, but you know, Peter Drucker is famous for saying culture eats strategy
for breakfast.
And so the question, maybe it's not the case for Boeing anymore, but what is the answer
to that?
Is it a yes or no and why?
I'm going to put a little I believe I'll say it back a little bit.
You give me an A strategy and C execution or a C strategy and A execution.
Give me C strategy execution all day, every day.
A and B, one of the fundamental underpinnings around great execution is culture.
So if you believe that, if you believe that culture is one of the foundational enablers
or disablers of execution and execution trumps strategy, then I violently agree with Mr.
Drucker if that thread follows.
And this is why I think we as a moving forward until corporate America realizes the necessity
of taking care of people, culture question, we're not going to get back to balance.
That's my point, Jonathan.
If I care too much about people and act accordingly, I'll miss my stock price target and I'll get
fired.
No, that's the county.
My own job security is at odds with taking care of my people.
That's the point I was making.
So if we break that, yeah, you know, that's going to happen.
Yeah.
It can't be forced though, because there's a DEI blowback happening right now.
I mean, everybody know McKinsey has proven that a diverse, innovative, diverse culture
is more profitable and more innovative.
And I'm all on board with that, but it cannot be forced with a hammer.
It's got to be nurtured and inculcated.
And it can't be a shiny object just for its own sake to impress somebody.
It needs to be a foundational core in the fiber that you believe in, then it'll work.
Yes.
If it's a shiny object to put up on the investor day once a quarter, and it's bullshit, it'll
backfire.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So we should, I mean, there's an hour long podcast on that topic alone.
We've got a lot of topics that are worth an hour here, right?
So a good, good, good, enjoyable conversation, guys.
I love it.
I hope this is what we were hoping for on a Friday afternoon.
Absolutely.
We always do.
We always have great conversations with people.
So to all of our listeners, this has been one of my favorites.
I say it all the time because this is, I love talking about things that really matter and
going back to shit that really matters.
And we've been able to do that.
So thank you, Kevin, for coming on.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Absolutely.
So to all of our listeners, please comment, review, let us know.
And if you have someone you'd like to have on the show, please let us know.
Have a great weekend, guys.
Yep.