March 25, 2022 • 51 mins
Dan Schulman. talks with John Hope Bryant about how his upbringing helped his success, on always learning, and doing the right things for the right reasons.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought
to you by Credentials Financial. You do something because you
expect something, it's not the right reason to do it.
Sometimes the right thing is just the right thing. You
just do it because it's the right thing, and there
doesn't have to be anything else besides that. Well, and
there you have it all. This is John Hope Bryan
(00:20):
and this is Building the Good Life. I am honored
to be here with my dear friend and one of
America's most outsized and I believe yet underrated leaders. It's
a saying a lot because he's CEO of PayPal, so
it's not like he's hiding under a bush somewhere as
one of the best performing growth companies in the world.
(00:42):
But I still think that his heart is not known
as much as his hid and I still don't think
that people understand how both of those things working together
turns out a fabulous product in the form of a
pipe producing, sustainable company with a viable culture. Ladies and
gentlemen joined me and welcome to my friend Dan Showman,
(01:02):
CEO of PayPal. Thank you so much. John. I hope
my mom is listening to this podcast. Yours and mine too.
You know, whenever somebody says something nice about me from
my mother, she says something about like yeah, I go
get the trash cans or something exactly. It's like, yeah, whatever.
I was talking to my auntie the other night and
(01:24):
she said, you know, who knew this little knucklehead that
I took care of would turn out to be somebody?
And she called me she was to call me a
knuckle head eight times in a conversation. Like It's like
Auntie and my mom should get together for like an
hour long conversation and compared notes. It keeps us humble
then to keep us so. So, look, um, I want
(01:45):
to get into this. There's so much meat here and
we're you know, uh, I think that let's get the
history sort out of the way first, that resume, if
you will, and then get into some some meaty stuff.
You know. Dan Um has had a pretty good run
as a corporate leader. I think he worked at America Express.
(02:06):
Uh he he um uh, was a president of Sprints
Prepaid Group. Um. He was a founding CEO, tapped by
by Richard Branson to be CEO of Virgin Mobile, which
grew spectacularly under his tenure. He was born in Newark,
New Jersey, by the way, uh and um, and also
(02:31):
I think Princeton, New Jersey. Uh and you know, as
sort of a hat to the privilege that he acknowledges
he had. He uh he you know, he was the
captain of the tennis team in the lacrosse team Princeton
High School. Uh. It went on to seat received degrees
in economics from Middlebury College and an NBA from New
(02:52):
York University's Stern School of Business. Um. His mother, Ruth Showman,
was Associate Dan Rutgers Graduate School of Applied in Professional Psychology. Uh.
His father, Nel Schuman, was a chemical engineer. Uh. So
he's not gonna tell you uh that he comes from
(03:12):
this poor and disheveled family and all that stuff. And
he fully acknowledges that he has had breaks. He's had
to work hard for everything, which all is good, but
it makes his story even more interesting. Also worked at
A T and T. I'm sure I miss him. Uhl
more a bad at China. That's good enough. I said, boh, yeah,
what'ce you what's your charge? Once you in charge of
(03:35):
what's you charge of a twenty two billion dollar division
at also, yeah, that's oh ball and stuff. Uh, you
see your CEO of Price Line, and this is a big,
big time CEO. And again, if you listen to the
resume I just gave you and the lacrosse and all
that kind of stuff, it makes absolutely no sense that
(03:57):
he cares about poor people already as a heart for
struggling folks, And but he does. And I'm not gonna
bother everybody in dragged them through this story. I've worn
out of one of the first conversations that Dan and
I had, and if maybe if it comes in the
course of this naturally in course of conversation, I'll retell
parts of it. But I can't remember the last time
(04:23):
a big time CEO was as bothered by social injustice
as I was as an African American entrepreneur growing up
in Combland, California, in South in georl A. I know
why I'm bothered. I know why I ambassor Andrew Young
has bothered. Right. I couldn't figure out why the hell
(04:44):
Dan Sheilman was bothered. Uh, And even if he was bothered,
why he would volunteer to write a check out of
his own checkbook to do something about it. I'm not
talking about little dollars, folks. I'm talking about a significant
portion of his compensation. And as I as I got
to know him, it becomes obvious when you talk to him.
(05:05):
It's in his bones. But I don't get it. Like
an engineer's son, a dean's son. Like, then, help me
understand where the I call it decency, right, But where
does the sense of fair play come from from a
hard nose, hard driving, highly successful corporate executive. Well, John,
(05:30):
like all of us, you know, are the products of
our parents that you kind of talked about. My parents
at the end of their road, you know, where their
careers led. But you know, my dad came out of
the army fighting in World War Two and g I Bill,
you know he was um uh he ran uh part
(05:55):
of a chemical plant in Newark, New Jersey, the night
shift from to of midnight to six in the morning. Um.
And you know his parents were immigrants from Russia and Poland.
My mom, um, you know, was a was a school
(06:16):
teacher starting off part time school teacher. Um. And we
lived in you know, a apartment where me and my
brother uh and my sister shared the same bedroom and
we shared the same bathroom with my mom and dad,
And so, you know, I saw how hard they worked,
I saw how much they cared about the condition of
(06:43):
our society. They were early, early on activists. My grandfather
was a union organizer in the Garment district of New York.
You know, you and I have said, you know, as
my dad got older and got a little more responsibilities,
he was in charge of a plant uh down in
Mississippi right at the height of the civil rights movement
(07:05):
in the early nineties sixties. Um where the plant manager
down in Mississippi fired black guy for drinking out of
the wrong water fountain. Now, I remember my dad traveling
down to Mississippi. It's before cell phone, it's for any
of that to reverse that decision. So here's a Jewish,
(07:27):
white guy going down to Mississippi to reverse the decision.
And I remember so distinctly my mom hanging by the
phone all day and all night to make sure that
my dad was gonna call him, be okay. And I
remember like the tension in the house around that, you know,
(07:49):
being pushed in my carriage in civil rights marches, my
dad telling my mom that I was going to be
the youngest person in the country to have their his
picture and FBI file because she was so active and
so this was just part of my life growing up. Um,
it's a part of who I am. I feel very
(08:12):
very strongly that businesses and CEOs do not exist in
their own little corporate bubble um just surrounded by how
do we maximize profitability for shareholders? But how do we
think about our employees? How do we think about the
(08:33):
communities we live in? How do we think about creating
a set of values that we live by and we
act by. Because you know, I firmly believe that you know,
we all need to be in this together for it
to work right. One little part can't be optimized and
(08:53):
the rest is suboptimized. And there's so much of our democracy,
so much of our economy me that is sub optimized
right now. And uh, if we can all come together
to work on that, all of us would be better
off as a result of that. Building. The good Life
is brought to you by Prudential Financial. For over forty
(09:15):
five years, millions of people have counted on Prudential to
help solve for life's most important financial needs. Because at
Prudential they live their purpose to make life better by
solving for the financial challenges of our changing world. Prudentials
Who's Your Rock campaign is also about helping people reach
new heights and providing a platform for people to reach
(09:35):
their financial goals. So you said some stuff that begins
to make more sense to me. Um, as you said,
I'm looking at this through the end of the journey
for your path. And the people, by the way, do
this a lot. They see some successful white guy or
or successful black people. Look at me now and then
(09:57):
soon I've had some silver spoon in my mouth. Uh. Yeah,
the only silver spoon I had my mouth was the
spoon that had was gold tinted in the in the
in the gold gold got the gold rubbed off with
the ten underneath. In in south central aan Compton. Uh.
You know my mom and dad Uh high school education,
(10:19):
you know. Uh. And my mother walks with captain gown
at sixty two years old. Uh you know, high school equivalency. Uh,
and so up from nothing, right and and I think,
but people will assume, unfortunately when they see successful people,
that has always been that way. And uh, you you
mentioned a couple of things your your Jewish background. Um,
(10:45):
you didn't just say white. You said white Jewish Well,
of course, Jews were ran out of Europe. I mean
you couldn't own uh, Jews could not own real estate.
It was against the law in many countries in Europe.
Jews were forced into finance so that they could finance
real estate and backdoor ownership into that thing is. In
(11:06):
other words, finance and other areas that this group has
excelled in were forced upon them because they were not
allowed to do business else where in other segments. And
so your dad came here as an immigrant, and that
story I didn't know. And your mom was a teacher,
so that now a dean, Now that makes sense, sort
of up from nothing, she worked her way up. Um,
(11:29):
what your dad did by going south, he put his
life at risk, he did. Yeah, and you're watching all
that as a child. Yeah, deeply impactful, deeply and backful.
And I think, uh, um, you know, you know, it's
it's interesting John you mentioned all this. I mean, this
(11:51):
is the literal truth. I wake up every day very
thankful for what I have, very thankful. I don't take
anything for granted. Nothing. Yeah, we are. We're blessed by
the opportunities that we've had. We had to work really
hard and Uh, as my mom said, you know, hard
(12:13):
work and some luck you know comes along the way,
for sure. Um, But I don't think for a second
we should forget where we came from. I don't think
for a second we should. Um. I think for some reason,
you know, Um, we're the ones who deserved what we had.
(12:34):
We just we were fortunate in so many ways, and
we should enable as many people that have that that
fortune as well. It's why I focus so hard on,
you know, my employees, making sure that they have not
just physical health you know, and their mental health about them,
but financial health as well. You and I've talked about
(12:56):
this a hundred times, John Mike finance a trual health.
It's like the bedrock of somebody's psychological health, of a
community's health. It's the bedrock of our democracy as well. Like,
how can we expect somebody to rise above their own
self interests when every single day they're struggling to make
(13:22):
ends meet. When this is the first generation that doesn't
think that their kids will have a better life than
they do. You know, these are things that force people
to feel like the system isn't working for them, and
therefore they start moving towards either the far right or
the far left. And you know, we have so few
(13:43):
people in the middle right now, and that really is
what salesmanship is about. It's about, um, thinking about more
than just yourself. But boy, somebody's struggling every single day. Um,
I don't blame for focusing on on themselves and for
feeling like others are getting in the way of that happening.
(14:04):
I mean, I feel like this is a real responsibility
we all have. So one one point, I think what
we may debate this, who knows, But I think of clarification,
you said, there's folks on the left and there's folks
on the right. Deep in those areas we agree, and
there's so few people in the middle. My experience is
that that most people are in the middle. They're just quiet.
(14:25):
The loud voices are far left and the loud voices
are far right. The bullies are out there on the edges.
But in Dr King's day, Um, he had twenty percent
of the white community support and by the way, my
friend half that was Jewish. Yeah, and he had of
the black community support. But most black folks, set of
(14:47):
the hands, they were they were sort of in the
middle ground, going, well, he's a rubble rise of Rouser.
He's a troublemaker with I'm not quite sure. Oh, I
sort of believe what he's saying, but I don't want
to get involved. Here's a big one. I don't want
to get involved in Germany. I think most people were
against the treatment of Jews, but they didn't want to
get quote involved. One of the things that inspiring me
(15:10):
today dan in what's going on here in the in
the world really with and I'm really heartbroken about what's
happening with Ukraine. But rainbows only follow storms. In the
midst of this, you've had the majority of the modern
world rallied for Ukraine and say it knock it off
enough already. No, this is not I'm not sitting on
(15:31):
my hands anymore. This is not right. Um. That's inspiring um.
But more cases than not, people just sitting their comfort zones.
And so what I like about you is that you
you you live your values. That's the people I have
on this show. The Bible says me, hod or be cold.
If you look warm, I'll spat you out. Translation even
(15:51):
got in like mediocrity. Now you got mad at me
one time. You won't even remember, but you got a man.
I don't. Actually, I'm looking forward to hearing about it.
We were at a place I can't describe, someplace Utah
or someplace and I can't say where it was. But
you got mad at me because I said, me and
(16:13):
douglet Millen, the CEO of Walmart, Tony Wrestler, Oh yeah,
billionaire Tony Wrestler, longs Atlanta Hawks, and Disney CEO and
Nike ceo. And actually wasn't your don John wasn't involved
that yet. Um the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, as I
missed these names, are trying to impress you about financial literacy,
(16:33):
for all this movement to make financial literacy a civil
rights issue and embedded in the business model. Blah blah
blah blah blah. And I finished all that. You like, John,
what are you doing? Why aren't I in there? I
should be. I should have been the first phone call
you made, you know, And I loved it. I mean,
(16:55):
you were serious, and I I went and got you
included retroactively. Yes, yes, I remember that. Yeah, And I
also know you flew you flew to Atlanta just to
speak in our conference. You you you know, just it
comes to at the whole Global Forum. You flew in
and flew out right other that. Yeah, And I remember
that was the first conference that I spoke at. What
(17:17):
that wasn't virtual and like two years or so, and uh,
I had another meeting back in New York City, but
I felt it was so important to go do this.
But I was gonna talk about your your distinction between
you know, right left in the middle, because I think
there's a great quote by Yates, you know, one of
his you know, the Falconer, where he says, like the
(17:41):
worst of us are filled with a passionate intensity. And that's,
you know, to the point you were you were saying,
like those who are on the far right and far
left with social networks, have this ability to really magnify
the voice, and so many people are are scared to
(18:02):
lend their voice. And by the way I understand it,
I fully understand it because as you and I have
discussed some of the decisions that we've made it PayPal,
whether it be withdrawing from North Carolina because of the
house built to the bathroom bill. Um, you know result,
(18:22):
can you tell the audience with then what that was
by the winners group? Yeah, yeah, the house built too
and our reading of it kind of allowed for the
potential discrimination against someone for their sexual orientation or sexual identity.
And we were just about to um go into North
(18:44):
Carolina put in place a six office there. We had
had a big news conference with the governor and once
they passed that bill, I was like, there's no way
that we're going forward with. This is anethema to our values, um,
and we pulled out. Uh. It resulted in you know,
(19:06):
front page of the New York Times was very lonely
for a while. It resulted in death threats against me.
For uh, for quite a while. I couldn't even go
into a bathroom without people security people searching the stalls
to be sure nobody was there waiting, um, you know,
to do some harm. And so taking stands usually involves
(19:33):
some degree of courage, you know, whatever it may be,
because they're gonna be people throwing rocks that you or
at least verbal rocks that you, um almost no matter
what you do, Like we take down hundreds of sites
(19:53):
from using PayPal or vemmo to raise money because they
advocate either violence, racial intolerance, or hatred. That's not an
easy thing to do to police your own platform, to
go and do that because a couple of things. First
of all, many of the hatred is UM. It's in code.
(20:16):
So if somebody sends you John, you know eight cents
in Vemo, eight is the eighth letter of the alphabet
is hight. Eight is h H which is Heil Hitler.
So it's typically white supremacis doing that UM. And so
(20:36):
you need to know codes to be able to understand
kind of gout to pull down. It's not straightforward. And
also nobody teaches you in college or advanced graduate school
where does hatred begin and where does free speech end? Right?
The only thing they say is you can't yell fire
(21:00):
in a crowded theater. You know, that's the example everybody uses.
But but like you know, where does somebody's right to
have their own opinion on something crossover into hatred? And
you have to make a values based decision on that.
But I think just because it's difficult doesn't mean that
(21:21):
we don't have the responsibility to try and reduce the
rhetoric of hatred and violence in our society. And every
time we take down a platform or take down a site,
it can result in a ton of of hate email
as well as Uh, you know, sometimes more physical threats. Um,
(21:46):
but that's an obligation that we have, you know. And
and there's countless examples of that, which is why it's
hard sometimes in the middle to stand up. But I think, um,
you know, we may not be able to finish the job,
you or I or others who who try so hard,
(22:07):
but that does not excuse us from being in the faith.
And and to that point, and this adfight has been
going on a while. We'll come back to Europe, which
you did undergird your employees here in a minute, But
advice has been going on for a while. Uh. It
goes back to the civil rights movement. In the most
recent iteration. Uh, we're in what I call today the
(22:29):
Third reconstruction. People can go online and read what I
have to say about the third reconstruction now, which is
social justice through an economic lens um moving in the
business suites, not the mean streets. But in the sixties,
Dr King would and Andrew Young, who turns ninety this weekend,
by the way, they would march in the South, shut
(22:50):
down the economy of towns for whom the majority of
the population was black. Typically those customers wouldn't go into
stores there, uh, and they not called effect was the
private sector of a few weeks, feeling the pinch had
to make a choice between the governor's values or the
mayor's values, or their economic prosperity, and that they would
(23:12):
meet with Andrew Young quietly behind closed doors so it's
not to embarrass anybody. And almost time Dan the business
leaders kind of deal what we're happy to take down
the whites only signs stop picking our businesses, we'll employ people.
We we are with you, and that then forced the
(23:33):
government leaders to change their tomb. It was a private
sector that integrated it South. Now at some pain to
the private sectors. They had death threats and so as
so as you were talking about what happened to you,
it reminded me HARKing back to what happened the leaders
in the n So God bless you. So I'm now
(23:53):
forced almost to tell there's the story because I need
people to understand who you are. I've said this in
a private, closed environment, but I'm not gonna embarrass you
too badly. But we almost in our first meeting. Um.
And this is why when you know, when people tell
me when they're looking at payment services and payment platforms.
(24:16):
I will hear all the time. Oh, I want to
do business with PayPal, their company with the purpose. They
mean what they say, They're not just about making money. Um.
And if I have a choice of doing using several
during platforms and I see Papal, I always choose you.
My my Rachel office hooked, my chief of staffs hooked
on PayPal because we know your values. Okay, So I'm
with you the first time we really had a real conversation. Yeah,
(24:39):
and you said, I want to I'm thinking about giving
a big it's a big amount of money, uh to
my employees into the community. And I said, don't do it.
And and then you must you I think you your
heads spun on your on your pretty shocked. Yeah yeah uh.
(24:59):
And there was a lot of it was a lot
of money. There was a lot of money. Yeah. And
I was really serious about how can I personally make
an impact? And this is when somebody else's money, this
was his. And I said, don't be sending me haymail
now because I told me how to do it. I said,
listen to the whole story now. I said, Dan, don't
do it. Somebody knocks you off, you get you, you
(25:21):
quit you can get fired. You know whatever you know
you decided to go to on long term vacation. The
next CEO is not gonna have those values. Uh. I
never heard a CV on my life. I know a
budget that said I'm gonna write a check out of
my own pocketbook fifty million dollars um. And this was
before George Floyd. As I recall, yes, and and and
(25:44):
I said, don't do it because it's not sustainable, and
and you're gonna give people a hand out, but maybe
not a hand up. Let's tie it to something that's larger,
and let's tie it to the company. And Uh, I
didn't give you a number. I just said, you can
do multiple more of this more Santa Believe is embedded
as part of the business plan into the business case
for diversity, inclusion, fairness and opportunity. And you went back.
(26:08):
I figured you'd write me off and say that's the
last time I talk to that bozo. And you went
back to next thing. I hear, Dan, you're announcing a
five hundred million dollar plus commitment to your employees into
the communities. You start telling the audience of about what
what you did, which was fantastic and creating great texture
(26:30):
and commitment amongst your team members too. Yeah. So there
are two things John, that we did. One um is
I surveyed all of my employees to find out how
many of them were struggling to make ends me. The
truth of the matter is, John, I thought that survey
(26:52):
was going to come back quite favorably in terms of
fairness because PayPal pays always at or above market rates M.
And this is where the first time where I was
kind of like, wait, capitalism is not working. Markets are
not working for a large part of our population. Like
(27:16):
all of my entry level employees, all my call center
employees said they were struggling to make ends me at
the end of the month. Let's call it the people
inside paper. And and then I said, okay, well, how
do we measure it right? Because people are like up
your minimum wage and we really don't do minimum wage
(27:37):
per saying, And I was like, why don't we measure
it scientifically? Like let's look at like how much money
does somebody have after they pay their taxes and there
are essential living expenses, how much money they have to
save to buy textbooks for their kids, to take somebody
out once once a month to save up for an
(27:58):
emergency that they may have. And what we found out
is that the net disposable income of a large part
of papals population was between four and six and so
it was no wonder they were struggling. And we worked
with academia, we worked with some nonprofits who said, basically,
(28:20):
the minimum somebody needs to feel financially healthy and secure
is twenty n d I. So that is a huge
amount from the ACE net disposable like how much income
do you have as an individual after you pay your
taxes and your essential living expenses, what do you have
(28:41):
left over? So we then came up with a program
to take the NDI of every Papal employee from four
to six to a minimum of and we slashed the
costs of healthcare benefits by sixty seven percent UM, so
(29:05):
people didn't have to choose between healthcare and food on
the table. We raised wages where that was necessary in
each of the communities, and we looked at the community
by community because nd I changes depending on where you live.
UM and UM. We gave every single person inside PayPal
(29:25):
um restricted shares of the company so they could uh
enjoying the success and feel fully no content invested in
the success of the company, and then we wrapped all
of that, John, into a financial education program. Financial literacy.
What does it mean when you have savings? What does
it mean when you have equity? You know, how do
(29:46):
you think about that? And today, John, we're at eighteen
percent nd I is the lowest level. We still have
a little ways to go to get to that twenty,
but we will get to that twenty. To your point, John,
the difference between what I was going to do and
what we did systemically, I mean, that's just night and
(30:07):
day difference for employees. And then the second thing you
mentioned post the death of George Floyd, when there was
this outpouring of emotion and anger and frustration, um that
just swept through our country. I was going to basically
(30:27):
do what a lot of other companies were doing, which
is give a couple of million dollars to very well
deserved and hard working UH nonprofits NGOs who were right
on the ground. And I spoke to you, I spoke
to Reverend Barber, I spoke to Darren, I spoke to
a number of different leaders in the black community, and
(30:50):
I remember one of them saying to me, Dan, this
needs to be a moment over time or a movement
over time, and not a moment in time. So we
need to think about this on a longer term basis.
And if we're thinking about things like reducing the racial
(31:11):
wealth gap, two or three million dollars here there isn't
gonna do it. And so we came up and said
we're going to commit five hundred and thirty five million
dollars to do our part to reduce the racial wealth gap.
And John, we know we didn't just say it. Now
committed all of that money UM in a number of
(31:35):
different areas. We can get into it if it's helpful,
but to really show our commitment to um davocating for
justice in our society. And this is what I call justice,
not just us. Yeah, yeah, it was real money. And
(31:57):
he didn't say five un a million dollars and then
hype bracket and say pay so's or these days rubles
or don't know this is this is u S currency.
Five plus million dollars for the reinvestment, not a giveaway program,
a reinvestment into his greatest asset, his people and the
(32:17):
communities that they serve. Because as he does more for
them that they get are able to reinvest and do
more uh and give back more for the company. And
we've seen companies that do this see their performance over time,
increase in their brand equity, become more resilient. There are
many companies who are doing incredibly well, and I would
(32:41):
not have their CEOs on my show. UM. I don't
want to give them free attention or advertising for what
they do. I want to leaders like you and Tony
Wrestler and Ed Bastion Delta and John Donahoe, the of Nike,
(33:01):
and you know these folks and women Stephanie Rue me
there's a bunch of women I meant Sarah Frock who
who know that you can do well and do good
to And the premise of doing well and somebody else
winning and somebody else losing is a lie. Yeah. I think,
um that often people miss construe that profits and purpose
(33:32):
work against each other. They don't. I think they are
firmly linked together. I'll tell you why I feel that
so strongly. I think that the only sustainable competitive advantage
of a company is the talent inside that company, their
(33:52):
passion for what they're doing um, and their degree of
commitment UM. And so you want the best people. The
best people work at places that take care of them,
that have values that resonate with them, that have a
mission that inspires them because we work too hard. We
spend four hours a day working, you know, and it's
(34:16):
just it's NonStop and you need to be able to
get up every morning and believe and go that extra
step all the time. That's why I wanted to make
every boy inside PayPal a shareholder, because they know that
everything they do matters, every customer interaction they have matters.
(34:42):
And so I think, um, you show me two companies,
one that really takes care of their employees as passion
and engage boys, and one that doesn't but has this
great strategy. And I'm gonna bet on the one that
as the passion engaged employees anytime. And um, and so
(35:04):
you know, I don't think these things go uh are
in conflict. And to your point, the brand and the
brand ethos of a carrying inclusive company is something that
I think resonates to the overwhelming majority of people. Yeah,
and they want to come. Young people want to come.
(35:25):
We'll all p while. They want to come work for
a company that is purpose. Yeah, it's not not just
making a profit. And look, there's been uh with what's
going on post pant and the pivot from the pandemic,
and as a feder reserve has threatened to raise interest
rates and you know all the disruption that happened, uh
(35:47):
coming in You've had a whole slew of tech companies
that have taken a whapon. I mean, I can't mention
the name, but it's one huge company Canada that I
partner with that you know is their stock with asked
in a half. Uh. Now they had a huge run up. Uh,
they'll be fine. But the whole the whole group took
a whipping. But the ones, the companies that are resilient
(36:11):
are the companies that had this purpose leaned into them.
And you're gonna see a bounce back. Well, first of all,
you've seen the floor and now you're seeing a bounce back. Um,
and people defending those brands. And I know for a
fact you're one of those brands that will emerge better
than you went into it. Now, I'm gonna say for
(36:31):
the audience, and I gotta be careful to say this.
I'm not on his board. I'm not on this, but
I'm not I bet you know I've got no interest.
I don't know nothing other than what you read a newspaper,
in my opinion. But I know that where that stock
value was, and and and and and I saw him
(36:53):
running this thing up and build something great before it
became in vogue to do the right thing. And and
I see another run up coming, um with the company
that Dan runs. And so everybody you're taking the information
for which do it with him as you will. That's
just my my opinion. Um. Then you must get tired, um,
(37:18):
because you can't take a break. And now I'm saying this,
but I'm really asking a question. UM. I gotta wake
up every day asking is the work I'm doing as
a parallel analogy, here is the work I'm doing relevant?
I have to ask myself that question, um. And I
gotta tie the work I'm doing on social justice into
(37:39):
the news cycle into what the president United States and
trade sectary is focusing on, because nobody wakes up saying
how do I help help poor people? Unfortunately, the urgent
crowds out the important right, So I gotta tie my caboose.
I can't take it personal time, my caboost, even though
I think I'm doing noble work to the business case
(38:00):
of whatever is going on and that's a daily process
of reindition. After what Dr King won the Nobel Peace Prize,
people called him not Martin Loser King, Martin Luther Coon
and Uncle Toms sell out him. He's of his friends talking.
He had to constantly and not sooner that Heeop was
saying he's irrelevant. I mean, it's unbelievable because we all
celebrating the day is this icon? Does it get exhausting
(38:24):
one having to constantly mind the store and we and
and how often do you have to reset the software?
Not that I mean it literally, Yeah, I mean to
reset the mental sort of strategy. How many times and
I don't know five years have you had to reimagine
and the strategy and the in the business software for
(38:45):
the company? Yeah? Well, first of all, um, right, I
mean it is a um you know, I'm not sure
we'd call it by seven, but it's it's a lot
of our is in the day, in the in the
evening for sure. Um. You know, I have done martial
(39:06):
arts for a long time, um and um. And you
know most people associate martial arts with the physical and fighting,
and obviously that's a huge part of it, but the
biggest part of it is exactly is how do you
control what's in your head? Because what you can't ever
(39:29):
control are things that happen around you. Like things will happen,
the only thing you can control is how you react
to them. And um, and there needs to be a
stillness and a little bit of zen and resilience and
(39:50):
humility in in. I think any leader of a company,
none of us, we'll ever have a life or a
stock price that only goes up into the right Um,
none of us will um. And if we think that,
(40:11):
you know, we're we're not really attuned to what happens
in the world. The real mark of a leader, I think,
is that when they are hit, do they get back up?
And how do they reinvent themselves? And that has to
happen continually. It's happened to you, it's happened to me,
It's happened to everyone we've met. If we go into
(40:33):
their life story as well, everyone's been knocked down. And
it really is the measure of somebody on how they
get back up. And UM. You know my view on
this is you know quite is then about it? Um.
I am extremely competitive, very very focused, very very determined
and um and very very confident that UM that paper
(40:59):
will continue Knew to reinvent itself going forward. A very
strong business. We have a huge customer base, we have
an incredibly trusted brand. But like everybody, you have to
not rest on your past laurels, but look ahead and
(41:20):
continually reinvent yourself UH in a way that it's very
attuned to what consumers and merchants need. And we have
some great people inside Papa and UH, and they are
very focused and very determined as well. And so I've
got a I have to say I have a ton
of optimism about the future because we're a company that
(41:43):
really matters UM and we've got a mission that matters,
a set of values that matter, and a lot of
people count on us. That's in is so important that
you talked about. One of the reason I like you
is that you're reasonably comfortable in your own skin. YEA
count the win your own skins. Know what you mean,
So I know I'm dealing with an authentic person. I
(42:04):
don't edit when I'm talking to you. I just talked
to you and we've never talked about this. This is
just you can't see Dan Dance nodding his head. You
can't see because it's a podcast. But we never talked
about this, but we know it. It's a known thing.
It's like you can just trust each other because you
know you're talking to somebody who's real, and that is invaluable.
Let me tell you something, everybody. Dr King once said
(42:26):
his followers, his the team. I'm sorry if you don't
if you're not slightly paranoid every day and you don't
acknowledge that you're a little crazy to think that you
can change the world in your lifetime for the good
in spite of what you're seeing around you, you really
are on stated And that's not a direct quote, but
(42:50):
it is a it is a compilation, it is a
summary way and I wake up. I mean, I'm paranoid
every day a little bit. I'm insecure every day a
little bit. I'm I'm but it's I use it as
the iron that sharpens me. And I know you do too.
But one thing I love and I'm audiences, listen now,
he is not whatever is going on in his life
(43:12):
professionally or personally or whatever. He's not distracted or deterred
from his commitment to social justice for all. Absolutely, that's absolutely,
by the way, John I to your point, I think, Um,
you know, I used to get very very nervous before
I would give a presentation, and it used to impact
(43:36):
the quality of that presentation. Um, and now I get
nervous before every single presentation. Still right, that never goes away,
and people should just like never because But but I
love that feeling because it's what gives me the energy
to be, you know, to really come along, uh in
(44:01):
front of that. If I don't have that nervousness, you know,
then you don't have that adrenaline that's that's coming through.
And it's how do you harness very real human nature
to to kind of excel going forward. It's not to
say that we don't have the same emotions, it's just
how do we how do we control our own way
(44:24):
of thinking about them? Yeah? Yes, responding and not reacting. Yeah,
where you make an emotional decision is gonna probably be
the wrong one. You know. Let me just tell you something, Dan,
I've never had this happen on a podcast of mine before.
I have just about run out of time, not running
out of things to talk about, and I don't want
to in it. We have we we we have such
(44:47):
a great relationship and report we just ran through this.
I want to I want you to leave the audience.
I'm gonna let you spend the next five minutes going
into whatever direction you want, but I want you to
leave the audience with some tools. Right there they how
do they have a little Dan Shulman with them in
their pocket and their soul in their head with them
(45:09):
as they go through the journey of trying to get
a job, of trying to build a personal brain, of
trying to raise children, of trying to be a good
rom up, of attempting to started their own business, of
doing so many people tell them what they can't do,
of getting knocked down and having to get back up again,
of of trying to build resiliency to have faith. Uh So,
(45:32):
a couple of questions and you can answer in a
way you like, what are your lessons to people for
building MH and and and that includes building a personal
DNA perfect? What that personal integrity? What's some what are
some lessons and takeaways you can give for this audience.
First of all, trying I think, um, you know, all
(45:56):
of us are different, and all of us you have
a different life and have different experiences, and so you
know my experiences and thoughts may or may not be relevant. Um,
I'm happy to share what I think. But but I
I learned way more uh than uh than I can
(46:19):
give back ever, And I think that is kind of
probably one of the the best lessons. You know. My
dad once told me after I was telling him for
like twenty minutes like what should be and what I
wanted and everything else, and he said, son, you're born
with two years one mouth, use them proportionately, and uh yeah.
(46:45):
And it was such a good lesson for me. I
don't know where he heard it. He made it upself,
but it was like one of these things where I
was like, he's right, the more you listen, the better
off you are. And by the way, I find this
all the time, no matter what, Like here's the thing,
like the second you think you know it all, you're done.
(47:07):
You are done because you don't know it all. The
world is changing so quickly. We have to have humility
and respect for everyone that we meet and listen and
learn from them. And by the way, sometimes you don't agree,
but you learn all the time. Even I tell my
(47:28):
team all the time, I want to I want to
not be a team because we talk about the weather,
and agree on it. I want to be a team
because we talk about the real issues that are really
hard and we can still be a team afterwards. That's
that's the key. And there needs to be a real
sense of of humbleness, of quiet confidence so that you
(47:53):
don't go into fight or fight mode, but you can
really listen with with good and tent um. And so
I think this authenticity, respect, humility, learning to listen, knowing
that you can always learn so essential for anything I
think in life. A man, I have never told you this, Dan,
(48:16):
but and this includes the Super Bowl when I was
in the UH booth with Roger Goodell and a bunch
of CEOs. I never told you this. I want you
to get a big hit. But whenever I mentioned your name,
people light up about other leaders Uh CEO universally and
leaders universally all races. Uh. That's I love Dan Shulman.
(48:39):
I respect Dan Schulman. Oh yeah, Dan, he's he's running
a great shot. Oh I really, I'd follow him anywhere.
It's what people say about you when you're not around. Uh,
that gives you some indication, uh that you're on the
right path. And it's very kind of it's very nice
to hear, John, and very kind of you to say,
(49:00):
I know you do it anyway. You would do the
right thing whether they said nice things. That's why people
say that. You know, if you you expect something, and
because you do something because you expect something, it's not
the right reason to do it. I was telling Uh,
a commissioner in the European Union the other day. I said,
(49:21):
sometimes the right thing is just the right thing. It's
you just do it because it's the right thing, and
there doesn't have to be anything else besides that. Well,
and there you have it. Sometimes the right thing is
just the right thing. This is John Hope, Bryan, this
is guilty the good life. My friend Dan shuman On,
(49:43):
this is the master class and what Dan Shulman taught
me to help you build. Be curious, being nosed. Understand
his father taught him. God gave you two ears in
one mouth because it twice as much as you talk.
Reinvent yourself all. Never be satisfied, never settled. The Bible suggests,
(50:04):
be how to be called. If give lukewarm, I'll spatch
you out. Translation. Even God isn't like mediocrity. Whatever you're
gonna do, duel with both feet reinvent yourself. Always understand
that life is a series of software upgrades. What is yours?
Understand that you're better together. That's a good partnership, that's
a good marriage, is a good friendship. If two plus
two equals three, run whoever you're with and whatever you're doing,
(50:26):
two plus two ton equal four or five, six, ten.
And that's why he is reinvested in his people, because
he understands that you cannot even calculate that return on investment.
There is no growth without legitimate suffering. You cannot have
a rainbow without a storm. First, don't trust anybody who
hasn't gone through something, and trust everybody who has been
(50:47):
through a war. And finally, make goodness into your business point.
It is a lot that you can only do well
when somebody else does bed. It is a truth that
you can do well and do good to want truth
to that. Look at Dan Shulman's life story from beginning
to end. That's a drop to mic Master collects from
(51:08):
CEO of PayPal. Then building the Good Life with John
Hope Bryant is brought to you by Credentials Financial
Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought
to you by Credentials Financial. You do something because you
expect something, it's not the right reason to do it.
Sometimes the right thing is just the right thing. You
just do it because it's the right thing, and there
doesn't have to be anything else besides that. Well, and
there you have it all. This is John Hope Bryan
(00:20):
and this is Building the Good Life. I am honored
to be here with my dear friend and one of
America's most outsized and I believe yet underrated leaders. It's
a saying a lot because he's CEO of PayPal, so
it's not like he's hiding under a bush somewhere as
one of the best performing growth companies in the world.
(00:42):
But I still think that his heart is not known
as much as his hid and I still don't think
that people understand how both of those things working together
turns out a fabulous product in the form of a
pipe producing, sustainable company with a viable culture. Ladies and
gentlemen joined me and welcome to my friend Dan Showman,
(01:02):
CEO of PayPal. Thank you so much. John. I hope
my mom is listening to this podcast. Yours and mine too.
You know, whenever somebody says something nice about me from
my mother, she says something about like yeah, I go
get the trash cans or something exactly. It's like, yeah, whatever.
I was talking to my auntie the other night and
(01:24):
she said, you know, who knew this little knucklehead that
I took care of would turn out to be somebody?
And she called me she was to call me a
knuckle head eight times in a conversation. Like It's like
Auntie and my mom should get together for like an
hour long conversation and compared notes. It keeps us humble
then to keep us so. So, look, um, I want
(01:45):
to get into this. There's so much meat here and
we're you know, uh, I think that let's get the
history sort out of the way first, that resume, if
you will, and then get into some some meaty stuff.
You know. Dan Um has had a pretty good run
as a corporate leader. I think he worked at America Express.
(02:06):
Uh he he um uh, was a president of Sprints
Prepaid Group. Um. He was a founding CEO, tapped by
by Richard Branson to be CEO of Virgin Mobile, which
grew spectacularly under his tenure. He was born in Newark,
New Jersey, by the way, uh and um, and also
(02:31):
I think Princeton, New Jersey. Uh and you know, as
sort of a hat to the privilege that he acknowledges
he had. He uh he you know, he was the
captain of the tennis team in the lacrosse team Princeton
High School. Uh. It went on to seat received degrees
in economics from Middlebury College and an NBA from New
(02:52):
York University's Stern School of Business. Um. His mother, Ruth Showman,
was Associate Dan Rutgers Graduate School of Applied in Professional Psychology. Uh.
His father, Nel Schuman, was a chemical engineer. Uh. So
he's not gonna tell you uh that he comes from
(03:12):
this poor and disheveled family and all that stuff. And
he fully acknowledges that he has had breaks. He's had
to work hard for everything, which all is good, but
it makes his story even more interesting. Also worked at
A T and T. I'm sure I miss him. Uhl
more a bad at China. That's good enough. I said, boh, yeah,
what'ce you what's your charge? Once you in charge of
(03:35):
what's you charge of a twenty two billion dollar division
at also, yeah, that's oh ball and stuff. Uh, you
see your CEO of Price Line, and this is a big,
big time CEO. And again, if you listen to the
resume I just gave you and the lacrosse and all
that kind of stuff, it makes absolutely no sense that
(03:57):
he cares about poor people already as a heart for
struggling folks, And but he does. And I'm not gonna
bother everybody in dragged them through this story. I've worn
out of one of the first conversations that Dan and
I had, and if maybe if it comes in the
course of this naturally in course of conversation, I'll retell
parts of it. But I can't remember the last time
(04:23):
a big time CEO was as bothered by social injustice
as I was as an African American entrepreneur growing up
in Combland, California, in South in georl A. I know
why I'm bothered. I know why I ambassor Andrew Young
has bothered. Right. I couldn't figure out why the hell
(04:44):
Dan Sheilman was bothered. Uh, And even if he was bothered,
why he would volunteer to write a check out of
his own checkbook to do something about it. I'm not
talking about little dollars, folks. I'm talking about a significant
portion of his compensation. And as I as I got
to know him, it becomes obvious when you talk to him.
(05:05):
It's in his bones. But I don't get it. Like
an engineer's son, a dean's son. Like, then, help me
understand where the I call it decency, right, But where
does the sense of fair play come from from a
hard nose, hard driving, highly successful corporate executive. Well, John,
(05:30):
like all of us, you know, are the products of
our parents that you kind of talked about. My parents
at the end of their road, you know, where their
careers led. But you know, my dad came out of
the army fighting in World War Two and g I Bill,
you know he was um uh he ran uh part
(05:55):
of a chemical plant in Newark, New Jersey, the night
shift from to of midnight to six in the morning. Um.
And you know his parents were immigrants from Russia and Poland.
My mom, um, you know, was a was a school
(06:16):
teacher starting off part time school teacher. Um. And we
lived in you know, a apartment where me and my
brother uh and my sister shared the same bedroom and
we shared the same bathroom with my mom and dad,
And so, you know, I saw how hard they worked,
I saw how much they cared about the condition of
(06:43):
our society. They were early, early on activists. My grandfather
was a union organizer in the Garment district of New York.
You know, you and I have said, you know, as
my dad got older and got a little more responsibilities,
he was in charge of a plant uh down in
Mississippi right at the height of the civil rights movement
(07:05):
in the early nineties sixties. Um where the plant manager
down in Mississippi fired black guy for drinking out of
the wrong water fountain. Now, I remember my dad traveling
down to Mississippi. It's before cell phone, it's for any
of that to reverse that decision. So here's a Jewish,
(07:27):
white guy going down to Mississippi to reverse the decision.
And I remember so distinctly my mom hanging by the
phone all day and all night to make sure that
my dad was gonna call him, be okay. And I
remember like the tension in the house around that, you know,
(07:49):
being pushed in my carriage in civil rights marches, my
dad telling my mom that I was going to be
the youngest person in the country to have their his
picture and FBI file because she was so active and
so this was just part of my life growing up. Um,
it's a part of who I am. I feel very
(08:12):
very strongly that businesses and CEOs do not exist in
their own little corporate bubble um just surrounded by how
do we maximize profitability for shareholders? But how do we
think about our employees? How do we think about the
(08:33):
communities we live in? How do we think about creating
a set of values that we live by and we
act by. Because you know, I firmly believe that you know,
we all need to be in this together for it
to work right. One little part can't be optimized and
(08:53):
the rest is suboptimized. And there's so much of our democracy,
so much of our economy me that is sub optimized
right now. And uh, if we can all come together
to work on that, all of us would be better
off as a result of that. Building. The good Life
is brought to you by Prudential Financial. For over forty
(09:15):
five years, millions of people have counted on Prudential to
help solve for life's most important financial needs. Because at
Prudential they live their purpose to make life better by
solving for the financial challenges of our changing world. Prudentials
Who's Your Rock campaign is also about helping people reach
new heights and providing a platform for people to reach
(09:35):
their financial goals. So you said some stuff that begins
to make more sense to me. Um, as you said,
I'm looking at this through the end of the journey
for your path. And the people, by the way, do
this a lot. They see some successful white guy or
or successful black people. Look at me now and then
(09:57):
soon I've had some silver spoon in my mouth. Uh. Yeah,
the only silver spoon I had my mouth was the
spoon that had was gold tinted in the in the
in the gold gold got the gold rubbed off with
the ten underneath. In in south central aan Compton. Uh.
You know my mom and dad Uh high school education,
(10:19):
you know. Uh. And my mother walks with captain gown
at sixty two years old. Uh you know, high school equivalency. Uh,
and so up from nothing, right and and I think,
but people will assume, unfortunately when they see successful people,
that has always been that way. And uh, you you
mentioned a couple of things your your Jewish background. Um,
(10:45):
you didn't just say white. You said white Jewish Well,
of course, Jews were ran out of Europe. I mean
you couldn't own uh, Jews could not own real estate.
It was against the law in many countries in Europe.
Jews were forced into finance so that they could finance
real estate and backdoor ownership into that thing is. In
(11:06):
other words, finance and other areas that this group has
excelled in were forced upon them because they were not
allowed to do business else where in other segments. And
so your dad came here as an immigrant, and that
story I didn't know. And your mom was a teacher,
so that now a dean, Now that makes sense, sort
of up from nothing, she worked her way up. Um,
(11:29):
what your dad did by going south, he put his
life at risk, he did. Yeah, and you're watching all
that as a child. Yeah, deeply impactful, deeply and backful.
And I think, uh, um, you know, you know, it's
it's interesting John you mentioned all this. I mean, this
(11:51):
is the literal truth. I wake up every day very
thankful for what I have, very thankful. I don't take
anything for granted. Nothing. Yeah, we are. We're blessed by
the opportunities that we've had. We had to work really
hard and Uh, as my mom said, you know, hard
(12:13):
work and some luck you know comes along the way,
for sure. Um, But I don't think for a second
we should forget where we came from. I don't think
for a second we should. Um. I think for some reason,
you know, Um, we're the ones who deserved what we had.
(12:34):
We just we were fortunate in so many ways, and
we should enable as many people that have that that
fortune as well. It's why I focus so hard on,
you know, my employees, making sure that they have not
just physical health you know, and their mental health about them,
but financial health as well. You and I've talked about
(12:56):
this a hundred times, John Mike finance a trual health.
It's like the bedrock of somebody's psychological health, of a
community's health. It's the bedrock of our democracy as well. Like,
how can we expect somebody to rise above their own
self interests when every single day they're struggling to make
(13:22):
ends meet. When this is the first generation that doesn't
think that their kids will have a better life than
they do. You know, these are things that force people
to feel like the system isn't working for them, and
therefore they start moving towards either the far right or
the far left. And you know, we have so few
(13:43):
people in the middle right now, and that really is
what salesmanship is about. It's about, um, thinking about more
than just yourself. But boy, somebody's struggling every single day. Um,
I don't blame for focusing on on themselves and for
feeling like others are getting in the way of that happening.
(14:04):
I mean, I feel like this is a real responsibility
we all have. So one one point, I think what
we may debate this, who knows, But I think of clarification,
you said, there's folks on the left and there's folks
on the right. Deep in those areas we agree, and
there's so few people in the middle. My experience is
that that most people are in the middle. They're just quiet.
(14:25):
The loud voices are far left and the loud voices
are far right. The bullies are out there on the edges.
But in Dr King's day, Um, he had twenty percent
of the white community support and by the way, my
friend half that was Jewish. Yeah, and he had of
the black community support. But most black folks, set of
(14:47):
the hands, they were they were sort of in the
middle ground, going, well, he's a rubble rise of Rouser.
He's a troublemaker with I'm not quite sure. Oh, I
sort of believe what he's saying, but I don't want
to get involved. Here's a big one. I don't want
to get involved in Germany. I think most people were
against the treatment of Jews, but they didn't want to
get quote involved. One of the things that inspiring me
(15:10):
today dan in what's going on here in the in
the world really with and I'm really heartbroken about what's
happening with Ukraine. But rainbows only follow storms. In the
midst of this, you've had the majority of the modern
world rallied for Ukraine and say it knock it off
enough already. No, this is not I'm not sitting on
(15:31):
my hands anymore. This is not right. Um. That's inspiring um.
But more cases than not, people just sitting their comfort zones.
And so what I like about you is that you
you you live your values. That's the people I have
on this show. The Bible says me, hod or be cold.
If you look warm, I'll spat you out. Translation even
(15:51):
got in like mediocrity. Now you got mad at me
one time. You won't even remember, but you got a man.
I don't. Actually, I'm looking forward to hearing about it.
We were at a place I can't describe, someplace Utah
or someplace and I can't say where it was. But
you got mad at me because I said, me and
(16:13):
douglet Millen, the CEO of Walmart, Tony Wrestler, Oh yeah,
billionaire Tony Wrestler, longs Atlanta Hawks, and Disney CEO and
Nike ceo. And actually wasn't your don John wasn't involved
that yet. Um the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, as I
missed these names, are trying to impress you about financial literacy,
(16:33):
for all this movement to make financial literacy a civil
rights issue and embedded in the business model. Blah blah
blah blah blah. And I finished all that. You like, John,
what are you doing? Why aren't I in there? I
should be. I should have been the first phone call
you made, you know, And I loved it. I mean,
(16:55):
you were serious, and I I went and got you
included retroactively. Yes, yes, I remember that. Yeah, And I
also know you flew you flew to Atlanta just to
speak in our conference. You you you know, just it
comes to at the whole Global Forum. You flew in
and flew out right other that. Yeah, And I remember
that was the first conference that I spoke at. What
(17:17):
that wasn't virtual and like two years or so, and uh,
I had another meeting back in New York City, but
I felt it was so important to go do this.
But I was gonna talk about your your distinction between
you know, right left in the middle, because I think
there's a great quote by Yates, you know, one of
his you know, the Falconer, where he says, like the
(17:41):
worst of us are filled with a passionate intensity. And that's,
you know, to the point you were you were saying,
like those who are on the far right and far
left with social networks, have this ability to really magnify
the voice, and so many people are are scared to
(18:02):
lend their voice. And by the way I understand it,
I fully understand it because as you and I have
discussed some of the decisions that we've made it PayPal,
whether it be withdrawing from North Carolina because of the
house built to the bathroom bill. Um, you know result,
(18:22):
can you tell the audience with then what that was
by the winners group? Yeah, yeah, the house built too
and our reading of it kind of allowed for the
potential discrimination against someone for their sexual orientation or sexual identity.
And we were just about to um go into North
(18:44):
Carolina put in place a six office there. We had
had a big news conference with the governor and once
they passed that bill, I was like, there's no way
that we're going forward with. This is anethema to our values, um,
and we pulled out. Uh. It resulted in you know,
(19:06):
front page of the New York Times was very lonely
for a while. It resulted in death threats against me.
For uh, for quite a while. I couldn't even go
into a bathroom without people security people searching the stalls
to be sure nobody was there waiting, um, you know,
to do some harm. And so taking stands usually involves
(19:33):
some degree of courage, you know, whatever it may be,
because they're gonna be people throwing rocks that you or
at least verbal rocks that you, um almost no matter
what you do, Like we take down hundreds of sites
(19:53):
from using PayPal or vemmo to raise money because they
advocate either violence, racial intolerance, or hatred. That's not an
easy thing to do to police your own platform, to
go and do that because a couple of things. First
of all, many of the hatred is UM. It's in code.
(20:16):
So if somebody sends you John, you know eight cents
in Vemo, eight is the eighth letter of the alphabet
is hight. Eight is h H which is Heil Hitler.
So it's typically white supremacis doing that UM. And so
(20:36):
you need to know codes to be able to understand
kind of gout to pull down. It's not straightforward. And
also nobody teaches you in college or advanced graduate school
where does hatred begin and where does free speech end? Right?
The only thing they say is you can't yell fire
(21:00):
in a crowded theater. You know, that's the example everybody uses.
But but like you know, where does somebody's right to
have their own opinion on something crossover into hatred? And
you have to make a values based decision on that.
But I think just because it's difficult doesn't mean that
(21:21):
we don't have the responsibility to try and reduce the
rhetoric of hatred and violence in our society. And every
time we take down a platform or take down a site,
it can result in a ton of of hate email
as well as Uh, you know, sometimes more physical threats. Um,
(21:46):
but that's an obligation that we have, you know. And
and there's countless examples of that, which is why it's
hard sometimes in the middle to stand up. But I think, um,
you know, we may not be able to finish the job,
you or I or others who who try so hard,
(22:07):
but that does not excuse us from being in the faith.
And and to that point, and this adfight has been
going on a while. We'll come back to Europe, which
you did undergird your employees here in a minute, But
advice has been going on for a while. Uh. It
goes back to the civil rights movement. In the most
recent iteration. Uh, we're in what I call today the
(22:29):
Third reconstruction. People can go online and read what I
have to say about the third reconstruction now, which is
social justice through an economic lens um moving in the
business suites, not the mean streets. But in the sixties,
Dr King would and Andrew Young, who turns ninety this weekend,
by the way, they would march in the South, shut
(22:50):
down the economy of towns for whom the majority of
the population was black. Typically those customers wouldn't go into
stores there, uh, and they not called effect was the
private sector of a few weeks, feeling the pinch had
to make a choice between the governor's values or the
mayor's values, or their economic prosperity, and that they would
(23:12):
meet with Andrew Young quietly behind closed doors so it's
not to embarrass anybody. And almost time Dan the business
leaders kind of deal what we're happy to take down
the whites only signs stop picking our businesses, we'll employ people.
We we are with you, and that then forced the
(23:33):
government leaders to change their tomb. It was a private
sector that integrated it South. Now at some pain to
the private sectors. They had death threats and so as
so as you were talking about what happened to you,
it reminded me HARKing back to what happened the leaders
in the n So God bless you. So I'm now
(23:53):
forced almost to tell there's the story because I need
people to understand who you are. I've said this in
a private, closed environment, but I'm not gonna embarrass you
too badly. But we almost in our first meeting. Um.
And this is why when you know, when people tell
me when they're looking at payment services and payment platforms.
(24:16):
I will hear all the time. Oh, I want to
do business with PayPal, their company with the purpose. They
mean what they say, They're not just about making money. Um.
And if I have a choice of doing using several
during platforms and I see Papal, I always choose you.
My my Rachel office hooked, my chief of staffs hooked
on PayPal because we know your values. Okay, So I'm
with you the first time we really had a real conversation. Yeah,
(24:39):
and you said, I want to I'm thinking about giving
a big it's a big amount of money, uh to
my employees into the community. And I said, don't do it.
And and then you must you I think you your
heads spun on your on your pretty shocked. Yeah yeah uh.
(24:59):
And there was a lot of it was a lot
of money. There was a lot of money. Yeah. And
I was really serious about how can I personally make
an impact? And this is when somebody else's money, this
was his. And I said, don't be sending me haymail
now because I told me how to do it. I said,
listen to the whole story now. I said, Dan, don't
do it. Somebody knocks you off, you get you, you
(25:21):
quit you can get fired. You know whatever you know
you decided to go to on long term vacation. The
next CEO is not gonna have those values. Uh. I
never heard a CV on my life. I know a
budget that said I'm gonna write a check out of
my own pocketbook fifty million dollars um. And this was
before George Floyd. As I recall, yes, and and and
(25:44):
I said, don't do it because it's not sustainable, and
and you're gonna give people a hand out, but maybe
not a hand up. Let's tie it to something that's larger,
and let's tie it to the company. And Uh, I
didn't give you a number. I just said, you can
do multiple more of this more Santa Believe is embedded
as part of the business plan into the business case
for diversity, inclusion, fairness and opportunity. And you went back.
(26:08):
I figured you'd write me off and say that's the
last time I talk to that bozo. And you went
back to next thing. I hear, Dan, you're announcing a
five hundred million dollar plus commitment to your employees into
the communities. You start telling the audience of about what
what you did, which was fantastic and creating great texture
(26:30):
and commitment amongst your team members too. Yeah. So there
are two things John, that we did. One um is
I surveyed all of my employees to find out how
many of them were struggling to make ends me. The
truth of the matter is, John, I thought that survey
(26:52):
was going to come back quite favorably in terms of
fairness because PayPal pays always at or above market rates M.
And this is where the first time where I was
kind of like, wait, capitalism is not working. Markets are
not working for a large part of our population. Like
(27:16):
all of my entry level employees, all my call center
employees said they were struggling to make ends me at
the end of the month. Let's call it the people
inside paper. And and then I said, okay, well, how
do we measure it right? Because people are like up
your minimum wage and we really don't do minimum wage
(27:37):
per saying, And I was like, why don't we measure
it scientifically? Like let's look at like how much money
does somebody have after they pay their taxes and there
are essential living expenses, how much money they have to
save to buy textbooks for their kids, to take somebody
out once once a month to save up for an
(27:58):
emergency that they may have. And what we found out
is that the net disposable income of a large part
of papals population was between four and six and so
it was no wonder they were struggling. And we worked
with academia, we worked with some nonprofits who said, basically,
(28:20):
the minimum somebody needs to feel financially healthy and secure
is twenty n d I. So that is a huge
amount from the ACE net disposable like how much income
do you have as an individual after you pay your
taxes and your essential living expenses, what do you have
(28:41):
left over? So we then came up with a program
to take the NDI of every Papal employee from four
to six to a minimum of and we slashed the
costs of healthcare benefits by sixty seven percent UM, so
(29:05):
people didn't have to choose between healthcare and food on
the table. We raised wages where that was necessary in
each of the communities, and we looked at the community
by community because nd I changes depending on where you live.
UM and UM. We gave every single person inside PayPal
(29:25):
um restricted shares of the company so they could uh
enjoying the success and feel fully no content invested in
the success of the company, and then we wrapped all
of that, John, into a financial education program. Financial literacy.
What does it mean when you have savings? What does
it mean when you have equity? You know, how do
(29:46):
you think about that? And today, John, we're at eighteen
percent nd I is the lowest level. We still have
a little ways to go to get to that twenty,
but we will get to that twenty. To your point, John,
the difference between what I was going to do and
what we did systemically, I mean, that's just night and
(30:07):
day difference for employees. And then the second thing you
mentioned post the death of George Floyd, when there was
this outpouring of emotion and anger and frustration, um that
just swept through our country. I was going to basically
(30:27):
do what a lot of other companies were doing, which
is give a couple of million dollars to very well
deserved and hard working UH nonprofits NGOs who were right
on the ground. And I spoke to you, I spoke
to Reverend Barber, I spoke to Darren, I spoke to
a number of different leaders in the black community, and
(30:50):
I remember one of them saying to me, Dan, this
needs to be a moment over time or a movement
over time, and not a moment in time. So we
need to think about this on a longer term basis.
And if we're thinking about things like reducing the racial
(31:11):
wealth gap, two or three million dollars here there isn't
gonna do it. And so we came up and said
we're going to commit five hundred and thirty five million
dollars to do our part to reduce the racial wealth gap.
And John, we know we didn't just say it. Now
committed all of that money UM in a number of
(31:35):
different areas. We can get into it if it's helpful,
but to really show our commitment to um davocating for
justice in our society. And this is what I call justice,
not just us. Yeah, yeah, it was real money. And
(31:57):
he didn't say five un a million dollars and then
hype bracket and say pay so's or these days rubles
or don't know this is this is u S currency.
Five plus million dollars for the reinvestment, not a giveaway program,
a reinvestment into his greatest asset, his people and the
(32:17):
communities that they serve. Because as he does more for
them that they get are able to reinvest and do
more uh and give back more for the company. And
we've seen companies that do this see their performance over time,
increase in their brand equity, become more resilient. There are
many companies who are doing incredibly well, and I would
(32:41):
not have their CEOs on my show. UM. I don't
want to give them free attention or advertising for what
they do. I want to leaders like you and Tony
Wrestler and Ed Bastion Delta and John Donahoe, the of Nike,
(33:01):
and you know these folks and women Stephanie Rue me
there's a bunch of women I meant Sarah Frock who
who know that you can do well and do good
to And the premise of doing well and somebody else
winning and somebody else losing is a lie. Yeah. I think,
um that often people miss construe that profits and purpose
(33:32):
work against each other. They don't. I think they are
firmly linked together. I'll tell you why I feel that
so strongly. I think that the only sustainable competitive advantage
of a company is the talent inside that company, their
(33:52):
passion for what they're doing um, and their degree of
commitment UM. And so you want the best people. The
best people work at places that take care of them,
that have values that resonate with them, that have a
mission that inspires them because we work too hard. We
spend four hours a day working, you know, and it's
(34:16):
just it's NonStop and you need to be able to
get up every morning and believe and go that extra
step all the time. That's why I wanted to make
every boy inside PayPal a shareholder, because they know that
everything they do matters, every customer interaction they have matters.
(34:42):
And so I think, um, you show me two companies,
one that really takes care of their employees as passion
and engage boys, and one that doesn't but has this
great strategy. And I'm gonna bet on the one that
as the passion engaged employees anytime. And um, and so
(35:04):
you know, I don't think these things go uh are
in conflict. And to your point, the brand and the
brand ethos of a carrying inclusive company is something that
I think resonates to the overwhelming majority of people. Yeah,
and they want to come. Young people want to come.
(35:25):
We'll all p while. They want to come work for
a company that is purpose. Yeah, it's not not just
making a profit. And look, there's been uh with what's
going on post pant and the pivot from the pandemic,
and as a feder reserve has threatened to raise interest
rates and you know all the disruption that happened, uh
(35:47):
coming in You've had a whole slew of tech companies
that have taken a whapon. I mean, I can't mention
the name, but it's one huge company Canada that I
partner with that you know is their stock with asked
in a half. Uh. Now they had a huge run up. Uh,
they'll be fine. But the whole the whole group took
a whipping. But the ones, the companies that are resilient
(36:11):
are the companies that had this purpose leaned into them.
And you're gonna see a bounce back. Well, first of all,
you've seen the floor and now you're seeing a bounce back. Um,
and people defending those brands. And I know for a
fact you're one of those brands that will emerge better
than you went into it. Now, I'm gonna say for
(36:31):
the audience, and I gotta be careful to say this.
I'm not on his board. I'm not on this, but
I'm not I bet you know I've got no interest.
I don't know nothing other than what you read a newspaper,
in my opinion. But I know that where that stock
value was, and and and and and I saw him
(36:53):
running this thing up and build something great before it
became in vogue to do the right thing. And and
I see another run up coming, um with the company
that Dan runs. And so everybody you're taking the information
for which do it with him as you will. That's
just my my opinion. Um. Then you must get tired, um,
(37:18):
because you can't take a break. And now I'm saying this,
but I'm really asking a question. UM. I gotta wake
up every day asking is the work I'm doing as
a parallel analogy, here is the work I'm doing relevant?
I have to ask myself that question, um. And I
gotta tie the work I'm doing on social justice into
(37:39):
the news cycle into what the president United States and
trade sectary is focusing on, because nobody wakes up saying
how do I help help poor people? Unfortunately, the urgent
crowds out the important right, So I gotta tie my caboose.
I can't take it personal time, my caboost, even though
I think I'm doing noble work to the business case
(38:00):
of whatever is going on and that's a daily process
of reindition. After what Dr King won the Nobel Peace Prize,
people called him not Martin Loser King, Martin Luther Coon
and Uncle Toms sell out him. He's of his friends talking.
He had to constantly and not sooner that Heeop was
saying he's irrelevant. I mean, it's unbelievable because we all
celebrating the day is this icon? Does it get exhausting
(38:24):
one having to constantly mind the store and we and
and how often do you have to reset the software?
Not that I mean it literally, Yeah, I mean to
reset the mental sort of strategy. How many times and
I don't know five years have you had to reimagine
and the strategy and the in the business software for
(38:45):
the company? Yeah? Well, first of all, um, right, I
mean it is a um you know, I'm not sure
we'd call it by seven, but it's it's a lot
of our is in the day, in the in the
evening for sure. Um. You know, I have done martial
(39:06):
arts for a long time, um and um. And you
know most people associate martial arts with the physical and fighting,
and obviously that's a huge part of it, but the
biggest part of it is exactly is how do you
control what's in your head? Because what you can't ever
(39:29):
control are things that happen around you. Like things will happen,
the only thing you can control is how you react
to them. And um, and there needs to be a
stillness and a little bit of zen and resilience and
(39:50):
humility in in. I think any leader of a company,
none of us, we'll ever have a life or a
stock price that only goes up into the right Um,
none of us will um. And if we think that,
(40:11):
you know, we're we're not really attuned to what happens
in the world. The real mark of a leader, I think,
is that when they are hit, do they get back up?
And how do they reinvent themselves? And that has to
happen continually. It's happened to you, it's happened to me,
It's happened to everyone we've met. If we go into
(40:33):
their life story as well, everyone's been knocked down. And
it really is the measure of somebody on how they
get back up. And UM. You know my view on
this is you know quite is then about it? Um.
I am extremely competitive, very very focused, very very determined
and um and very very confident that UM that paper
(40:59):
will continue Knew to reinvent itself going forward. A very
strong business. We have a huge customer base, we have
an incredibly trusted brand. But like everybody, you have to
not rest on your past laurels, but look ahead and
(41:20):
continually reinvent yourself UH in a way that it's very
attuned to what consumers and merchants need. And we have
some great people inside Papa and UH, and they are
very focused and very determined as well. And so I've
got a I have to say I have a ton
of optimism about the future because we're a company that
(41:43):
really matters UM and we've got a mission that matters,
a set of values that matter, and a lot of
people count on us. That's in is so important that
you talked about. One of the reason I like you
is that you're reasonably comfortable in your own skin. YEA
count the win your own skins. Know what you mean,
So I know I'm dealing with an authentic person. I
(42:04):
don't edit when I'm talking to you. I just talked
to you and we've never talked about this. This is
just you can't see Dan Dance nodding his head. You
can't see because it's a podcast. But we never talked
about this, but we know it. It's a known thing.
It's like you can just trust each other because you
know you're talking to somebody who's real, and that is invaluable.
Let me tell you something, everybody. Dr King once said
(42:26):
his followers, his the team. I'm sorry if you don't
if you're not slightly paranoid every day and you don't
acknowledge that you're a little crazy to think that you
can change the world in your lifetime for the good
in spite of what you're seeing around you, you really
are on stated And that's not a direct quote, but
(42:50):
it is a it is a compilation, it is a
summary way and I wake up. I mean, I'm paranoid
every day a little bit. I'm insecure every day a
little bit. I'm I'm but it's I use it as
the iron that sharpens me. And I know you do too.
But one thing I love and I'm audiences, listen now,
he is not whatever is going on in his life
(43:12):
professionally or personally or whatever. He's not distracted or deterred
from his commitment to social justice for all. Absolutely, that's absolutely,
by the way, John I to your point, I think, Um,
you know, I used to get very very nervous before
I would give a presentation, and it used to impact
(43:36):
the quality of that presentation. Um, and now I get
nervous before every single presentation. Still right, that never goes away,
and people should just like never because But but I
love that feeling because it's what gives me the energy
to be, you know, to really come along, uh in
(44:01):
front of that. If I don't have that nervousness, you know,
then you don't have that adrenaline that's that's coming through.
And it's how do you harness very real human nature
to to kind of excel going forward. It's not to
say that we don't have the same emotions, it's just
how do we how do we control our own way
(44:24):
of thinking about them? Yeah? Yes, responding and not reacting. Yeah,
where you make an emotional decision is gonna probably be
the wrong one. You know. Let me just tell you something, Dan,
I've never had this happen on a podcast of mine before.
I have just about run out of time, not running
out of things to talk about, and I don't want
to in it. We have we we we have such
(44:47):
a great relationship and report we just ran through this.
I want to I want you to leave the audience.
I'm gonna let you spend the next five minutes going
into whatever direction you want, but I want you to
leave the audience with some tools. Right there they how
do they have a little Dan Shulman with them in
their pocket and their soul in their head with them
(45:09):
as they go through the journey of trying to get
a job, of trying to build a personal brain, of
trying to raise children, of trying to be a good
rom up, of attempting to started their own business, of
doing so many people tell them what they can't do,
of getting knocked down and having to get back up again,
of of trying to build resiliency to have faith. Uh So,
(45:32):
a couple of questions and you can answer in a
way you like, what are your lessons to people for
building MH and and and that includes building a personal
DNA perfect? What that personal integrity? What's some what are
some lessons and takeaways you can give for this audience.
First of all, trying I think, um, you know, all
(45:56):
of us are different, and all of us you have
a different life and have different experiences, and so you
know my experiences and thoughts may or may not be relevant. Um,
I'm happy to share what I think. But but I
I learned way more uh than uh than I can
(46:19):
give back ever, And I think that is kind of
probably one of the the best lessons. You know. My
dad once told me after I was telling him for
like twenty minutes like what should be and what I
wanted and everything else, and he said, son, you're born
with two years one mouth, use them proportionately, and uh yeah.
(46:45):
And it was such a good lesson for me. I
don't know where he heard it. He made it upself,
but it was like one of these things where I
was like, he's right, the more you listen, the better
off you are. And by the way, I find this
all the time, no matter what, Like here's the thing,
like the second you think you know it all, you're done.
(47:07):
You are done because you don't know it all. The
world is changing so quickly. We have to have humility
and respect for everyone that we meet and listen and
learn from them. And by the way, sometimes you don't agree,
but you learn all the time. Even I tell my
(47:28):
team all the time, I want to I want to
not be a team because we talk about the weather,
and agree on it. I want to be a team
because we talk about the real issues that are really
hard and we can still be a team afterwards. That's
that's the key. And there needs to be a real
sense of of humbleness, of quiet confidence so that you
(47:53):
don't go into fight or fight mode, but you can
really listen with with good and tent um. And so
I think this authenticity, respect, humility, learning to listen, knowing
that you can always learn so essential for anything I
think in life. A man, I have never told you this, Dan,
(48:16):
but and this includes the Super Bowl when I was
in the UH booth with Roger Goodell and a bunch
of CEOs. I never told you this. I want you
to get a big hit. But whenever I mentioned your name,
people light up about other leaders Uh CEO universally and
leaders universally all races. Uh. That's I love Dan Shulman.
(48:39):
I respect Dan Schulman. Oh yeah, Dan, he's he's running
a great shot. Oh I really, I'd follow him anywhere.
It's what people say about you when you're not around. Uh,
that gives you some indication, uh that you're on the
right path. And it's very kind of it's very nice
to hear, John, and very kind of you to say,
(49:00):
I know you do it anyway. You would do the
right thing whether they said nice things. That's why people
say that. You know, if you you expect something, and
because you do something because you expect something, it's not
the right reason to do it. I was telling Uh,
a commissioner in the European Union the other day. I said,
(49:21):
sometimes the right thing is just the right thing. It's
you just do it because it's the right thing, and
there doesn't have to be anything else besides that. Well,
and there you have it. Sometimes the right thing is
just the right thing. This is John Hope, Bryan, this
is guilty the good life. My friend Dan shuman On,
(49:43):
this is the master class and what Dan Shulman taught
me to help you build. Be curious, being nosed. Understand
his father taught him. God gave you two ears in
one mouth because it twice as much as you talk.
Reinvent yourself all. Never be satisfied, never settled. The Bible suggests,
(50:04):
be how to be called. If give lukewarm, I'll spatch
you out. Translation. Even God isn't like mediocrity. Whatever you're
gonna do, duel with both feet reinvent yourself. Always understand
that life is a series of software upgrades. What is yours?
Understand that you're better together. That's a good partnership, that's
a good marriage, is a good friendship. If two plus
two equals three, run whoever you're with and whatever you're doing,
(50:26):
two plus two ton equal four or five, six, ten.
And that's why he is reinvested in his people, because
he understands that you cannot even calculate that return on investment.
There is no growth without legitimate suffering. You cannot have
a rainbow without a storm. First, don't trust anybody who
hasn't gone through something, and trust everybody who has been
(50:47):
through a war. And finally, make goodness into your business point.
It is a lot that you can only do well
when somebody else does bed. It is a truth that
you can do well and do good to want truth
to that. Look at Dan Shulman's life story from beginning
to end. That's a drop to mic Master collects from
(51:08):
CEO of PayPal. Then building the Good Life with John
Hope Bryant is brought to you by Credentials Financial
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