April 3, 2025 • 47 mins
From Microsoft dropout to moonshot entrepreneur, Naveen Jain joins Farnoosh as he share's his quest to revolutionize healthcare through AI. From his humble roots in India to becoming the CEO of Viome, serial entrepreneur and visionary Naveen expands on his remarkable journey of resilience and innovation. The former Microsoft executive challenges conventional wisdom about entrepreneurship, revealing why successful founders should actually be risk-averse. Listen as Naveen details his leap into entrepreneurship, bouncing back from his Infospace departure, and his unique perspective on measuring true success.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
My feeling is the day you become an expert in
any subject, any industry, you become useless or I would
say incrementalist in that industry. That means the best you
can be is ten percent better than anyone else in
the industry, but you'll never be ten times better. To
be ten times better, you have to challenge the foundation
(00:28):
of everything that expert has taken for granted.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Navin Jane has built his career by doing exactly that,
challenging assumptions, rethinking industries, and refusing to settle for incremental progress.
A serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, Navine's journey began with humble
beginnings in India, led him to a career at Microsoft
and ultimately to taking the leap to found Infospace and
later Yome, an AI driven health platform focused on preventing
(00:57):
chronic disease. Today we'll hear how he landed on his
feet after leaving Infospace, why he believes entrepreneurs should hate risk,
and how he measures success not just in wealth, but
in impact. I'm furnished to Rabi and this is leading
by example, executives making an impact. Navin Jane, Welcome to
(01:18):
leading by example. It's a pleasure to have you on
the show Varnished.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What an honor and a pleasure to be speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I have so many questions for you. I love to
start at the beginning of beginnings, going back to before
you stepped on us soil, when you were just a
boy living in India. I was reading I think it
was in Fortune you were talking about your father's influence
on you. One big memory is how your father, who
(01:45):
was a worker for the Indian government, he refused to
take bribes, which I guess was an unusual thing, and
as a result, your family moved around a lot and
you attended schools that were not so great. So I
just want to go to that moment in your life
and understand what you were witnessing, how it was making
(02:06):
sense to you, and the influence that your father had.
I know that one of your mantras is choose service
over money, and I wonder if it started at that memory.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
You know, It's really interesting is that when you are
growing up, everyone believes that the things that you don't
have is what you end up desiring. And if you
don't have money, all you want in life is to
just have more money, because you somehow think that's the
most scarce thing you have. And what you realize is
(02:36):
that once you let go of need of having somehow
the money is what brings happiness, you start to find
happiness in everything that's happening around you. And to me,
having that family unit that was together, saw my mom
working very very hard doing odds and ends job just
(02:57):
to make sure we were fed, that was the best
thing that could have happened to me is learning that
nothing about money that's going to bring you happiness. It
is the love of your parents, the love of your family,
the joy you get in having the smallest things in
life brings you that happiness and the things that you
(03:18):
would have wondered that since my dad refused to take bride,
and the way it works is that you know, he
takes a bribe, he takes a piece of it, gives
it to his boss, His boss takes his piece and
gives it to his boss, and everyone gets fed from
that bride. And if he does not take it, no
one in the system is going to get it, and
that means he has to go because no one above
him is getting it right. And we moved every year
(03:40):
year and a half, and looking back, I think I
would have found that to be really disturbing because you
never found some place you called home. But to me,
that was the best thing that my dad could have
possibly offered me, or not my dad by choice, but
the universe actually offered me because I got so comfort
(04:00):
being in a new place that means nothing ever rattled me.
Having to make new friends, it became a common thing.
Not knowing what's going on became a common thing. Not
having a school to go to and simply sitting on
the floor and some elderly person coming in and just
wanting to teach you and learning from that. You know,
that means you can learn something from everyone. And today
(04:23):
when I look back at my life and I say,
you know, that's exactly what I have become that there
is not a person I talk to where I say,
my god, I can't learn anything from this person. Every
person can teach you the smallest thing that you say,
my god, I wish I knew that when I was Yeh.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Did your parents reinforce this to you when you were
a child. I can only imagine some kids sort have
had a very different appreciation, a lack of appreciation right
for that. But you saw it differently. Do you think
that says more about who you are innately or I
guess I'm really asking was it nature or nurture.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I would believe it has to be a nurture because
at the end of the day, parents have a tremendous
influence on children, not by telling them what to do,
but by showing them what to do. And it is
about leading by example. So children don't do what you
(05:18):
tell them to do. Children do what they see you do.
And when I saw my dad willing to take hardships
but not losing the integrity, and that is really what
you learned that you're never going to compromise on the
values you have, despite what you think is in the
immediate gratification that's going to bring you. Because in a
(05:41):
long term, my brother and my sister we look back
and saying, all growing up in this family that has
very little, and the society would have said this family
must not amount too much. And here I look back
and saying, my sister did her post doctorate in applied
mathematics from Indiana, and my brother who is a double
(06:03):
PhD in computer science and statistics, and I was the
least educated person in my family as an undergrad from
my IT and MBA. And really at this point, not
only the God has been kind to us when we
came to the United States, really watching our three children
growing up in an affluent family this time rather than
(06:23):
poverty and still doing the same audacious. Thing that is
really to me is something about nurturing rather than nature.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Wow. Love that perspective. And so you arrive here in
the States, and I understand this was during a time
when there were a lot of immigrants moving here to
pursue school, and many of them stayed. You included what
was the goal when you came here? Initially for my parents,
for example, it was just to get educated, and then
(06:52):
the thought was we're going to go back to the
Middle East, but they ended up staying. What were your
intentions when you came to the US.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Actually I did not want to come to US, and
I didn't really plan to come to US. I was
just finishing up my MBA. In my MBA had nothing
to do with anything that I ended up doing, and
it was really in the personnel management and industrial relations,
which is managing the labor. And there was this computer
(07:20):
company called Burrows in those days, a very large mainframe
company like IBM, they came to the campus and they
were interviewing people for a programming job. And obviously I
have never seen a computer in my life, so what
am I going to do. I'm not going to apply
for a job. And here I'm having a lunch with
a bunch of my friends and one of the friends
during lunch said they would do this aptitude test like
(07:43):
sat before they even interview you. And my friend says,
this is the hardest test he has ever taken. And
I said, like, how how can this really be? And
he said, have you taken it? So you don't get
to talk to me unless you get to go take it.
And I'm like, God, damn it, I'm going to go
take their damn test. So I went there, took the test,
and absolutely asteed. And next day I get a call
(08:03):
from this company and say they want to interview me.
And I say interview me for what? And he say
for computer programming. I said, what's the computer? And he says, oh,
you're playing with us because you obviously know everything about computers.
And I say, I've never seen a computer in my life.
And they honestly believe that I am so good that
I'm just joking with them. They say, you must obviously
(08:25):
know the difference between bit and a bite. I say,
even a moron knows that bittich is small and a
bite is big. And they think I know everything and
I'm just saying that because I'm just trying to minimize
what I know. They say, great, you know what, We're
going to hire you. We're going to teach you everything
about computer and I said, great, I'm hired.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So what is the lesson there?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Honestly, the lesson really is be so confident in yourself. Well,
I don't think I'm talking about faking it. I could
give you a humble answer that you know, I'm really
not that smart and in all that, but the truth
really being too, I was pretty smart kid, i' mean
on top of my class, right, And the fact really
(09:04):
is having that confidence that you can do anything. And
literally they brought me in New Jersey you probably would appreciate.
I ended up in a very very small town near
Flemington called french Town. I know it, tiny, tiny town.
And in those days I'm talking about nineteen eighty two,
and I don't believe they have ever seen anyone who
(09:27):
was not white. And I ended up in this town
and they have seen the first person who was non Caucasian,
and they thought that some alien have landed. And I
was that alien that they were fascinated by. And someday,
when we have more tell the stories about you, talk
about discrimination. I mean, it is a serious issue, at
(09:50):
least in that time. And now I look back and saying,
you know what it is now a reverse discrimination. If
you happen to be a Indian immigrant, they automatically think
you are smart. You know everything about math and science
and computer you are a genius.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Wow wow wow. All right, so you started this first company,
they teach you everything about computers, and you work for
several tech startups, eventually moving up the ranks to Microsoft,
and you worked pretty closely with Bill Gates. How close?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yes? So actually it's really an interesting story. We just
got married in eighty eight and my wife suggested that
we should visit Pacific Northwest, and at that time I thought,
my god, you know it is going to be an
expensive trip. What if I can just fax my resume
to Microsoft? They will of course call me for an
interview and that might get me a fee trip.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
That's a good hack.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So fax my resume and they said we'll put you
up for a week and you come enjoy the place
and if you like it, come interview. Anyway, ended up
getting a job. It was very early days of Microsoft.
I'm now I'm talking late eighties. Microsoft was a very
very small company in those days, and I was working
on something called MS DOS and most people will now
look at me and it's like, what are you talking about?
(11:08):
So anyway, so that were the early early days of Microsoft.
Worked very very closely with Bill. But interesting thing really
is that from there on, as you start to look
at now nineties, and I saw this new phenomena coming
up that obviously the Microsoft was leading the desktop revolution,
(11:29):
a computer on every desk, and the Windows was taken off,
and obviously the office is taken off, and this whole
new idea of the Internet was coming along. And if
you remember in the nineties, they were like five or
six companies that were on the Internet. And I decided
that it's time for me to go do something on
my own. And now I look back, I wish I
(11:50):
had not done that. I ended up doing an interview
when I was leaving, and I told the trade pass
that I'm leaving, and you said, why are you leaving?
And I gave this. Really I would call this awful quote.
They say, I'm tired of making billions for Bill Stanton
had to make some for myself.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So hot take here, I want your hot take on
working with Bill Gates. He has a book out now.
He's trying to be very transparent about his early days,
and before we were recording, you even said that he
was sort of that personality where he didn't know really
when he was doing. He had a curiosity and he
was obviously smart, but he didn't have all the answers
(12:27):
working close to him though. What was a leadership style
that you liked and you would emulate and one that
you would say, no, I'm going to leave that here.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Bill was one of the few people I know who
would in any meeting. You could prepare for a month
for that presentation and you think you have everything answered
and he will ask you a simple question and you
look and it's like, oh, my god, didn't think about that, right.
He just got to the root of the problem that
(12:54):
you have not even thinking about yet. And that intellectual
curiosity was something that I have really on every single
thing I do, I go back and understand what is
it that people actually haven't thought about yet, because everything
they're telling me they have obviously answered the question. But
what is it they're not thinking about and asking those questions?
Is really what you learned from him? And I would
(13:15):
say that Microsoft culture in those days was extremely aggressive culture.
I mean Microsoft was a company where people prided that
how rude they could have been to each other or
any vendor. They took pride in tearing down people. And
we were supposed to be a terrible partner. Nobody wanted
to partner with Microsoft, right. That was true for Apple also.
(13:38):
I mean if you read the Steve Jobs biography, and
if you look at the autobiography of Bill, I really
think you start to learn a lot of things. What
drove Steve Jobs to be Steve?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, that's a whole other quo. But I appreciate what
you were saying about Drive. That's a great transition for
us because I want to get into Navine's drive. You
have built an empire across industries, infospace, Moon, Express, biome.
It's rare to find an entrepreneur who's made such vast shifts.
I've interviewed billionaires, I've interviewed top CEOs and entrepreneurs, and
(14:13):
they don't always stay in their lanes, but they tend to.
And you have definitely explored many frontiers.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Why my feeling is, the day you become an expert
in any subject, any industry, you become useless or I
would say incrementalists in that industry. That means the best
you can be is ten percent better than anyone else
in the industry, but you'll never be ten times better.
To be ten times better, you have to challenge the
(14:41):
foundation of everything that expert has taken for granted. And
that's the fundamental problem is non experts come along challenge
everything that you have taken it for granted, completely, rethink
and recreate and reinvent the industry, and the whole industry
gets disrupted. And that, to me is the power of
(15:01):
thinking like a naive person. So I've now done seven
companies and no two companies have ever been in the
same industry is because of that. And I really think
this idea of counterintuitive thinking applies to not just if
you talked about parenting, It applies to leadership. It applies
to companies that you do that everything that people will
(15:24):
tell you that before you do anything, you have to
spend ten thousand hours becoming an expert. But the problem is,
by the time you spend ten thousand hours, you have
actually now become so useless because you're no longer thinking
like someone who is from outside the industry.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
All right, let's double click on this. What are some
other counterintuitive leadership skills mindsets that you really think are important?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So I would say that number one thing is what
questions are you asking? The questions you ask are the
problems you solve. And I think I'm going to give
you a couple of examples because that really defines the
fundamentally why people fail. So if you say, I want
to solve world hunger problem, let's just start with something simple, right,
(16:11):
I want to solve world hunger. And if you talk
to any expert, they will tell you, oh, as we
have the larger population, you have to increase the yield
of the crop. A lot of the food gets wasted
during transportation, so you have to actually change that we
transport our food to reduce the wastage. And how we
(16:32):
need to grow the food vertically, and how we need
to use the aeroponic and the hydroponic to reduce the UNBLA.
But no one will ever ask a question why do
we eat food? Because when you ask a question why
do we eat food? You realize the reason you need
to eat food is two things. You need energy and
you need nutrition. What are the different ways can you
(16:53):
get energy? The plants get energy from photosynthesis, and there
are bacteria that are growing up in the radioactive nuclear waste.
Not only they have figured out how to protect their
DNA against radiation, now they in fact use radiation as
a source of energy. What if you can take a
genetic material, use crisper in VVO to modify our own genes,
and now you can say, honey, do you want to
(17:13):
go out for radiation? Is there? Honey? Do you want
to go out and have a pizza?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You fundamentally change the problem by asking a different question,
and the solutions now that are available to you would
have never been available to you unless you ask those questions.
And that's really the beauty of a person, a leader
who is asking a different question than everyone else in
the industry, is asking.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
How do you assemble a team that gets behind this.
This can be terrifying for especially younger workers. They're not
used to thinking outside the box like you are. They
may not be able to support you, how do you
interview people in the way that you need to to
get them to be on your team.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Well, actually, that is very interesting, is that your team
really need to be team of experts. That's it is
so counterintuitor. You have to be a non experts. You're
challenging them, but you do need the set of experts
who knows what to do, and your job is to
challenge them. Why can't you do it this way? Tell
me why this won't work? Okay, I'm constantly challenging our
(18:17):
scientists not knowing anything. Why can't we just do it
this way? And he looks at me, rolls his eyes
and says, because that will never work. Can you explain
to me why that won't work? And halfway through explaining
and he said, I don't know. I have to try
it and see and it comes back and says I
can't believe it actually works. And that is the thing
is that once you keep challenging them and keep asking them,
(18:38):
because your job is to keep understanding what they're saying
and ask more and more in depth questions until they say,
you know what, let me try it. It just might work.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So would you say that your leadership type is best
described as visionary.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know, this visionary label is being so misused, right,
and people think of visionary are the ones that are
not grounded and they see these things that are out
there that are just impossible and they have no concept
of reality. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm
talking about. It's still being grounded, but really looking at
(19:13):
the problem not from outside the box, but in a
completely different box. So you always have to think in
a box, but you're bringing the knowledge of a different
industry into another industry and that's what allows you to
challenge the things. Right, So I'm not talking about the
visionary is someone who says, you know, I think we
can live on Mars and this is going to be
(19:34):
no problem, and here's how you're going to do that.
And my answer is, of course, we can live on
Mars or Venus anywhere we want. And this is the
second part of really you're asking me. The leadership style
is that you take every complex problem. You don't focus
on how you focus on what are the subset of
problems you have to solve for this big problem to
(19:56):
be solved. Basically, what I'm saying is take a complex problem,
break it down into small problems and they all start
to look very solvable. And then you see the what
is the biggest problem that's unsolvable, and that is what
you work on to make it solvable. And so when
people say the entrepreneurs are risk takers, I can tell
you that entrepreneurs hate taking risk. What is the first
(20:20):
thing they do, what's the biggest risk? Let me minimize
that risk. So they are the risk mitigation people. They're
not risk takers. So anyone who tells you entrepreneurs take risks,
they don't understand.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Entrepren right right right. Success as a side effective service,
it's more than a motto for Navine, it's a business model.
When we come back, we dive into biome the moonshot
company using AI and microbiome science to transform how we
understand and prevent disease.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that
improve people's life. So every day when you wake up,
ask yourself, what should I do to make other people's
life better.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We'll be right back. So I want to walk through
some of your companies and have you provide some takeaways
big lessons learned in each of these milestones in your career.
Infospace was one of your earliest successes, a tech giant
(21:25):
in the dot com era. So I'm going to express
you check from software to space exploration.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yes, And my belief still is the humanity's biggest problems
are going to be a clean source of energy that
is so abundant that it's almost free. And the only
way to do that is a fusion energy. And now
people say the fusion people have been talking about fusion
for twenty years and it's always ten years away. I'm
(21:53):
about to tell you another controversial thing. In the next
one to two years, you're going to start to see
a net fusion reactors. That means they're going to be
delivering the net energy out of the fusion reactors, and
that's a game changer. All you do is from there
on is scale and once you can do that, you
literally have an energy source that is non radioactive. That
(22:17):
means the waste of fusion is not a radioactivity. It
is safe, it is abundant, and all it needs is
a small amount of helium three that can power this
planet for decades, if not generations. Now we knew the
biggest source we would need will be helium three. Helium
three is an isotop a helium which is abundant on
(22:39):
Moon and it's very rare on planet Earth. And we thought,
what if we can actually start working on mining the
Moon for helium three. And by the time we are
ready to do that, there'll be someone out there building
the fusion reactor and say does anyone have helium three?
And you want to be the first one to say, yep,
got some helium three. And that really was to see
(23:00):
that how could we intercept the technologies of tomorrow rather
than actually looking at what is available today. And that
is going to be my next theme in terms of
your asking me about how do you think about leadership?
So this is really about when you are building a company,
you look at what had changed in the last couple
(23:21):
of years, but more importantly, you want to look at
what is going to happen in the next three, five
and ten years. And you want to be able to say,
what could I do to use these exponential technology that
are going to be available to me in three, five
or ten years to be able to use them at
scale in three five years and the thing that I'm
(23:42):
trying to do was not possible five years ago. That
means I'm not using yesterday's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
But I'm intercepting tomorrow's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
What do you use for research to know what is
happening in the next like, I want that because I
don't know if that's so accessible to everybody.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It is very accessible. That is the beauty. So now
I'm gonna talk to you about why because it literally
fits into your question you're asking me now, as you
can imagine, I was not a rocket scientist. I don't
have aeronautical degree. And then eight years ago I saw
my dad was diagnosed with stage four pen credic cancer
and he was given three months to live, and unfortunately
(24:25):
that's all he got. I didn't even know that he
was sick. Let alone is stage four cancer, And I'm thinking,
it is it? Why is it? We don't have anything
out there that can allow us to detect these diseases early.
And what really shocked me was how much I had
taken it for granted that he was turning eighty. You know,
(24:45):
of course he's gonna have diabetes, he's getting old. Of
course he's gonna have high blood pressure. Of course he's
gonna have hard disease. Of course he's gonna have all
these chronic diseases because he's getting older. And then I
sat back and saying, there's nothing in the human body
that is written that as you get forty you're going
to start gain weight. You turn fifty, you're gonna have diabetes.
You turn sixty, you're gonna have alzheimer. And yet more
(25:07):
and more people are getting sicker and sicker at younger
and younger age. What if, and this is really the
beauty of every company. You ask yourself, what if? What
if we can actually understand what changes in the human
body at the onset and during the progression of these
chronic diseases. And if we can do that, we can
(25:29):
actually diagnose the disease early, prevent them from happening, and
we can outright reverse them. And this is where I'm
going to give you a framework that I use. So
before you start any project and farnush, this is for you,
ask yourself three questions. Why this? Why now? Why me?
(25:49):
Why this is? Ask yourself, if I am actually successful
in solving the problem that I set out to solve,
would it help a bit billion people live a better life?
Not because I'm a philanthropist, Not because I want to
do good in the world. Yes, and yes, but I
am a capitalist at heart that tells me if I
(26:11):
can build any product, any service that can help a
billion people live a better life, I can create one
hundred billion dollar company, because now those billion people whose
life is better become my customer. But you never wake
up in the morning saying what should I do to
create a hundred billion dollar company? Knowing the making money
is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve people's life.
(26:34):
So every day when you wake up, ask yourself what
should I do to make other people's life better? And
this is where I'm going to stop for a second
and give you my compliment for what you do, because
what you are doing is helping millions and billions of
people bring these ideas in these wisdom with the people
(26:57):
that they may not have a chance to talk to.
And what you doing is going to impact lives of
hundreds of millions of people. So I want to thank
you for what you do.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Furnish, thank you so much. You're the first person I've
interviewed to thank me. You're very generous. Absolutely, you did
an interview about ten years ago where you told your
oldest son ancore that success is not about how much
money you are going to have, but how many lives
you're going to improve. So echoing what you just shared,
but then you know there are people out there again
(27:28):
in our capitalist world, who are chasing the money, and
to some extent, money is important. Right, there is a
need for money. What is your biggest piece of advice
for that person, other than just it's a mindset shift.
You have to focus on the helping of the people
and being in service. The money will follow. Some people
are skeptical of that because we don't live in the
(27:48):
world necessarily that rewards hard work and effort and good intentions.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So, first of all, I'm going to say something that
I'm going to regret saying making money is like having
an orgasm. If you focus on it, you're never going
to get it. So you just have to learn to
enjoy the process.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
The money comes as a byproduct of doing things that
improve people's lives, and if you keep doing it, there
is no way you won't make money because people whose
life you're making better, they become your loyal customer. That
is how you make money. And now I'm going to
come back on the thought about you mentioned Ancore. So
I have three children, and my oldest is Uncore, who
(28:27):
is now thirty four, and very early I start to
work with him on rethinking the mindset. And I'm going
to give you some of the ideas about how this
will come about, counter and you to parenting. But they apply.
Everything that I'm talking about leadership also applies to parenting.
And everything I'm going to talk about parenting will also
apply to leadership. Right, so let me give you first
(28:48):
my qualifications to talk about parenting.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
So, Uncore is thirty four. As you probably know, he
was on the cover of Forbes, and he is already
a billionaire on his own for doing things that he
wanted to solve. One of the most audacious problems, how
do you reward people when they're young and they're renting
their places. Our daughter went to Stanford. She became the
(29:11):
Stanford stem Fellow, Stanford Mayfield Fellow, and first company she
did was using AI to remove gender bias. And now
she has a women's health company called av Evvy. It
is completely rethinking women's health because she realized women want
to be allowed to be in clinical research that miss
every drug that women take were never tested on women.
(29:32):
Women are diagnosed for the same deceased seven years later
than man are. There is a massive gender gap, and
she's filling the gender gap with using avvy. And when
she was sixteen she did not want to think anything
about science and technology, and how I changed her mind
to think of his science and technology as a set
of tools for you to do the things you care about,
(29:53):
not as a destination in itself. My youngest also went
to Stanford and he's a Shortsman's scholar. Three kids, amazing
kids grew up unlike me in an extremely affluent family.
They had no reason to work for a day, and
we never told them that we were poor. In fact,
there were times when they were very young my wife
(30:14):
told me that maybe we should move into a small
place and tell our children that we really don't have
much money and they will be fine. I say, sweety.
Someday they will learn to read. And when they learned
to read, they know the dad is not poor. So
let's not do that. Let's rethink about what parenting is
going to be. And that's where we start to talk
to them about what success means. That means your self
(30:35):
worth never comes from what you own. Your self worth
comes from what you create. And if you haven't created
anything and you still own a lot, then you still
a parasite on society. So don't be a parasite. Now
in terms of the biggest thing you can do as
a parent or as a leader is to create intellectual curiosity.
(30:55):
And this is a counterintuitive approach. So when Pharnush, your
son looks at you and says, mom, mom, look at
such a beautiful blue sky, what do you tell him?
Your first reactions you look up and say, wow, it
is indeed a very beautiful blue sky. Now imagine what
if you challenge that and say, son, do you know
that sky doesn't really exist? A sky is simply a
(31:18):
figment of our imagination, is simply the blue light that's
being scattered, and it looks like that barrier called sky,
but it doesn't really exist. And that you mentioned color blue,
you know there is no blue, right. It's simply the
electromagnetic waves hitting our retina, and our mind is converting
these electromagnetic waves into these colors. But the color doesn't exist.
(31:39):
And it's not about teaching him the signs. It is
about allowing him to think that something that he's so
certain about that he sees with his own eyes, and
what if that is even wrong? What if everything that
you're seeing can be challenged because it may be wrong.
And that is what intellectual curiosity is about, not to
(32:01):
take anything for granted and say, what if that is wrong?
What would the world look like? What if that could
be changed? What would the world look like? Never look
at the world as is, Look at the world what
it can be. So when they were young, most parents
read them the stories. I would ask them to create
stories and say, tell me a story about a monkey
(32:23):
and an ocean and a palm tree. And they have
to connect these things together in a coherent way. And
then say, now dad, you turn, tell me a story
about this, this, and this, And they come up with
the three weirdest thing possible. And my job is to
connect them. And what I'm teaching them is everything in
life can be connected if you think in the right
abstract terms. And that is really the beauty is how
(32:46):
you create these intellectual curiosity in young children.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Who are your mentors? Where do you find the wisdom?
Because I don't know if the lived experience is enough
to have the wisdom that you have.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I would say life is your big mentor life never
stops teaching. What happens is we stop learning. The trick
is that every person you meet has something to teach you.
And what happens is we get so caught up in
our own world we believe the only people we can
learn from are the people, somehow who are in our mind,
(33:18):
more successful than us. And what I realize is that
you learn something from everyone. If you stop by and
talk to that homeless person and ask him what happened
and the lessons you can learn from, that is probably
more meaningful than someone who has been a billionaire for
a hundred years and they're trying to tell you how
to be ability there.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, do you feel levin that having a certain amount
of wealth comes with a different kind of responsibility, a
corporate responsibility, a different way of managing your money.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
I don't really think about money as anything other than
simply a tool that allows you to do the things
that you actually care And a lot of the times
people say that money changes you, And all I can
tell you is money does not change you. Money simply
allows you to become who you really were to begin with. Yes,
(34:12):
so if you were an asshole, money simply allows you
to be a bigger asshole. But it does not change
you if you were really truly a good human being,
money doesn't really change you. And my wife always hates
my saying that you know no one or nothing outside
you can ever bring happiness to you. The happiness really
comes from inside you. And if you are happy, you
(34:34):
could be sitting in a dark corner and still be happy.
And if you are unhappy inside, you could be in
a paradise and you still be unhappy. So looking for
happiness from someone or somewhere is really not where the
happiness will ever come from.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I said this exactly to my ten year old yesterday.
We have this conversation a lot in my house. It
has to be taught young and it has to be reinforced, yes,
because there are too many adults still that don't understand
this very important concept. Before we go, a couple more questions.
So those who are very successful and wealthy in our
(35:09):
country and globally, there's a lot of interest in the moon,
there's a lot of interest in space. Why is that
you think?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I think humans are just explorers. I mean, you think
about it. We were in oceans and we explored the land,
and then when we were in Africa, savannahs of Africa.
We explored the rest of the land. We went to
west and say, son, go west right until we hit
the ocean. And then we crossed the ocean and we
went to the next land. And we are explorers and
(35:38):
we look up and we see these things to be
explored and the only most visible, the big thing is
our eighth continent, so to say, is moon. And you know,
coming back to Wyome is explore the thing in the outside.
I wanted to then explore the thing inside you, right,
because there are a one hundred trillion micropes that are
living in your gut and living in your mouth, living
(36:00):
all over us, and just very similar to the number
of stars and the number of galaxies. What are there?
So I said, look, what if we can actually now
look inside us as a explorer and find what is happening?
And that journey that I was telling you about my
dad being sick, I'm going to just take you on
that journey eight years later. So we have now analyzed
(36:22):
one million people. With these one million people, we have
now collected one hundred quadlion biological data point. So it
starts really simple, Pharnush. You go to voume dot com.
You order a kid, give us a spit of your saliva,
four drops of your fingerprin blood, a touch of your stool.
We in fact now analyze not hundred, not thousand, not million,
(36:45):
one hundred million biomarkers, and we tell you what's your
biological age, is your cognitive health, your heart health, your
gut health, your oral health, your immune health. And if
you want to go nerdy, we tell you everything about
the things about LPs production or ammonia production, and then
we say, you know what, far nouche. Don't eat broccoli
(37:06):
right now because your selfide production is too high. It
is going to harm you. Or don't eat avocado, even
though everyone thinks is healthy, it's not good for you
right now because your uric acid production is too high.
Or don't eat spinach despite Popeye telling you spinach is
good for everyone. Your oxalates are not being metabolized. The
spinach is not good for you. But you can eat
red meat if you want, because the colleen in the
(37:27):
red meat is not being metabolized into TMA and your
liver is not making tmaoh using enzyme called FMO three.
So now we can tell you you can eat these foods,
and here is why don't eat these foods. Here is why.
And then we say, in addition to the food, you
should take twenty two milligram of lic open every day.
And we literally create a formula for each individual every month.
(37:49):
And every month I get a new formula made for me.
I get my gut biotics that are made just for me,
as prescribed just for me. I have my aural loszenses
to add just my oral microbiome. And then I even
have my personalized toothpaste for morning and evening just made
for me.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And having done this in six months, we published the
research that shows that your diabetes comes down by thirty percent,
your anxiety down by forty two percent, your depression down
by forty seven percent, and fifteen percent of population that
suffers from ibs like stomach ache, constipation, digestive issues down
by forty nine percent in six month. Think about that,
(38:29):
just using food as a medicine. So when Hippocrates says
let food be thy medicine, he really you are the
real scientist.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Oh my gosh, we could do a whole episode on this.
I find it so frustrated that the medical industry is
reluctant to give you a food diagnostic because they say, well,
there haven't been enough studies. But here you are a
million people studied.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And by the way, you publish the peer reviewed, double blanded,
placebo controlled results. Right. But here's why our medical industrial
complex makes money. When you and I are sick. Everyone
makes money.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't like preventing you from getting sick.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
No one makes money when you're healthy. That is why
I really believe we have to rethink healthcare where we
really believe each person has to become the CEO of
their own health. They just have to know what foods
are good for them. What we learned is there's no
such thing as universal healthy food. However, they are universal
unhealthy food. As someone says, one man's food is another
(39:28):
man's poison.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Oh my gosh. All right, final question, and then I'm
going to go on viol and order a bunch of kids.
The title of this podcast is leading by Example, so
of course we have to ask you what does leading
by example mean to you? And You've sort of touched
on this, but I really want to drive it home.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So I think, to me, the leading by example means
is be the person that you want your employees to be.
Be the person that you want your children to be.
Don't tell people what to do, show them what to do.
And the only leaders the one who lead from front
by showing what needs to be done, by being the
(40:06):
person they want you to be, not someone screaming at
the back and see run up the hill, run up
the hill, and having never run up the hill themselves.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Excellent, Navin Jane, what a privilege, what a joy to
spend time with you. Thank you so much for coming
on our show.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Thank you for I really appreciate you, and I'm looking
forward to our next conversation, hopefully soon.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
So Kia, thank you for booking Navine. He is one
of the most fascinating people I've ever come across in
my life. And we were just saying, like, imagine leading
your country. You were born in poverty and now you
are a billionaire and you're creating generational billionaires.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, that family line is going to be good for
a couple of generations for sure.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
And not for nothing. But I don't know him that well.
I spent only an hour with him, but I have
interviewed other billionaires and I will say that if they're
there's going to be someone in this world that has
the privilege of billion dollars to their name. I wanted
to be someone like Navine right, who seems to be
completely driven by the desire to help and the desire
(41:15):
to solve problems. I mean, if you had a billion
dollars to your name, what do you think you would
be doing with your life?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Like now? Because I'm a certain age and like, if
I grew into a million dollars, that's a different story.
But if I had a billion dollars now, I'm definitely
living the good life, like travel everywhere, make sure my
family's good, and then definitely goes to a financial advisor
talk to Pernage.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
About how to keep I'll only charge one percent, but
I think, yes, there are lifestyle changes we'd make, and
we want to live the good life. But I think
there comes a lot of pressure. And my question to
him about that sense of responsibility that comes with having
this enormous amount of wealth which was helped and built
by Yes, your vision and your determination, but also like
(42:01):
teams helped you get there, right, Like he said he
was tired of helping Bill Gates make billions. Yeah, so
I'm going to go make my billions, but then you
also need people to help you make your billions. But
I think also what he would agree with probably is
that he is where he's at because he's had also
the opportunity to work with the right people.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yeah. I like how he acknowledged that, because I think
that's really important. It's like, unless you're a solo entrepreneur,
which you can only get so far, you obviously need
people to help you in certain ways. And like he said,
you can't be an expert in just one thing that
you need people that are experts, And like, oh, that
was fascinating.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
I loved his counterintuitive way of thinking through leadership and
even parenting, and to his point, parenting, leadership, business, it's
all very similar in how you frame it. And I
think what he was saying about risk was really interesting.
Like people often think that people who are entrepreneurial, who
(43:01):
are leaders they love risk. No, no, no, actually all
they think about is risk, but not because they're always
like I want more of it. It's actually, yeah, I
need to control for risk, which is true. I also
loved what he said about once you become an expert
in your field, that is sometimes the sign the clue
that you're ready to move on to something else that's
(43:24):
going to continue to further you along and allow you
to have a bigger impact on the world, because once
you're that expert, it's very hard to sort of step
outside of that and see what's next and see what
the problems are in the next year that you want
to solve that you're sort of like, I don't know
if you've got complacent, but while you're the expert, you
(43:44):
know it all, so you're just like I'm here, I've arrived.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
I think people think it's easier when you're up the expert.
That's like you can, I guess in the corporate role,
like move up in the ranks, but you definitely think
it limits your mindset. And I also think when you
get higher up, people don't want to criticize you as
much in a way. Yeah, so like I'm sure that
doesn't help either. But I also liked how he said
you can learn more from life and like people's life experiences,
(44:08):
like you should ask the homeless person, how did you
get here?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Because that is so.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Smart, Like the quote it's like we're only like a
medical surgery and like one mist payment from being on
the streets It's really not that hard to become that
in America. So I think it was really smart that
he's like, I actually listened to people that have certain
life experiences, not just the.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Bill Gates of the world.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
It's nice to hear that from someone at his caliber,
because I think we just think that the bigger you are,
the more important your life is, and that's just not
the case.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, what he was saying about expertise and the importance
of being open to changing lanes and trying new things,
it reminded me of Shannon Skuyler. Actually, she's with PwC.
We interviewed her on this podcast and she was talking
about how she held almost every kind of job at
PwC before she became at the Helm of Human Resources
there and I saw a little bit of a parallel there,
(44:58):
and like, I feel like she would also appreciate that
mindset with no firsthand the benefits of getting outside your
comfort zone, trying new things, your goal not to be
the expert, and then folding your hands you know that
you want to continue to challenge yourself.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. What did you think about rich people being mean?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I loved that. I wanted to give him a big
giant hug when he said that, because this is a
philosophy that I have always believed in my work as
someone who has studied personal finance and met a lot
of people and helped a lot of people with their money,
I believe that money makes you more of who you are.
Not to be confused with if you're in poverty and
(45:43):
you make money and you're out of poverty, that doesn't
make your life better and you don't get happier. My
point is that I think Navean's point was that if
at the core you are a generous person, or if
at the core you are a greedy person, you can
be greedy and still be in your car without money
to your name. Right, Greed is not something that is
(46:05):
a financial construct. It's sometimes just your personality. Yeah, And
to his point, when you have more money, which is
what is money, it's a resource, it's a tool. When
you have that, you have choices now to make and
are you going to make good choices or bad choices?
Sometimes it is based on the person inside of you.
If you've got someone who's really rich and unkind, it's
(46:27):
not that their money made them unkind. Maybe they use
their money to disassociate and they don't have awareness anymore,
They don't have empathy. Money didn't make that choice for them.
They made that choice with their money. So I love that. Yeah,
I also think that we didn't discuss it. But you know,
at his age and stage in life, he could just
be enjoying his life. And I would think he is
(46:49):
enjoying his life. I think that's the point, Like he
enjoys life by not sitting still. You know, he's a
get up at four am kind of person, multi hyphen it,
serial entrepreneur. That's what actually makes him happy. And I
don't think that he's the type of person that will
ever quote unquote stop working. Probably not, yeah no, but
(47:10):
we will all benefit from.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
That, yeah, exactly. So it's his destiny, it's his journey,
which is great.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much
as we did. If you like what you're hearing, please
follow and subscribes you don't miss out on any new episodes,
and as always, we want to hear your thoughts to
make this the best show possible, so please leave us
a review. In the meantime, you can find me at
farnwosh Charabi on Instagram, and I'm always on the So
Money podcast. I'll see you next time. This podcast is
(47:39):
a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio. Our executive producer is
Matt Stillo and our supervising producer is Nikiah Swinton. This
podcast was edited by Sierra Spreen.
My feeling is the day you become an expert in
any subject, any industry, you become useless or I would
say incrementalist in that industry. That means the best you
can be is ten percent better than anyone else in
the industry, but you'll never be ten times better. To
be ten times better, you have to challenge the foundation
(00:28):
of everything that expert has taken for granted.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Navin Jane has built his career by doing exactly that,
challenging assumptions, rethinking industries, and refusing to settle for incremental progress.
A serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, Navine's journey began with humble
beginnings in India, led him to a career at Microsoft
and ultimately to taking the leap to found Infospace and
later Yome, an AI driven health platform focused on preventing
(00:57):
chronic disease. Today we'll hear how he landed on his
feet after leaving Infospace, why he believes entrepreneurs should hate risk,
and how he measures success not just in wealth, but
in impact. I'm furnished to Rabi and this is leading
by example, executives making an impact. Navin Jane, Welcome to
(01:18):
leading by example. It's a pleasure to have you on
the show Varnished.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What an honor and a pleasure to be speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I have so many questions for you. I love to
start at the beginning of beginnings, going back to before
you stepped on us soil, when you were just a
boy living in India. I was reading I think it
was in Fortune you were talking about your father's influence
on you. One big memory is how your father, who
(01:45):
was a worker for the Indian government, he refused to
take bribes, which I guess was an unusual thing, and
as a result, your family moved around a lot and
you attended schools that were not so great. So I
just want to go to that moment in your life
and understand what you were witnessing, how it was making
(02:06):
sense to you, and the influence that your father had.
I know that one of your mantras is choose service
over money, and I wonder if it started at that memory.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
You know, It's really interesting is that when you are
growing up, everyone believes that the things that you don't
have is what you end up desiring. And if you
don't have money, all you want in life is to
just have more money, because you somehow think that's the
most scarce thing you have. And what you realize is
(02:36):
that once you let go of need of having somehow
the money is what brings happiness, you start to find
happiness in everything that's happening around you. And to me,
having that family unit that was together, saw my mom
working very very hard doing odds and ends job just
(02:57):
to make sure we were fed, that was the best
thing that could have happened to me is learning that
nothing about money that's going to bring you happiness. It
is the love of your parents, the love of your family,
the joy you get in having the smallest things in
life brings you that happiness and the things that you
(03:18):
would have wondered that since my dad refused to take bride,
and the way it works is that you know, he
takes a bribe, he takes a piece of it, gives
it to his boss, His boss takes his piece and
gives it to his boss, and everyone gets fed from
that bride. And if he does not take it, no
one in the system is going to get it, and
that means he has to go because no one above
him is getting it right. And we moved every year
(03:40):
year and a half, and looking back, I think I
would have found that to be really disturbing because you
never found some place you called home. But to me,
that was the best thing that my dad could have
possibly offered me, or not my dad by choice, but
the universe actually offered me because I got so comfort
(04:00):
being in a new place that means nothing ever rattled me.
Having to make new friends, it became a common thing.
Not knowing what's going on became a common thing. Not
having a school to go to and simply sitting on
the floor and some elderly person coming in and just
wanting to teach you and learning from that. You know,
that means you can learn something from everyone. And today
(04:23):
when I look back at my life and I say,
you know, that's exactly what I have become that there
is not a person I talk to where I say,
my god, I can't learn anything from this person. Every
person can teach you the smallest thing that you say,
my god, I wish I knew that when I was Yeh.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Did your parents reinforce this to you when you were
a child. I can only imagine some kids sort have
had a very different appreciation, a lack of appreciation right
for that. But you saw it differently. Do you think
that says more about who you are innately or I
guess I'm really asking was it nature or nurture.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I would believe it has to be a nurture because
at the end of the day, parents have a tremendous
influence on children, not by telling them what to do,
but by showing them what to do. And it is
about leading by example. So children don't do what you
(05:18):
tell them to do. Children do what they see you do.
And when I saw my dad willing to take hardships
but not losing the integrity, and that is really what
you learned that you're never going to compromise on the
values you have, despite what you think is in the
immediate gratification that's going to bring you. Because in a
(05:41):
long term, my brother and my sister we look back
and saying, all growing up in this family that has
very little, and the society would have said this family
must not amount too much. And here I look back
and saying, my sister did her post doctorate in applied
mathematics from Indiana, and my brother who is a double
(06:03):
PhD in computer science and statistics, and I was the
least educated person in my family as an undergrad from
my IT and MBA. And really at this point, not
only the God has been kind to us when we
came to the United States, really watching our three children
growing up in an affluent family this time rather than
(06:23):
poverty and still doing the same audacious. Thing that is
really to me is something about nurturing rather than nature.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Wow. Love that perspective. And so you arrive here in
the States, and I understand this was during a time
when there were a lot of immigrants moving here to
pursue school, and many of them stayed. You included what
was the goal when you came here? Initially for my parents,
for example, it was just to get educated, and then
(06:52):
the thought was we're going to go back to the
Middle East, but they ended up staying. What were your
intentions when you came to the US.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Actually I did not want to come to US, and
I didn't really plan to come to US. I was
just finishing up my MBA. In my MBA had nothing
to do with anything that I ended up doing, and
it was really in the personnel management and industrial relations,
which is managing the labor. And there was this computer
(07:20):
company called Burrows in those days, a very large mainframe
company like IBM, they came to the campus and they
were interviewing people for a programming job. And obviously I
have never seen a computer in my life, so what
am I going to do. I'm not going to apply
for a job. And here I'm having a lunch with
a bunch of my friends and one of the friends
during lunch said they would do this aptitude test like
(07:43):
sat before they even interview you. And my friend says,
this is the hardest test he has ever taken. And
I said, like, how how can this really be? And
he said, have you taken it? So you don't get
to talk to me unless you get to go take it.
And I'm like, God, damn it, I'm going to go
take their damn test. So I went there, took the test,
and absolutely asteed. And next day I get a call
(08:03):
from this company and say they want to interview me.
And I say interview me for what? And he say
for computer programming. I said, what's the computer? And he says, oh,
you're playing with us because you obviously know everything about computers.
And I say, I've never seen a computer in my life.
And they honestly believe that I am so good that
I'm just joking with them. They say, you must obviously
(08:25):
know the difference between bit and a bite. I say,
even a moron knows that bittich is small and a
bite is big. And they think I know everything and
I'm just saying that because I'm just trying to minimize
what I know. They say, great, you know what, We're
going to hire you. We're going to teach you everything
about computer and I said, great, I'm hired.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So what is the lesson there?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Honestly, the lesson really is be so confident in yourself. Well,
I don't think I'm talking about faking it. I could
give you a humble answer that you know, I'm really
not that smart and in all that, but the truth
really being too, I was pretty smart kid, i' mean
on top of my class, right, And the fact really
(09:04):
is having that confidence that you can do anything. And
literally they brought me in New Jersey you probably would appreciate.
I ended up in a very very small town near
Flemington called french Town. I know it, tiny, tiny town.
And in those days I'm talking about nineteen eighty two,
and I don't believe they have ever seen anyone who
(09:27):
was not white. And I ended up in this town
and they have seen the first person who was non Caucasian,
and they thought that some alien have landed. And I
was that alien that they were fascinated by. And someday,
when we have more tell the stories about you, talk
about discrimination. I mean, it is a serious issue, at
(09:50):
least in that time. And now I look back and saying,
you know what it is now a reverse discrimination. If
you happen to be a Indian immigrant, they automatically think
you are smart. You know everything about math and science
and computer you are a genius.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Wow wow wow. All right, so you started this first company,
they teach you everything about computers, and you work for
several tech startups, eventually moving up the ranks to Microsoft,
and you worked pretty closely with Bill Gates. How close?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yes? So actually it's really an interesting story. We just
got married in eighty eight and my wife suggested that
we should visit Pacific Northwest, and at that time I thought,
my god, you know it is going to be an
expensive trip. What if I can just fax my resume
to Microsoft? They will of course call me for an
interview and that might get me a fee trip.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
That's a good hack.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So fax my resume and they said we'll put you
up for a week and you come enjoy the place
and if you like it, come interview. Anyway, ended up
getting a job. It was very early days of Microsoft.
I'm now I'm talking late eighties. Microsoft was a very
very small company in those days, and I was working
on something called MS DOS and most people will now
look at me and it's like, what are you talking about?
(11:08):
So anyway, so that were the early early days of Microsoft.
Worked very very closely with Bill. But interesting thing really
is that from there on, as you start to look
at now nineties, and I saw this new phenomena coming
up that obviously the Microsoft was leading the desktop revolution,
(11:29):
a computer on every desk, and the Windows was taken off,
and obviously the office is taken off, and this whole
new idea of the Internet was coming along. And if
you remember in the nineties, they were like five or
six companies that were on the Internet. And I decided
that it's time for me to go do something on
my own. And now I look back, I wish I
(11:50):
had not done that. I ended up doing an interview
when I was leaving, and I told the trade pass
that I'm leaving, and you said, why are you leaving?
And I gave this. Really I would call this awful quote.
They say, I'm tired of making billions for Bill Stanton
had to make some for myself.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So hot take here, I want your hot take on
working with Bill Gates. He has a book out now.
He's trying to be very transparent about his early days,
and before we were recording, you even said that he
was sort of that personality where he didn't know really
when he was doing. He had a curiosity and he
was obviously smart, but he didn't have all the answers
(12:27):
working close to him though. What was a leadership style
that you liked and you would emulate and one that
you would say, no, I'm going to leave that here.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Bill was one of the few people I know who
would in any meeting. You could prepare for a month
for that presentation and you think you have everything answered
and he will ask you a simple question and you
look and it's like, oh, my god, didn't think about that, right.
He just got to the root of the problem that
(12:54):
you have not even thinking about yet. And that intellectual
curiosity was something that I have really on every single
thing I do, I go back and understand what is
it that people actually haven't thought about yet, because everything
they're telling me they have obviously answered the question. But
what is it they're not thinking about and asking those questions?
Is really what you learned from him? And I would
(13:15):
say that Microsoft culture in those days was extremely aggressive culture.
I mean Microsoft was a company where people prided that
how rude they could have been to each other or
any vendor. They took pride in tearing down people. And
we were supposed to be a terrible partner. Nobody wanted
to partner with Microsoft, right. That was true for Apple also.
(13:38):
I mean if you read the Steve Jobs biography, and
if you look at the autobiography of Bill, I really
think you start to learn a lot of things. What
drove Steve Jobs to be Steve?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, that's a whole other quo. But I appreciate what
you were saying about Drive. That's a great transition for
us because I want to get into Navine's drive. You
have built an empire across industries, infospace, Moon, Express, biome.
It's rare to find an entrepreneur who's made such vast shifts.
I've interviewed billionaires, I've interviewed top CEOs and entrepreneurs, and
(14:13):
they don't always stay in their lanes, but they tend to.
And you have definitely explored many frontiers.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Why my feeling is, the day you become an expert
in any subject, any industry, you become useless or I
would say incrementalists in that industry. That means the best
you can be is ten percent better than anyone else
in the industry, but you'll never be ten times better.
To be ten times better, you have to challenge the
(14:41):
foundation of everything that expert has taken for granted. And
that's the fundamental problem is non experts come along challenge
everything that you have taken it for granted, completely, rethink
and recreate and reinvent the industry, and the whole industry
gets disrupted. And that, to me is the power of
(15:01):
thinking like a naive person. So I've now done seven
companies and no two companies have ever been in the
same industry is because of that. And I really think
this idea of counterintuitive thinking applies to not just if
you talked about parenting, It applies to leadership. It applies
to companies that you do that everything that people will
(15:24):
tell you that before you do anything, you have to
spend ten thousand hours becoming an expert. But the problem is,
by the time you spend ten thousand hours, you have
actually now become so useless because you're no longer thinking
like someone who is from outside the industry.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
All right, let's double click on this. What are some
other counterintuitive leadership skills mindsets that you really think are important?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So I would say that number one thing is what
questions are you asking? The questions you ask are the
problems you solve. And I think I'm going to give
you a couple of examples because that really defines the
fundamentally why people fail. So if you say, I want
to solve world hunger problem, let's just start with something simple, right,
(16:11):
I want to solve world hunger. And if you talk
to any expert, they will tell you, oh, as we
have the larger population, you have to increase the yield
of the crop. A lot of the food gets wasted
during transportation, so you have to actually change that we
transport our food to reduce the wastage. And how we
(16:32):
need to grow the food vertically, and how we need
to use the aeroponic and the hydroponic to reduce the UNBLA.
But no one will ever ask a question why do
we eat food? Because when you ask a question why
do we eat food? You realize the reason you need
to eat food is two things. You need energy and
you need nutrition. What are the different ways can you
(16:53):
get energy? The plants get energy from photosynthesis, and there
are bacteria that are growing up in the radioactive nuclear waste.
Not only they have figured out how to protect their
DNA against radiation, now they in fact use radiation as
a source of energy. What if you can take a
genetic material, use crisper in VVO to modify our own genes,
and now you can say, honey, do you want to
(17:13):
go out for radiation? Is there? Honey? Do you want
to go out and have a pizza?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You fundamentally change the problem by asking a different question,
and the solutions now that are available to you would
have never been available to you unless you ask those questions.
And that's really the beauty of a person, a leader
who is asking a different question than everyone else in
the industry, is asking.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
How do you assemble a team that gets behind this.
This can be terrifying for especially younger workers. They're not
used to thinking outside the box like you are. They
may not be able to support you, how do you
interview people in the way that you need to to
get them to be on your team.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Well, actually, that is very interesting, is that your team
really need to be team of experts. That's it is
so counterintuitor. You have to be a non experts. You're
challenging them, but you do need the set of experts
who knows what to do, and your job is to
challenge them. Why can't you do it this way? Tell
me why this won't work? Okay, I'm constantly challenging our
(18:17):
scientists not knowing anything. Why can't we just do it
this way? And he looks at me, rolls his eyes
and says, because that will never work. Can you explain
to me why that won't work? And halfway through explaining
and he said, I don't know. I have to try
it and see and it comes back and says I
can't believe it actually works. And that is the thing
is that once you keep challenging them and keep asking them,
(18:38):
because your job is to keep understanding what they're saying
and ask more and more in depth questions until they say,
you know what, let me try it. It just might work.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So would you say that your leadership type is best
described as visionary.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know, this visionary label is being so misused, right,
and people think of visionary are the ones that are
not grounded and they see these things that are out
there that are just impossible and they have no concept
of reality. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm
talking about. It's still being grounded, but really looking at
(19:13):
the problem not from outside the box, but in a
completely different box. So you always have to think in
a box, but you're bringing the knowledge of a different
industry into another industry and that's what allows you to
challenge the things. Right, So I'm not talking about the
visionary is someone who says, you know, I think we
can live on Mars and this is going to be
(19:34):
no problem, and here's how you're going to do that.
And my answer is, of course, we can live on
Mars or Venus anywhere we want. And this is the
second part of really you're asking me. The leadership style
is that you take every complex problem. You don't focus
on how you focus on what are the subset of
problems you have to solve for this big problem to
(19:56):
be solved. Basically, what I'm saying is take a complex problem,
break it down into small problems and they all start
to look very solvable. And then you see the what
is the biggest problem that's unsolvable, and that is what
you work on to make it solvable. And so when
people say the entrepreneurs are risk takers, I can tell
you that entrepreneurs hate taking risk. What is the first
(20:20):
thing they do, what's the biggest risk? Let me minimize
that risk. So they are the risk mitigation people. They're
not risk takers. So anyone who tells you entrepreneurs take risks,
they don't understand.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Entrepren right right right. Success as a side effective service,
it's more than a motto for Navine, it's a business model.
When we come back, we dive into biome the moonshot
company using AI and microbiome science to transform how we
understand and prevent disease.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that
improve people's life. So every day when you wake up,
ask yourself, what should I do to make other people's
life better.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We'll be right back. So I want to walk through
some of your companies and have you provide some takeaways
big lessons learned in each of these milestones in your career.
Infospace was one of your earliest successes, a tech giant
(21:25):
in the dot com era. So I'm going to express
you check from software to space exploration.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yes, And my belief still is the humanity's biggest problems
are going to be a clean source of energy that
is so abundant that it's almost free. And the only
way to do that is a fusion energy. And now
people say the fusion people have been talking about fusion
for twenty years and it's always ten years away. I'm
(21:53):
about to tell you another controversial thing. In the next
one to two years, you're going to start to see
a net fusion reactors. That means they're going to be
delivering the net energy out of the fusion reactors, and
that's a game changer. All you do is from there
on is scale and once you can do that, you
literally have an energy source that is non radioactive. That
(22:17):
means the waste of fusion is not a radioactivity. It
is safe, it is abundant, and all it needs is
a small amount of helium three that can power this
planet for decades, if not generations. Now we knew the
biggest source we would need will be helium three. Helium
three is an isotop a helium which is abundant on
(22:39):
Moon and it's very rare on planet Earth. And we thought,
what if we can actually start working on mining the
Moon for helium three. And by the time we are
ready to do that, there'll be someone out there building
the fusion reactor and say does anyone have helium three?
And you want to be the first one to say, yep,
got some helium three. And that really was to see
(23:00):
that how could we intercept the technologies of tomorrow rather
than actually looking at what is available today. And that
is going to be my next theme in terms of
your asking me about how do you think about leadership?
So this is really about when you are building a company,
you look at what had changed in the last couple
(23:21):
of years, but more importantly, you want to look at
what is going to happen in the next three, five
and ten years. And you want to be able to say,
what could I do to use these exponential technology that
are going to be available to me in three, five
or ten years to be able to use them at
scale in three five years and the thing that I'm
(23:42):
trying to do was not possible five years ago. That
means I'm not using yesterday's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
But I'm intercepting tomorrow's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
What do you use for research to know what is
happening in the next like, I want that because I
don't know if that's so accessible to everybody.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It is very accessible. That is the beauty. So now
I'm gonna talk to you about why because it literally
fits into your question you're asking me now, as you
can imagine, I was not a rocket scientist. I don't
have aeronautical degree. And then eight years ago I saw
my dad was diagnosed with stage four pen credic cancer
and he was given three months to live, and unfortunately
(24:25):
that's all he got. I didn't even know that he
was sick. Let alone is stage four cancer, And I'm thinking,
it is it? Why is it? We don't have anything
out there that can allow us to detect these diseases early.
And what really shocked me was how much I had
taken it for granted that he was turning eighty. You know,
(24:45):
of course he's gonna have diabetes, he's getting old. Of
course he's gonna have high blood pressure. Of course he's
gonna have hard disease. Of course he's gonna have all
these chronic diseases because he's getting older. And then I
sat back and saying, there's nothing in the human body
that is written that as you get forty you're going
to start gain weight. You turn fifty, you're gonna have diabetes.
You turn sixty, you're gonna have alzheimer. And yet more
(25:07):
and more people are getting sicker and sicker at younger
and younger age. What if, and this is really the
beauty of every company. You ask yourself, what if? What
if we can actually understand what changes in the human
body at the onset and during the progression of these
chronic diseases. And if we can do that, we can
(25:29):
actually diagnose the disease early, prevent them from happening, and
we can outright reverse them. And this is where I'm
going to give you a framework that I use. So
before you start any project and farnush, this is for you,
ask yourself three questions. Why this? Why now? Why me?
(25:49):
Why this is? Ask yourself, if I am actually successful
in solving the problem that I set out to solve,
would it help a bit billion people live a better life?
Not because I'm a philanthropist, Not because I want to
do good in the world. Yes, and yes, but I
am a capitalist at heart that tells me if I
(26:11):
can build any product, any service that can help a
billion people live a better life, I can create one
hundred billion dollar company, because now those billion people whose
life is better become my customer. But you never wake
up in the morning saying what should I do to
create a hundred billion dollar company? Knowing the making money
is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve people's life.
(26:34):
So every day when you wake up, ask yourself what
should I do to make other people's life better? And
this is where I'm going to stop for a second
and give you my compliment for what you do, because
what you are doing is helping millions and billions of
people bring these ideas in these wisdom with the people
(26:57):
that they may not have a chance to talk to.
And what you doing is going to impact lives of
hundreds of millions of people. So I want to thank
you for what you do.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Furnish, thank you so much. You're the first person I've
interviewed to thank me. You're very generous. Absolutely, you did
an interview about ten years ago where you told your
oldest son ancore that success is not about how much
money you are going to have, but how many lives
you're going to improve. So echoing what you just shared,
but then you know there are people out there again
(27:28):
in our capitalist world, who are chasing the money, and
to some extent, money is important. Right, there is a
need for money. What is your biggest piece of advice
for that person, other than just it's a mindset shift.
You have to focus on the helping of the people
and being in service. The money will follow. Some people
are skeptical of that because we don't live in the
(27:48):
world necessarily that rewards hard work and effort and good intentions.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So, first of all, I'm going to say something that
I'm going to regret saying making money is like having
an orgasm. If you focus on it, you're never going
to get it. So you just have to learn to
enjoy the process.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
The money comes as a byproduct of doing things that
improve people's lives, and if you keep doing it, there
is no way you won't make money because people whose
life you're making better, they become your loyal customer. That
is how you make money. And now I'm going to
come back on the thought about you mentioned Ancore. So
I have three children, and my oldest is Uncore, who
(28:27):
is now thirty four, and very early I start to
work with him on rethinking the mindset. And I'm going
to give you some of the ideas about how this
will come about, counter and you to parenting. But they apply.
Everything that I'm talking about leadership also applies to parenting.
And everything I'm going to talk about parenting will also
apply to leadership. Right, so let me give you first
(28:48):
my qualifications to talk about parenting.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
So, Uncore is thirty four. As you probably know, he
was on the cover of Forbes, and he is already
a billionaire on his own for doing things that he
wanted to solve. One of the most audacious problems, how
do you reward people when they're young and they're renting
their places. Our daughter went to Stanford. She became the
(29:11):
Stanford stem Fellow, Stanford Mayfield Fellow, and first company she
did was using AI to remove gender bias. And now
she has a women's health company called av Evvy. It
is completely rethinking women's health because she realized women want
to be allowed to be in clinical research that miss
every drug that women take were never tested on women.
(29:32):
Women are diagnosed for the same deceased seven years later
than man are. There is a massive gender gap, and
she's filling the gender gap with using avvy. And when
she was sixteen she did not want to think anything
about science and technology, and how I changed her mind
to think of his science and technology as a set
of tools for you to do the things you care about,
(29:53):
not as a destination in itself. My youngest also went
to Stanford and he's a Shortsman's scholar. Three kids, amazing
kids grew up unlike me in an extremely affluent family.
They had no reason to work for a day, and
we never told them that we were poor. In fact,
there were times when they were very young my wife
(30:14):
told me that maybe we should move into a small
place and tell our children that we really don't have
much money and they will be fine. I say, sweety.
Someday they will learn to read. And when they learned
to read, they know the dad is not poor. So
let's not do that. Let's rethink about what parenting is
going to be. And that's where we start to talk
to them about what success means. That means your self
(30:35):
worth never comes from what you own. Your self worth
comes from what you create. And if you haven't created
anything and you still own a lot, then you still
a parasite on society. So don't be a parasite. Now
in terms of the biggest thing you can do as
a parent or as a leader is to create intellectual curiosity.
(30:55):
And this is a counterintuitive approach. So when Pharnush, your
son looks at you and says, mom, mom, look at
such a beautiful blue sky, what do you tell him?
Your first reactions you look up and say, wow, it
is indeed a very beautiful blue sky. Now imagine what
if you challenge that and say, son, do you know
that sky doesn't really exist? A sky is simply a
(31:18):
figment of our imagination, is simply the blue light that's
being scattered, and it looks like that barrier called sky,
but it doesn't really exist. And that you mentioned color blue,
you know there is no blue, right. It's simply the
electromagnetic waves hitting our retina, and our mind is converting
these electromagnetic waves into these colors. But the color doesn't exist.
(31:39):
And it's not about teaching him the signs. It is
about allowing him to think that something that he's so
certain about that he sees with his own eyes, and
what if that is even wrong? What if everything that
you're seeing can be challenged because it may be wrong.
And that is what intellectual curiosity is about, not to
(32:01):
take anything for granted and say, what if that is wrong?
What would the world look like? What if that could
be changed? What would the world look like? Never look
at the world as is, Look at the world what
it can be. So when they were young, most parents
read them the stories. I would ask them to create
stories and say, tell me a story about a monkey
(32:23):
and an ocean and a palm tree. And they have
to connect these things together in a coherent way. And
then say, now dad, you turn, tell me a story
about this, this, and this, And they come up with
the three weirdest thing possible. And my job is to
connect them. And what I'm teaching them is everything in
life can be connected if you think in the right
abstract terms. And that is really the beauty is how
(32:46):
you create these intellectual curiosity in young children.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Who are your mentors? Where do you find the wisdom?
Because I don't know if the lived experience is enough
to have the wisdom that you have.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I would say life is your big mentor life never
stops teaching. What happens is we stop learning. The trick
is that every person you meet has something to teach you.
And what happens is we get so caught up in
our own world we believe the only people we can
learn from are the people, somehow who are in our mind,
(33:18):
more successful than us. And what I realize is that
you learn something from everyone. If you stop by and
talk to that homeless person and ask him what happened
and the lessons you can learn from, that is probably
more meaningful than someone who has been a billionaire for
a hundred years and they're trying to tell you how
to be ability there.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, do you feel levin that having a certain amount
of wealth comes with a different kind of responsibility, a
corporate responsibility, a different way of managing your money.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
I don't really think about money as anything other than
simply a tool that allows you to do the things
that you actually care And a lot of the times
people say that money changes you, And all I can
tell you is money does not change you. Money simply
allows you to become who you really were to begin with. Yes,
(34:12):
so if you were an asshole, money simply allows you
to be a bigger asshole. But it does not change
you if you were really truly a good human being,
money doesn't really change you. And my wife always hates
my saying that you know no one or nothing outside
you can ever bring happiness to you. The happiness really
comes from inside you. And if you are happy, you
(34:34):
could be sitting in a dark corner and still be happy.
And if you are unhappy inside, you could be in
a paradise and you still be unhappy. So looking for
happiness from someone or somewhere is really not where the
happiness will ever come from.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I said this exactly to my ten year old yesterday.
We have this conversation a lot in my house. It
has to be taught young and it has to be reinforced, yes,
because there are too many adults still that don't understand
this very important concept. Before we go, a couple more questions.
So those who are very successful and wealthy in our
(35:09):
country and globally, there's a lot of interest in the moon,
there's a lot of interest in space. Why is that
you think?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I think humans are just explorers. I mean, you think
about it. We were in oceans and we explored the land,
and then when we were in Africa, savannahs of Africa.
We explored the rest of the land. We went to
west and say, son, go west right until we hit
the ocean. And then we crossed the ocean and we
went to the next land. And we are explorers and
(35:38):
we look up and we see these things to be
explored and the only most visible, the big thing is
our eighth continent, so to say, is moon. And you know,
coming back to Wyome is explore the thing in the outside.
I wanted to then explore the thing inside you, right,
because there are a one hundred trillion micropes that are
living in your gut and living in your mouth, living
(36:00):
all over us, and just very similar to the number
of stars and the number of galaxies. What are there?
So I said, look, what if we can actually now
look inside us as a explorer and find what is happening?
And that journey that I was telling you about my
dad being sick, I'm going to just take you on
that journey eight years later. So we have now analyzed
(36:22):
one million people. With these one million people, we have
now collected one hundred quadlion biological data point. So it
starts really simple, Pharnush. You go to voume dot com.
You order a kid, give us a spit of your saliva,
four drops of your fingerprin blood, a touch of your stool.
We in fact now analyze not hundred, not thousand, not million,
(36:45):
one hundred million biomarkers, and we tell you what's your
biological age, is your cognitive health, your heart health, your
gut health, your oral health, your immune health. And if
you want to go nerdy, we tell you everything about
the things about LPs production or ammonia production, and then
we say, you know what, far nouche. Don't eat broccoli
(37:06):
right now because your selfide production is too high. It
is going to harm you. Or don't eat avocado, even
though everyone thinks is healthy, it's not good for you
right now because your uric acid production is too high.
Or don't eat spinach despite Popeye telling you spinach is
good for everyone. Your oxalates are not being metabolized. The
spinach is not good for you. But you can eat
red meat if you want, because the colleen in the
(37:27):
red meat is not being metabolized into TMA and your
liver is not making tmaoh using enzyme called FMO three.
So now we can tell you you can eat these foods,
and here is why don't eat these foods. Here is why.
And then we say, in addition to the food, you
should take twenty two milligram of lic open every day.
And we literally create a formula for each individual every month.
(37:49):
And every month I get a new formula made for me.
I get my gut biotics that are made just for me,
as prescribed just for me. I have my aural loszenses
to add just my oral microbiome. And then I even
have my personalized toothpaste for morning and evening just made
for me.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And having done this in six months, we published the
research that shows that your diabetes comes down by thirty percent,
your anxiety down by forty two percent, your depression down
by forty seven percent, and fifteen percent of population that
suffers from ibs like stomach ache, constipation, digestive issues down
by forty nine percent in six month. Think about that,
(38:29):
just using food as a medicine. So when Hippocrates says
let food be thy medicine, he really you are the
real scientist.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Oh my gosh, we could do a whole episode on this.
I find it so frustrated that the medical industry is
reluctant to give you a food diagnostic because they say, well,
there haven't been enough studies. But here you are a
million people studied.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And by the way, you publish the peer reviewed, double blanded,
placebo controlled results. Right. But here's why our medical industrial
complex makes money. When you and I are sick. Everyone
makes money.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't like preventing you from getting sick.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
No one makes money when you're healthy. That is why
I really believe we have to rethink healthcare where we
really believe each person has to become the CEO of
their own health. They just have to know what foods
are good for them. What we learned is there's no
such thing as universal healthy food. However, they are universal
unhealthy food. As someone says, one man's food is another
(39:28):
man's poison.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Oh my gosh. All right, final question, and then I'm
going to go on viol and order a bunch of kids.
The title of this podcast is leading by Example, so
of course we have to ask you what does leading
by example mean to you? And You've sort of touched
on this, but I really want to drive it home.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So I think, to me, the leading by example means
is be the person that you want your employees to be.
Be the person that you want your children to be.
Don't tell people what to do, show them what to do.
And the only leaders the one who lead from front
by showing what needs to be done, by being the
(40:06):
person they want you to be, not someone screaming at
the back and see run up the hill, run up
the hill, and having never run up the hill themselves.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Excellent, Navin Jane, what a privilege, what a joy to
spend time with you. Thank you so much for coming
on our show.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Thank you for I really appreciate you, and I'm looking
forward to our next conversation, hopefully soon.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
So Kia, thank you for booking Navine. He is one
of the most fascinating people I've ever come across in
my life. And we were just saying, like, imagine leading
your country. You were born in poverty and now you
are a billionaire and you're creating generational billionaires.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, that family line is going to be good for
a couple of generations for sure.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
And not for nothing. But I don't know him that well.
I spent only an hour with him, but I have
interviewed other billionaires and I will say that if they're
there's going to be someone in this world that has
the privilege of billion dollars to their name. I wanted
to be someone like Navine right, who seems to be
completely driven by the desire to help and the desire
(41:15):
to solve problems. I mean, if you had a billion
dollars to your name, what do you think you would
be doing with your life?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Like now? Because I'm a certain age and like, if
I grew into a million dollars, that's a different story.
But if I had a billion dollars now, I'm definitely
living the good life, like travel everywhere, make sure my
family's good, and then definitely goes to a financial advisor
talk to Pernage.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
About how to keep I'll only charge one percent, but
I think, yes, there are lifestyle changes we'd make, and
we want to live the good life. But I think
there comes a lot of pressure. And my question to
him about that sense of responsibility that comes with having
this enormous amount of wealth which was helped and built
by Yes, your vision and your determination, but also like
(42:01):
teams helped you get there, right, Like he said he
was tired of helping Bill Gates make billions. Yeah, so
I'm going to go make my billions, but then you
also need people to help you make your billions. But
I think also what he would agree with probably is
that he is where he's at because he's had also
the opportunity to work with the right people.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yeah. I like how he acknowledged that, because I think
that's really important. It's like, unless you're a solo entrepreneur,
which you can only get so far, you obviously need
people to help you in certain ways. And like he said,
you can't be an expert in just one thing that
you need people that are experts, And like, oh, that
was fascinating.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
I loved his counterintuitive way of thinking through leadership and
even parenting, and to his point, parenting, leadership, business, it's
all very similar in how you frame it. And I
think what he was saying about risk was really interesting.
Like people often think that people who are entrepreneurial, who
(43:01):
are leaders they love risk. No, no, no, actually all
they think about is risk, but not because they're always
like I want more of it. It's actually, yeah, I
need to control for risk, which is true. I also
loved what he said about once you become an expert
in your field, that is sometimes the sign the clue
that you're ready to move on to something else that's
(43:24):
going to continue to further you along and allow you
to have a bigger impact on the world, because once
you're that expert, it's very hard to sort of step
outside of that and see what's next and see what
the problems are in the next year that you want
to solve that you're sort of like, I don't know
if you've got complacent, but while you're the expert, you
(43:44):
know it all, so you're just like I'm here, I've arrived.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
I think people think it's easier when you're up the expert.
That's like you can, I guess in the corporate role,
like move up in the ranks, but you definitely think
it limits your mindset. And I also think when you
get higher up, people don't want to criticize you as
much in a way. Yeah, so like I'm sure that
doesn't help either. But I also liked how he said
you can learn more from life and like people's life experiences,
(44:08):
like you should ask the homeless person, how did you
get here?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Because that is so.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Smart, Like the quote it's like we're only like a
medical surgery and like one mist payment from being on
the streets It's really not that hard to become that
in America. So I think it was really smart that
he's like, I actually listened to people that have certain
life experiences, not just the.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Bill Gates of the world.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
It's nice to hear that from someone at his caliber,
because I think we just think that the bigger you are,
the more important your life is, and that's just not
the case.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, what he was saying about expertise and the importance
of being open to changing lanes and trying new things,
it reminded me of Shannon Skuyler. Actually, she's with PwC.
We interviewed her on this podcast and she was talking
about how she held almost every kind of job at
PwC before she became at the Helm of Human Resources
there and I saw a little bit of a parallel there,
(44:58):
and like, I feel like she would also appreciate that
mindset with no firsthand the benefits of getting outside your
comfort zone, trying new things, your goal not to be
the expert, and then folding your hands you know that
you want to continue to challenge yourself.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. What did you think about rich people being mean?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I loved that. I wanted to give him a big
giant hug when he said that, because this is a
philosophy that I have always believed in my work as
someone who has studied personal finance and met a lot
of people and helped a lot of people with their money,
I believe that money makes you more of who you are.
Not to be confused with if you're in poverty and
(45:43):
you make money and you're out of poverty, that doesn't
make your life better and you don't get happier. My
point is that I think Navean's point was that if
at the core you are a generous person, or if
at the core you are a greedy person, you can
be greedy and still be in your car without money
to your name. Right, Greed is not something that is
(46:05):
a financial construct. It's sometimes just your personality. Yeah, And
to his point, when you have more money, which is
what is money, it's a resource, it's a tool. When
you have that, you have choices now to make and
are you going to make good choices or bad choices?
Sometimes it is based on the person inside of you.
If you've got someone who's really rich and unkind, it's
(46:27):
not that their money made them unkind. Maybe they use
their money to disassociate and they don't have awareness anymore,
They don't have empathy. Money didn't make that choice for them.
They made that choice with their money. So I love that. Yeah,
I also think that we didn't discuss it. But you know,
at his age and stage in life, he could just
be enjoying his life. And I would think he is
(46:49):
enjoying his life. I think that's the point, Like he
enjoys life by not sitting still. You know, he's a
get up at four am kind of person, multi hyphen it,
serial entrepreneur. That's what actually makes him happy. And I
don't think that he's the type of person that will
ever quote unquote stop working. Probably not, yeah no, but
(47:10):
we will all benefit from.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
That, yeah, exactly. So it's his destiny, it's his journey,
which is great.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much
as we did. If you like what you're hearing, please
follow and subscribes you don't miss out on any new episodes,
and as always, we want to hear your thoughts to
make this the best show possible, so please leave us
a review. In the meantime, you can find me at
farnwosh Charabi on Instagram, and I'm always on the So
Money podcast. I'll see you next time. This podcast is
(47:39):
a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio. Our executive producer is
Matt Stillo and our supervising producer is Nikiah Swinton. This
podcast was edited by Sierra Spreen.
Host
Farnoosh Torabi
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