Bob Wisse - Navigating the Turbulence of Life & Business - I Took a Hike

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So let's start this.
All right, bob Wiss, are you OKwith being recorded on a
podcast?
No, yes, well, there goes thatliability.
This is I Took a Hike.
I'm your host, darren Mass,founder of Business Therapy
Group and Parktime WildernessPhilosopher.
Here we step out of theboardrooms and home offices and
into the great outdoors, wherethe hustle of entrepreneurship

(00:22):
meets the rustle of nature.
In this episode, I finallyvisit the source of the
legendary New York City drinkingwater, while learning from a
sales goliath.
With Street Smart and thefounding member of Price Line,
Bob Wiss, our topics include thewords of wisdom, one of a kind
interview techniques and theopaque strategy that made Price

(00:44):
Line uniquely ahead of its time.
We get a rare glimpse behindthe scenes of a mega brand.
When I took a hike with BobWiss, it wasn't until I embarked
on this podcast journey that Irealized the impact of problem
solving in nature.
And now I would like to helpyou.
I invite you or your team tojoin me on a hike and experience

(01:07):
business therapy all while onthe trail.
Visit itookahikecom for moreinformation on our hiking
therapy.
Oh, this is going to be a funhike, all right.
So we are at the Old CrotonReserve.
This is the reserve where thewater reservoir, where all New
York City draws its water from.

(01:27):
Having been a Manhattanresident for almost 13 years and
thinking New York water is thebest water, I appreciate this
place and this is where all thewater comes from, so I think
that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, it is the tastiest water in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
It is the tastiest water with the best pH level.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
As a true New Yorker, it's the best In Iceland.
They might disagree.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know what?
That's the Icelandish but.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I guess it's the Icelandish and the water is
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
OK, comparative, but it is very cool to be here
because that is a lot of water.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, that's a beautiful, whatever you call
water break.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, whatever it is, that's an aqueduct.
We will post pictures of it andyou will hear the sounds.
All right, so, bob Wiss, whoare you?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I'm just a kid from Europe.
I was born in Europe and I'vebeen fortunate in my life to
work for a whole bunch of reallyinteresting people, done some
very interesting things, hithome runs, struck out just like
every entrepreneur in the world,so I'm a very fortunate guy.

(02:39):
A while ago I was diagnosedwith cancer and when I was told
I went back into my car and kindof sat down and did an
introspective and I said well,if I had to die tomorrow, am I
OK with that?
Wow, and I went yeah, I've donealmost everything you can

(03:00):
possibly do.
My bucket list is kind of clear.
I still want to go to theKentucky Derby.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I can make that happen.
I know several people that arekernels and if you do want to go
, I can certainly make thathappen.
All right, so we'll work onthat.
Get that bucket list checkedoff, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
And so it all started a long time ago.
So my mother was the Americandream.
Ok, she was a 14-year-oldkidnapped by a Nazi in the
Second World War and taken toGermany oh wow and disowned by
her family because she was avery pretty girl and obviously

(03:41):
she kind of fell for the guy alittle bit and he was killed on
the Eastern Front.
She was stuck in Germany at 16years old, couldn't go home
because the father was veryanti-Nazi.
And she met my father, who wasa working prisoner of war,

(04:02):
Wasn't Jewish or any of that.
He was basically an electricalengineer and they were about 20
miles outside of a concentrationcamp and she decided that
America was the place she wantedto go.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
OK.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
She busted my father's cojones and told him
look, we're going to America in1954.
We got on a boat, we came toAmerica, immigrated to Brooklyn
and then that started theAmerican dream.
So when she passed away I toldthat story.

(04:42):
It wasn't a dry eye in a place,because the people that knew
her loved her.
She was a very hardworking,very fun-loving person and I
kind of got my work ethic fromher.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So that's obviously really deep.
Especially because she was inGermany, I'm sure she had seen a
lot of things, oh yeah, a lotof bad things.
Did she ever tell you any ofthose stories?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I didn't really want her to remember it, ok.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's smart.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
I asked my dad as well, and we became estranged
back when I was about 20, 25.
And he would never talk aboutit.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, that's some really heavy stuff.
Yeah, you got me a littleshocked there.
I wasn't expecting that part ofthe story to come out.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, it's a major part of the story.
Yeah, the American dream.
Part of it was the work ethicthat she instilled in me when I
was eight years old.
I had to go get a job, and itwasn't the fact that she didn't
want to give me money, it's thefact that she wanted me to
understand that work was cool,that having money in your pocket
was good.

(05:54):
Yes, so I've been working sinceI'm eight Delivery guy, gas
station attendant, privatesecretary for a kind of a social
club all before I was 16.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
OK, so you have had that hard-hitting work ethic
instilled in you from an earlyage.
Yeah, working was the onlyoption.
You didn't know anythingdifferently.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
No Right, it was something that became natural,
and whenever I did something, Iwanted to excel at it.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
So that sets you up on a very successful career path
.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
It set me up on a career path and a lot of luck
that we made becomes successful.
Well, nobody gets to win unlessthey get a little luck involved
and have some good peoplearound them.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
OK.
Well, do you believe that wecreate our own luck?
We put ourselves in luckysituations?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, you put yourself in position.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, ok.
So, yes, I believe that as well, your work ethic got you in
front of lucky situations thatyou would not have been in.
Right, ok, good, all right, sofast forward a little bit.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
I went to.
I was appointed to the AirForce Academy and by a
congressman in Jersey City.
Ok, so I went for the physicals, did the tests was going to
start.
This is 1969, 1970, the heightof the Vietnam War.

(07:22):
So I went through the wholerigmarole and, probably about
six weeks before I was supposedto go in, they sent a
representative to the addressthat was listed on my
application, which I didn't liveat.
Why?

Speaker 1 (07:42):
is that.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Because my mother used an address in Jersey City,
because I was appointed by acongressman from Jersey City and
I lived in Fortley, ok, so theybounced me immediately, because
that's kind of one of the rules, even with Vietnam.
Even with Vietnam, because nowI'm draftable, ah, ok, the Air
Force Academy couldn't care lesswith her.

(08:04):
I got in or not.
It's a question of did youapply?
Were you appointed?

Speaker 1 (08:11):
So what was your emotional state after you got
booted?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
I wasn't really looking forward to going to war.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
I don't think many were.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, but I figured if I was going to go to war in
an 810 airplane or whatever, itwould be a lot safer than being
in an infantry regiment.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
OK, roll of the dice either way, because I believe
planes were being shot down aswell.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah well, I feel safer piloting my own plane and
sitting on somebody else's plane.
So, plus, it was $2 million.
Education at the time, yeah, soI had to get into college.
So I went to an emergencyschool that almost took anybody
and it was in the middle ofnowhere.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
OK, what school?

Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was a Tokyo College.
Never heard of it, Right?
Well, you probably heard of iton a song Tokyo Road by Brewer
and Shippler.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Why don't you sing it for me?
I actually don't know the songI'm not singing.
All right, I thought I had youthere, but I will download it
after and take a listen.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, they talk about Tokyo and Tokyo is a typical
rural town in Missouri.
Ok, and we ripped them off.
You know they came and playedat our mule barn.
Well, let me get digress here.
So I accepted I was going to gofor a semester to this college,

(09:39):
just to get my two S defermentand then transfer back to the
east coast of one of the otherschools, and I just fell in love
with it out there OK, inMissouri.
Yeah, the reason was becausethey had this huge mule barn and
a mule barn obviously is wherethey housed mules and we

(09:59):
developed it into a first ratetheater, museum, coffee shop,
and I was in on the ground floor.
So I got to learn a lot about alot of things I could sew, I
could cook, I could build sets,I can act, I can sing, I can
dance, I can do all that kind ofcrap Gotcha.

(10:20):
So in business we're all actors, right.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yes, we wear a skin or a suit that helps give us the
confidence to be able to closeor be in front of anybody.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Or to become creative enough to spin a story Correct
Right.
A good salesman is about hispersonality, his ability to talk
and communicate, and also tohave fun.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Build trust, trusting relationships and ultimately
close the deal which is acting.
Which is acting.
Ok, I will give you that Iactually fully agree with you on
that, which is kind of you know.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
they're getting in front of a whole bunch of people
and convincing them that youare somebody who you're not.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, I would give them, or give it one step
further.
I would say it's more methodacting where eventually you
believe in the role, you are,the character that you portray.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, we did mostly musical theater, so it's hard to
become fiddle or underrope.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean, if that stick works for you in front of your
client, then fiddle away, yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
So I spent four years there and I came out and I
worked in a bank for a shorttime.
I think everybody worked in thebanks in my generation sooner
or later.
You know $100 a week.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Counting other people's money Good money in a
way.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
And now it was just because you were envious,
because people were depositing$10,000 in cash, so you were
around it and you were aroundthe money.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
And you're also in a banking or financial institution
, which could give you a ladderup.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Right, so learned a lot about that.
In a very short time I wasthere, my mother got me an
interview with Olympic Airlines,which goes back to my Greek
heritage.
Ok, and while I did well in theinterview, my Greek wasn't good

(12:15):
enough for I could understandGreek, but I didn't speak it
very well.
Ok, so they got me an interviewwith American Airlines.
So I started American Airlinesin 1975 and rose through the
ranks very quickly there.
I worked in JFK Airport as asupervisor of passenger service.

(12:40):
Then I went into Manhattan andbecame a sales manager.
Then I went to Dallas andbecame a group supervisor of
1,200 people.
By the time I was 27.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Young age, that's a lot of employees.
Yeah, Stepping back though, yousaid you understand Greek.
Can you speak Greek?

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Now I can speak it a little better because I've been
to Greece 1,000 times since then.
Ok, but if I get into aconversation with the Greek it
becomes hard because they speakso fast, well, and also you're
not engaged in it all day, everyday.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I actually know the Greek alphabet, not a boy.
Yeah, you can say that camefrom Greek life and a fraternity
.
And I can say it three timesbefore a match is burnt out.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
There you go.
Now you're talking.
That's pretty spectacular.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
The stupid games that frat boys play.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah Well, I was always a social member of all
the frats.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Ok, that was the smart move.
You got invited to all theparties but didn't have to do
any of the hard work.
That's right.
Yeah, ok, so you're managing1,200 people.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Right.
So then all of a sudden aspecial project comes along and
most of my stick with managingpeople is to become creative
enough to make them want to work.
So when I first got to Dallas,the attitude there was really
bad.
It's such a big airport, therewas so much stuff going on that

(14:09):
there was no cohesiveness in theemployees.
So I kind of started doing awhole bunch of stuff, including
starting a video magazinehighlighting all the employees
that were there, did a newspaper, did a contest with the prizes

(14:30):
and rewards for good behavior,and we went from the worst to
one of the best stations at theFirm American Airlines.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Wow, so you were a believer in the power of
cultural initiatives to helpempower employees.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, I thought that happy people make happy
employees right.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
That is something that, regardless of the industry
, we can put that everywhere,right, it's true.
Happy employees will havesmiles on their faces.
Your customers or theircustomers will see that, and
their customers will ultimatelybe happy as well.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Plus, remember in your experience in going to an
airport people are nervous,People are anxious.
Going to an airport sucks.
It is the worst Right, soimagine working there every day.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I don't think I've traveled a lot in my career and
personal life and I don't thinkthere's ever a time where I
don't feel very anxious drivingor getting a ride to an airport
where I feel like I'm going tomiss the plane.
Right, I've never missed aplane, but that feeling just of
angst is only there.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, the other half of the people that don't travel
a lot are afraid of dying.
They've got a metal tube going600 miles an hour at 35,000 feet
.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, safest form of travel, though, right, I don't
know To you and me, because welook up that stuff.
Yeah, but to that Well that andit's completely out of your
control, which I guess can sparksome anxiety as well.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, so one of our routes was New York to San Juan
and that's a very toughdestination because they're very
superstitious.
Ok, so on Tuesdays we had a 747that carried 424 people and we
would book it to 850.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Because 424 is an unlucky number.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
No, because on Tuesday there was an accident in
the San Juan airport thatkilled a whole bunch of people,
so Tuesday is an unlucky day tofly.
So people would makereservations and then realize it
was Tuesday and they didn'tshow up.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Got it, so you would overbook the flight.
Oh yeah, and why is that?

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Because people didn't show up the no show factor.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
I got you.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
So every route has a no show factor.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Okay, I think airlines still do that today.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
They own book routes yeah, but they're better at it
now.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I don't know if they're better at anything.
To be quite honest, airlineshave been pretty challenged
these days.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, the airline industry has changed quite a bit
from our days.
When I first started working,it was glamorous to fly.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yes, people would dress up.
I remember that as a kid youwould dress up a little bit more
.
You'd be excited to be on theplane.
What was known as thestewardess at that time actually
smiled and wanted to see you.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
And they were all single.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
They were all single they were.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, you couldn't be married to be a flight
attendant back in the late 70s.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, I think HR regulations and PC the.
Pc world?
Yes, absolutely, the PC worldhas ushered in some change.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, so because of my aggressive behavior at the
airport and my interaction withemployees.
Bob Crandall, who was our chiefexecutive officer, was sitting
next to a gentleman that workedfor Leigh Iacocca and he was in

(17:57):
charge of raising money for theStatue of Liberty.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
What year was it?

Speaker 2 (18:01):
1983.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
So it was for the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
It was for the whole restoration.
Oh, the restoration year In1986 was the 100th birthday, I
believe.
Got it okay.
So I was put in charge ofraising money, because when
Crandall took it to the board,the board says we're not giving
them $5 million, and so he hadto come up with a creative way
to get the $5 million.

(18:30):
So they put me in charge and Idid every kind of fundraising
you could imagine.
I did 5K runs, I did softballtournaments, I sold t-shirts, I
sold hats, I sold chachkes.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
But you put your sales hat on and took it to the
extreme.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Right and also my interpersonal skills with the
employees, because I went toevery single event right and
represented the company and theywere very appreciative of that.
So we were able to raise the $5million.
We raised like $7.5 million.
And then I was at thecelebration of Statue of Liberty
, sitting right behind RonaldReagan.

(19:10):
Lee Iacocca and Bob Crandallwanted to meet Lee.
So I said okay.
So when we got there Lee wasstanding like over about 20 feet
away.
So I said, mr Crandall, let meintroduce you to Mr Iacocca.
Mr Iacocca had a little buzzgoing and he kind of looked at

(19:31):
Crandall, looked him up and downand he goes yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
And then he walked away andCrandall was like wow, he was
not pleased.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us.
Discover more episodes athikesupthehikecom, or to
recommend an adventurous guest,apply to be a sponsor, discover
books along the trail or tosimply drop us a line.
So what was the buzz going?
So if you can't walk a little,we're getting eaten over here?

Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I raised the money for the Statue of Liberty, did
the celebrations, went back toEllis Island, of course, which
was the roots of our immigration, and then I was stuck at
American Airlines without a gun,and because my advice to people

(20:21):
is be very careful of taking aspecial assignment, because you
fall out of whichever departmentyou were in.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, once you're successful, you can be too
successful.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Or that you're just absent from the mindset of those
people moving forward in thoseparticular departments.
Okay, Because my department wasadvertising, which covered this
job, and I wasn't really anadvertising guy, but I learned a
lot about it, obviously beingin the department and I wanted

(20:52):
to get back into the field,wanted to get back and be more
relevant, if you will.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Relevancy is an important theme with what we're
doing and why I run this show.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, I went for a job as a sales manager in San
Francisco and obviouslyeverybody wanted to go to San
Francisco or San Diego or one ofthe Sands.
So for my resume I did a wholebusiness plan for the San

(21:23):
Francisco sales market whichincluded a whole bunch of
analysis on flights andairplanes and all that and I
used a Benjamin Franklin quotewhat's a sundial in the shade?
Which means if you're notbrilliant, then nobody's going
to see you.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
That's right.
So it's a solar poweredflashlight, which actually is a
thing.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Right.
So I was successful in gettinga job in San Francisco and while
I was in San Francisco I hadOakland, san Jose, san Francisco
, all the way up to the northernborder of Oregon, and I was
excelling at that, having a goodtime, playing a lot of golf.

(22:09):
And I got offered a job to workfor the Pritzker family, which
is they owned a company that didimport, export from China
mostly Klim, which is milk speltbackwards, but Klim is a
powdered milk.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Who was the creative genius behind that naming
convention?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I think it's been around since the 30s, but the
Pritzkers had this companycalled Getz Brothers and they
had a travel agency inside of it.
So I was hired to run thetravel agency and I got it from.
I think we were about $20million when I took it and when
I left we were about $175million in sales.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Wow.
What was the secret behind that?
What did you do to get?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Expansion, build a nice sales force, hired some
really good people.
You can't do this stuff on yourown?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
You certainly can't do it on your own.
So what were some of thetechniques you used to grow a
sales force?
Mostly by picking intelligent,thirsty people Did you have a
method to identify if someonewas a professional interviewer,
as with many sales individuals,or you know, I guess in a way

(23:26):
seeing through the BS.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I'm a gut guy, so you know, one of the talents I have
is being street smart.
You grow up in New York and yousee through a lot of people
very quickly and I just usethose skills in interviewing
people by asking any questionsand having them you know.
If they looked at you and triedto answer it, you're kind of

(23:49):
like I'm going to Jesus.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Okay, so what's one of these questions how?

Speaker 2 (23:54):
do you spell chocolate?

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I would ask you if you were serious today.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, so that's if you would ask me if you were
serious, then I would haveprobably hired you.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Really, yeah, okay, so walk me through the method of
thinking there.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, in an interview , you're trying to put your best
foot forward, correct you?

Speaker 1 (24:17):
want.
That's the best person you'regoing to hire, right there.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Right, you want them to be non-intimidated and you
want to see their extrovert self.
Okay, and when you ask somebodyto spell chocolate and they get
serious about it, you know youwant to see H-O-C-O-A-L, and you
kind of sit there looking at itand go.
You kidding me.
But if somebody says, reallyyou want me to spell chocolate,

(24:41):
that's part of our interview,and you kind of go eh.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
All right, so I would have passed that test.
How often did you get theserious answer?
Too many times, too many times.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
So all right, so you're able to weed people out
and again you ask otherquestions.
You know the stupid questionlike what's your worst trait?
And if they start explaining toyou, you know I'm over this or
I'm over that.
You kind of go.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Oh, yeah, Okay.
So my worst trait is that Isthat I study too hard or I work
too hard.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
If somebody looks at you and goes, I really don't
have any.
You know you kind of sit theregoing eh, that's almost the
answer, yeah.
But if somebody tells you that,whatever they might be, I'm
going to do the best that I canto fix them.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
That's a great answer , that's positive, reassuring,
without actually giving a trait.
I probably would have saidyou're going to have to speak to
my wife for that question,because she observes all the
questions.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Then I wouldn't have hired you.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Really All right, I'm out.
Yeah, nobody likes them,momma's girl.
Okay, All right.
So one thing that we learnedone of the best interview
questions you can ask asalesperson is how do you spell
chocolate?

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well for me it worked .

Speaker 1 (25:53):
I like that one.
That's a good one.
I'm going to use that.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, just to see the reaction kind of gives you a
good hint.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
So I'm going to just segue for a second.
That's probably not a goodanswer, or a response.
If you are being pulled overfor DUI, you really want me to
say the alphabet backwards.
That's probably not a good one.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I'll tell you that, that I would refuse to do it
because I can't do it sober.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I don't think anyone can.
Right Unless you've practicedit and that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
If you've practiced it, then the cop knows that
you're drunk.
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
So moving on.
So you have built this amazingsales force.
You grew a company or a salesstrategy for 20 million in
revenue to 100 million inrevenue, and where did your
career go from then?
Well then, I made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
What was that mistake ?
The mistake was that I sat downwith Bob Pritzker, who was my
boss, and I asked him for apiece of the company.
Ah, and since my last name isnot Pritzker, he was a little
offended.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
As most business owners would, and I will tell
you this as a business owner,having had to face the same
conundrum.
That is a tough thing to dealwith.
Especially because you know,the employee has some case for
asking for it.
More often than not.
It's a fine line and that is avery challenging conversation.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
So the opposite of that.
You know when the end of this,not the end of the story, but in
the middle of my story I had aboss that was the exact opposite
, that gave stock and incentives, and all that to encourage
people, Stock or options.
You didn't know.
Well, same thing.
I mean an option is just adeferred stock right.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, but it can be reclaimed by the company in the
event the employee is no longeremployed and invested.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think you have the investment part of it.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
The investment part.
But let's face it, if you are aprivately held company and
you're giving out options andthat employee has most of the
options vested and they leave,they're not really going to want
to cash in on a privatecompany's equity, but once they
go public, then you get 90 daysonce you.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
If they go public yeah well.
It's a great strategy.
You don't want to be in acompany that doesn't go public.
Back in the Okay back in theday, yeah today I would make a
different.
I'm talking about the turn ofthe century here In 2000,.
We made a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yes, if you went public.
Yes, absolutely, I mean if you.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Not to preempt the story, but price line opened at
24, I went to 162 in 10 days.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
So let's talk about that.
So the Bob that I know is Bobfrom Price Line.
So let's discuss that, becauseI think everybody knows
PriceLinecom and PriceLine.
If you don't, everyone knowswho William Shatner is.

(28:51):
I hired Will Shatner, you hiredWill.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Shatner yeah, I was part of the selection committee
that selected him.
He was our second choice.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
William Shatner was your second choice.
Yes, who is the first choicefor spokesperson for Price Line?
Bill Cosby?
What yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Very.
Bill Cosby wanted cash and weweren't.
We were a fledgling startup.
We're not fledgling.
We had lots of money behind us,but we weren't going to waste
it on a spokesperson.
We were more interested intrying to teach the public what
name your price was.
So all of our money formarketing went into teaching

(29:28):
people what it yeah marketingyeah.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Wait, hold on.
So back up here.
So Bill Cosby was your firstchoice.
Obviously, he interviewed infront of you.
Let me say this I am sure PriceLine's happy that Bill Cosby
wasn't the choice Retrospect.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
At the time, Bill Cosby was the Mr Dr Huxedable.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, heathcliff Huxedable, he was Fat Albert.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Fat Albert.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
He was everybody that , everywhere he was Put-In Pops,
put-in Pops and a convictedrapist.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, he wasn't convicted and he wasn't alleged
at that point.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, Well now.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
A friend of mine started a company called PAGL,
which was a professionalathletic golf league, okay, and
they were putting on eventssimilar to the one that they
have now in Tahoe, and on hisboard was OJ Simpson.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Okay, another name that they're regretting?
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
So Bill Cosby?

Speaker 1 (30:25):
he won a cash.
William Shatter, what EquityTook stock Okay, which is
arguably a great move.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
And he made about $50 million Only.
Yeah yeah, small rounding error.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, but he was fortunate in that he wasn't
restricted, Okay.
So when Price Line went from$24 to $162, he got out.
Yeah, he could do it With awhole bunch of it.
That's so.
He made money on the primaryIPO and then over the years he
got more stock and you know theprice of stock for bookingscom
right now, which is Price Linebought and changed their ticker

(31:01):
to booking, there's about $2,200a share.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
That is a phenomenal growth.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Which I had something to do with, which,
unfortunately, I didn't get thebenefit of.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Okay, so let's talk about your role at Price Line
and then let's wind up of whyyou didn't get the benefit of it
.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
So a friend of mine came out to California and
another friend of mine wasrecruited by Jay Walker, who was
the brain behind and abrilliant man and a good man
behind Price Line.
Okay, so he couldn't take thejob.

(31:41):
So he recommended it to anotherfriend of mine who couldn't
take the job.
So we're sitting in the RichCarlton in Newport Beach because
I was living in San Diego atthe time and he says I got this
interview with this guy.
I really can't take the jobbecause I took another job.
Do you want to go?
And I said what's it about?
He says well, it's an name,your own price for an airline

(32:04):
ticket and you got to put up acredit card, you got to take
what they give you.
And I said that's the dumbestthing I've ever heard.
What are you?
I'm not giving anybody mycredit card and I'm going to
take what they give me.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
By the way, I think that was my reaction at first
when I heard it as well.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
So I said you know, my mom lives in Jersey.
I haven't seen her in a while.
They send me a ticket.
I'll go fly out there say helloto her and I'll go for this
interview.
Not really serious about thejob.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
You just wanted the free ride or the free meal.
All right, that's a goodstrategy.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Right.
So I went to New Jersey, saw mymom hooked up with a whole
bunch of friends and we stayedout all night getting stupid,
and the next morning I had aninterview at 8.30.
So I went straight from theclubs.
I got maybe 35 minutes worth ofsleep.

(32:58):
I showered, I shaved, I got ina car and drove up there and I
had a nine and a half hourinterview on Father's Day.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh wow.
What club was it, by the way?

Speaker 2 (33:10):
You don't want to know.
I'm not going to reveal it hereto protect the innocent.
But so I went up there andafter nine and a half hours Jay
and I came to the decision hewas very interested in that he
would have Jesse Fink, his COO,call me and take it from there.

(33:31):
Ok, so I pretty much thought Ihad the job.
So Monday comes along, I hadflown home so I could be with my
kids on Father's Day.
This is the time difference.
I was able to arrive around 8o'clock so the kids were waiting
up, and the next day I'mwaiting for the phone call.

(33:51):
Tuesday comes I'm waiting for aphone call.
Wednesday comes I'm waiting forthe phone call.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Which, by the way, the job that you really didn't
want in the first place.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Right, ok.
So now I'm pissed.
So I call this Jesse Fink guyand I said I've been waiting for
your phone call.
What's going on?
He goes oh well, we're reallybusy.
I said, well, you might bereally busy, but I had a nine
and a half hour interview whereI did a brain dump on the
airline industry.
And now you're just going totake my stuff.

(34:20):
And what the hell is that allabout?

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Mm-hmm, Understandable.
So hey she, which, by the way,that takes a lot of, I guess,
courage to make that phone call.
So you clearly were anextroverted person always.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
I'm from Jersey.
Yeah, I grew up in Fort Lee, sothere you go.
So he starts like telling methat maybe I'm not the kind of
person that they wanted tocompany because I was being
overly aggressive and I saidwhether you want me or not, fair
is fair.
Jay said you would call me.
It's now Wednesday.
You haven't called me.
I'd like to know what's goingon.

(34:57):
I live in San Diego.
I'm looking at the PacificOcean here.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
What's the deal?
You flew me out.
So do you think this is a goodstrategy today to use?

Speaker 2 (35:08):
I think if you value yourself and it depends on the
gatekeeper.
So Jesse was a gatekeeper.
Jay was the brilliant mindbehind it.
So Jay saw my talent.
But to me I was just anadministrative deal for Jesse,
jesse could have seen you as athreat.

(35:28):
More an administrative problem,right?
Because they were hiring peopleso fast or they thought they
were going to hire, so he'sgetting ready to hire all these
people.
There's only four people in thecompany so far.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
So this is right at the beginning, right.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
I was one of the original six.
So I said look, I guess you'renot interested.
I'm not interested, have a niceday and never call me again,
pound sand.
And he's yelling at me on thephone.
I'm like boom.
So I just looked at my wife, Isaid that wasn't a great idea
and she was like well, you saidwhat you had to say, right?

(36:04):
And I said yeah.
So about 15 minutes later I geta call from Jesse Fink.
He says look, maybe Ioverreacted, because obviously
he went to talk to Jay.
And Jay said what did you do?
What are you an idiot?
We want this guy, this is theguy that we want to hire.
Call him back, tell him thatI'll speak to him on Friday at 6

(36:26):
o'clock.
His time, 6 o'clock rollsaround on the Friday.
I'm waiting around going.
Here we go again.
So at 5.59, the phone rings.
Pick it up.
It's Jay Walker.
All right, here's the deal.
We want you.
In two weeks we're going togive you X amount of money,
we're going to give you X amountof stock and you don't have to

(36:48):
move.
You can operate remotely fromSan Diego.
And how does that sound?
So you get what you want.
So I said that sounds great,but I'll commute.
And he said what do you mean?
I said I'm going to be inaction.
If I give one piece of adviceto anybody listening, is that

(37:09):
never be remote, it's a verytough concept these days.
Yeah well, still, if you'rejust somebody who wants to make
a living, you can do whateveryou want, but if you're somebody
that wants to get ahead, youhave to be seen, you have to be
heard, you have to be in it andyou have to fight.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
I think that is sage advice and I agree with you
coming up with my career.
If you're in front of thecustomer, you're winning that
account.
If you're on the phone, you'renot connecting.
The same way If you're on thecomputer connecting a little
better.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
But you're better off .
And again, remember I'm amanager that manages by walking
around.
Yeah, Right.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Walk the floor.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, I've had all these employees.
I was always in their space.
I was always asking what wecould do better.
I was always trying to find outabout their families and to
build a family.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
So you care about your people and you have to be
impressed.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
If I care about them, then hopefully they care about
somebody else.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Or you Don't want to impress you.
It's not about me.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm about making money, right, so.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I would say it is about you because, at the end of
the day, great employees wantto work with great leaders, they
want to be mentored, they wantto be coached.
It's no different than anyfootball team wanting to impress
the coach and not get yelled ator really shine.
Get that pat on the back.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Well, when I was in the American Airlines, I
promoted 60 people, which is anaccomplishment men and women.
In the 70s and the 80s therewas always men being promoted,
but I promoted probably about 30women.
That's great To generalmanagers' jobs, sales managers'
job, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Pioneer Right.
All right, so you are hired,you are at Price Line, you are
in the trenches.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
I was senior vice president of product development
and also I have a vastinternational experience because
when I was working for Getz forthe Pritzker family, I was the
first American travel agentbehind the Iron Curt All right,
opening offices in Budapest,prague and Warsaw.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
What was that like?
As you are an American andbeing in the USSR has got to be
a challenge.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Well, we didn't get to the USSR, we got to the
Eastern Bloc countries.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Just pretty darn close.
Yeah, it was amazing,especially growing up or being
in the 80s.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, at first you were walking through the streets
and people had their heads downand if they saw you they
wouldn't want to look at youbecause they could tell you were
from.
You know, you weren't wearingthe sandals, with the socks, all
that stuff, and I was therewhen they took the hammer and
sickle down off the parliamentbuilding in Budapest, which is
really amazing.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
What was that like?

Speaker 2 (39:52):
It was amazing.
It was like freedom.
You know, you can actually feelfreedom.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
You could feel the freedom yeah and that's amazing.
You could see the emotions oneveryone's face.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Right, it was.
Like you know, they've beenbegging for this since the
uprising in 1956.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Wow, right, all right , that's empowering.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Right, so back to Priceline.
So we signed American Airlinesfirst and then remember that guy
told you about Bob Crandall.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
So Bob decided that that wasn't a great idea.
He figured that if you had aschedule and pricing that you
could win any battle.
He didn't need all thissuperfluous stuff.
So we then made a deal withDelta, which I was against,
which turned out to bite us inthe butt.
Why is that?
Remember I told you, our stockwent up to 162?

(40:42):
Yes, well, it settled somewherearound in the 90s and we had
given away a lot of shares toDelta to become the first major
airline to sign.
Ok, and I thought that was dumbbecause I knew that once we
started ticketing and once westarted getting going, that they
were all going to fall anyway.
Because, again, the concept ofPriceline was name your own

(41:05):
price and you can make oneconnection.
So if you were the dominantcarrier in the space, I could
run rings around you with a TWA,with United American
Continental, because here's afunny story for you.
So I was sent to Kansas City tospeak to Frontier, and Frontier

(41:29):
is a small regional.
And after the meeting I got onthe phone with Jay and I said
uh-uh.
He said what do you mean?
I said the whole concept ofPriceline has to be that it's
only a top 10 airline.
Ok, it's got to be.
You know, I feel safe and I'mgetting my price.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yes, I agree with you because if there was the notion
that you'd be on a budget planeand you have to traverse the
barrier of putting in a creditcard which is scary for a
customer you're not going to dowell.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Right, especially if you're on Southwest.
So we took the approach toAmerican Airlines and says
here's how you compete withSouthwest without advertising.
So Southwest was big in Texasthen and they were taking market
share, so Americans figured itout finally.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
So Southwest is one of my favorite stories.
Herb Keller, her, oh he's anamazing guy Well was no longer
around, but there are lots ofbusiness studies on his.
We Will Miss you example.
Yeah, yeah, hold on.
The infamous New Yorklawnmowers upon us.
An invasive species.
You want to walk a littlefurther back?

(42:41):
Are you good to walk?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Yeah, how much more time do you have?
As much as you want to share?
Well, there's a whole secondhalf to the story.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
That's why I'm great.
I'll share this and then we'llget edited somewhere in there.
Herb Keller her was famous forreceiving letters from someone
that they called Mrs Crabb Apple, and she was constantly
complaining about how she didn'tlike the fact she didn't have a
seat where there was no meal,or she had to pay for luggage or
whatnot.
And finally, one of the letters, herb Keller, her's response

(43:14):
was dear Mrs Crabb Apple, wewill miss you.
Classic example of knowing whoyour customer base and knowing
who they aren't.
And it's OK to not pleaseeverybody.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Right, the whole premise of Price Line was built
on common man.
That people that were branded,let's say, you liked Hilton
hotels or you liked Americanairlines or whatever was their
frequent stay or frequent flyerprograms that you were going to
be very hard to move to Price.
So we built it so that commonman, the guy who doesn't care

(43:47):
the price sensitive, which is75% of the population, could
take advantage.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
They want a great deal Again.
Your barrier to entry that youhad to get over was putting in
your credit card, but today isnot scary Today we'll put in our
credit card in anything In 1996, it was pretty scary.
In 1996, you were not asprotected if there was fraud,
which it wasn't as great.
But if there was fraud you wereresponsible.
Now you're not.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
So one day Jay wakes up, comes into the office.
We had just launched thecompany.
The airline business was goinggood.
He says I need a hotel program.
I said, yeah, he goes.
You got six months, I went.
What?

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Good deadline, so you need it.
Need it now.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Right.
So we created the hotel productfor Price Line, which is the
largest piece of their businessnow Currently.
Yeah, and we built it fromscratch.
I mean it was all the ideas ofme and my team and I had some
great team members.
I mean again, you don't do thison your own.
If you think you're thesmartest guy in the room, then
check yourself.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yes, this is a recurring theme.
If you think that you're thesmartest guy in the room or girl
then you might as well closethe door, because it's going to
be lonely.
Yeah, but that is absolutelythe utmost truth and I was Jay
Walker's mystique.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
right, Jay was a perfectionist, but he was very
sacriatic in that everybody wasallowed to voice their opinion
and he would never make a snapdecision.
He would absorb everybody'sopinion and then arrive after a
contemplation and come up withthe best solution as far as he
was concerned.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
So he was a true charismatic leader.
Is he still alive?

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Oh yeah, he was on the cover of Fortune magazine as
the modern day Thomas Addis.
Oh wow yeah, because he hasthat's noble.
He has like 1,400 patentspending or awarded.
He's into the gaming business,he's into all sorts of different

(45:45):
stretches of work.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Incredibly smart human that knows the value of
others.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And he was a Cornell dropout.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Heard this story a lot right.
Some of our charismatic leaders, some of the best and brightest
, are college dropouts or didn'tgo to college at all.
Now, with that being said, doyou think it's possible to reach
the level of success that hehad reached today as a college
dropout or not, with no collegeeducation?

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Today.
Yeah, I think there's still alot of entrepreneurial people.
That it's not about how muchyou know, it's how you use what
you know.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
That's right.
Your work ethic and yourinteraction with people, the
hustle, the grit, the willing tostarve.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Right.
We built this hotel program,which was super because there
was no discounting in the hotelbusiness at all.
The only way they discountedwas to give corporate deals.
So if you were IBM and youbooked 400,000 rooms a year,
you're getting a discount.
Yeah, hilton would say, ok, youhave a special deal, but for

(46:42):
common man they didn't qualify.
So we built the hotel program,and one of the problems that we
had to address was I want afour-heart-star hotel in New
York.
Well, new York's a big city, soif you're working on Wall
Street and your hotel's on 178thStreet and Audubon Avenue,

(47:07):
that's impossible.
It's going to take you threehours just to commute to the
office.
That's right.
So what we did was we decidedto global map all the hotels and
put them in regions.
So I want a four-star hotel inMidtown.
I want a four-star hotel in theWall Street area.
I want a four-star hotel inBrooklyn.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
So you created this mapping structure, which is
widely used today.
With all the price lines, wehave the patents on that.
So did they copy the price linemodel or did they steal?

Speaker 2 (47:39):
They had to.
They had to copy it Again.
There was very few playersaround that time.
Expedia was the biggest playerwhen we were in 1996.
And they were owned byMicrosoft at the time.
So once I built the hotelprogram, I went to the CEO at

(47:59):
the time, which is a guy namedRick Braddock, and Rick was the
ex CEO of Citibank.
Okay, so his travel knowledgewas zero and I said look, don't
you just?

Speaker 1 (48:11):
love that when CEOs are put into plays that have no
experience in the industry.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Well, I'll tell you that 90% of our senior
management had no travelexperience.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
None, but they knew their role.
They're all Wall Street guys,yeah, but they knew their job.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah, for purpose.
We could argue that.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Some did, some did.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
We had Dan Shulman.
I don't know if you know that.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Name's familiar yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yeah, he's at PayPal, that's right.
But Dan was president of ourcompany for a while and he was
very, very sharp.
But I went to Rick Braddock.
I said I need advertising moneyfor hotels and he tells me that
no, no, you don't.
People buy airlines first andthey buy hotels.

(48:53):
I said no.
I said a person that's in LongIsland that wants to stay in the
city there's no airlineinvolved.
I said it's a much biggermarket and they're more apt to
discount because they've neverdone it before and this was a
perfect way for them to discountwith nobody knowing.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
That's right Okay.
Right so by the way, I thinktoday I would disagree with that
.
I would think that at leastwhen I buy a location, I buy the
hotel first.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
I'm not worried about the flight.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, well, that's what I was trying to tell him.
But he was smart because he wasa CEO right.
So I finally got one ad out ofhim and we hired Leonard Nemoy
to do the ad, which is kind offun, but that was the only ad we
had.
And then we ran some Christmasadvertising for hotels and the

(49:44):
title was Ho Ho Hotels.
And I was like you guys can'tbe serious.
I said Ho Ho Hotels.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Anyway, that is a marketing stretch.
Nonetheless, I would say that Icould see the marketing
challenge behind that Right.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
So we built it.
It started to go.
Then I, Jay, came back into myoffice and said no, I said I'm
tired, I don't want to doanything else, I just want to
relax.
You know, give me a month.
You got to go to the carcompanies.
So I went to the car companiesthe next week.
I met with the people at Budgetand I got to be very good

(50:32):
friends with the CEO at Budgetand we brought them in first,
and then when Hertz came in,Hertz just dominated the space
because they were a lot smarter.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
So why were these companies so willing to give
discounts?

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Because it was opaque .
What does that mean?
It means that I asked forsomething, I get something, but
it's not branded.
Okay.
So if I'm a budget customer andI want to get a budget car, I
can't depend on price line todeliver me a budget product.
Okay, and now my freaking flyer, or whatever motivates me to

(51:06):
use budget, is compromised.
So let's say a hotel.
In the old days, hotels wererun on average room rate.
Right, so you could be at theplaza and your average room rate
is $1,000 a night, but yourhotel is only 40% full.
So they went to a new systemthat I knew very well, which is

(51:27):
called RevPAR, which is the sameas they use in the airlines.
You know it's based it wouldcost per mile, which is revenue
per mile.
Gotcha, right.
So we first, we went toMarriott and all the big guys
and they all said no, becausethe people that you're dealing
with are 25 year old veterans inrevenue management and the

(51:49):
easiest thing they can say is no.
When they say yes, they got todo something.
That's right, right, and theytake a risk.
So I've been here for 25 years.
If I say yes and this thingfails, you know there goes my
pension and my.
You know my credibility and mylegacy.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
We're not talking about risk takers in management.
We're talking about risk takersor mitigators when you're an
executive owner or a leader.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
So we scrapped that idea and we went straight to the
owners and we sat down with theowners and a lot of owners are
REITs right.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Real estate investment trusts.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
And they went.
So you're telling me that I candiscount.
Nobody knows what my discountis, nobody knows it's my brand,
but I can take whatever I wantcash.
I said, yeah, the people areactually putting cash on the
table, so you want this?
They said you know, if you'vegot 60 rooms in your hotel and
you're only booking 20 and nowyou're booking 40 and getting

(52:46):
revenue with the same staff,might as well use it.
Why wouldn't you?
And they went duh.
So then they forced thecorporate guys to come in, got
it.
So it took the revenue managersoff the hook because now they
were forced to do it.
And then the owners made a bigstink about it because they said
look, if you're not going to dothis, I'll just change my flag,

(53:07):
because they don't care if it'sa Marriott or Hilton or
whatever.
Obviously, from an advertisingperspective and from a market
penetration, it's good to be aMarriott.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Of course you have a brand standard.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
It's good to be the Holiday Inn.
It's good to be a Rich Carpon.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yes, and you have a loyalty with your customer at
that point because they want tofollow the brand standard.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
So that became successful.
Cars became successful.
I had a guy from so, youcreated the car program as well,
right.
So I had a guy from National.
I was at a Christmas party forNational Car Rental and he came
up and he hugged me.
He says I was full at Christmasand I said who are you?

Speaker 1 (53:50):
He says I'm from.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Orlando yeah, he says yeah, every car, every car was
gone.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Because of the price line, because of the price line.
So you essentially boosted allof these companies.
Right, you were theconglomerator.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
I mean you were the first real discount that didn't
affect them in the marketplaceand the opaqueness and the
opaqueness is what won Okay,because if you had to.
You're competing againstSouthwest Airlines.
Southwest Airlines puts a priceof $59 Dallas, new York, which
is the bread and butter ofAmerican Airlines.

(54:26):
So American Airlines says it's$250, $275 to fly American.
But here price line, here's athousand seats a day at $59.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
So they can now compete without watering down
their MSRP, their public pricing, and they don't have to seem
cheap Right Meanwhile, at priceline customers they can chalk it
up to oh well, it's price line,they're buying in bulk.
So therefore, that's why theygot me the discount.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Well, the whole theory was that we were margin.
We weren't margin players.
If you were an airline, youwere allowed to give me 10
prices for the same seat and wewould pay you the closest with
making whatever.
So you could go in $10increments.
And then it was about firstchoice.
So the problem that we had justthis is important the problem

(55:15):
that we had is that market shareis the Bible for the airlines.
All right, so if they're a huband they have 52% of the
marketplace, they don't want youcoming in, but when they're 25%
of the marketplace, they wantall the share.
So you had to figure out how tobe fair.
So one of the patents that Ihave is a randomizer that

(55:35):
guarantees you a first look atyour percentage of the market
share.
So if you were AmericanAirlines with 52% of the market
share, you would get 52% of thefirst chances at that price.
And if you didn't take it, thenI could go.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Then round rob into the next one.
So in that case, how does priceline profit?
Are you taking the discountedprice from the airline and
marketing.
It changed quite a bit fromwhen we were Well at least back
then Was ityou take thediscounted price from the
airline and on a call, or youalready had a block that you can
buy.
It was an inventory.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
So if you go on and try to book an advantage seat on
American, sometimes you can'tget them right Because there's
no inventory, although you canget a coach seat or a first
class seat or a business classseat.
So they manipulate the bucketsand they said I'm going to take
10% of my airplane and make itavailable for discount.
Okay, right.

(56:28):
So we would bang the machineand say is there any seats in
this bucket?
If there are seats in thatbucket, then we'll offer the
price.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
So is this a real time call?
A customer says I want to flyfrom.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Well, it's online, but we really didn't have a
phone presence.
It was online.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
No, no.
So when I say a real time call,oh yeah, it was not on seconds.
Yes, okay, so basically acustomer in San.
Diego wants to fly to LA on hisday and then boom, they say I
want this ticket.
Then price line online.
We bounce back to you and sayyou got it.
Okay, so you didn't owninventory, you did a real time
call, right, okay.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
So it was.
I think we launched on April7th of 1999.
And on May, on March, I thinkit was 10th Jay calls me to his
house and he says, bob, we got aproblem.
I said, okay, what is it?

(57:25):
He says well, our chieftechnical officer, who was a
brilliant kid, but he wasbuilding this mammoth computer
system and he wasn't going to beready for launch.
I said, well, one's he going tobe ready?
He says well, probably eightmonths Now.
We've already invested $40million in advertising and

(57:46):
newspapers and print that werecoming that were coming.
He says so it's up to you, bob.
I said it's up to me.
Now.
I'm not a computer guy.
I mean, I know my way aroundwhat I liked for the computer to
do, but I'm not a coder orwhatever.
So I went home, put my kids onmy lap, started to cry a little

(58:09):
bit.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
How the hell am I going to?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
do this.
So the next year I was prettyscared.
The whole company was dependingon me.
We're in for about 200 million,so Bob's human Right.
So the next day I went in I hadmy whiteboard.
You know, I had him bring intwo whiteboards and a whole
bunch of magic markers.

(58:30):
I said how am I going to dothis?
And I started to think aboutwho's the smartest person in
business over the centuries andI came up with Henry Ford and I
said Henry Ford, because ofproduction line.
So if I can break down thetransaction into different
components, then I can havedifferent people transfer that

(58:53):
information and start to, youknow, at least have some sort of
tracking.
So if I could hire 20 travelagents, they could at least get
the process going and then tryto figure it out as we go down
the line.
So as I started to do that I'mgoing on a whiteboard and I'm
starting to figure it out I said, well, I could automate this
piece of it and I got somefriends that could probably do

(59:15):
this piece of it.
And then this is a piece that Ineed some help on.
And here's a piece that I needsome help on.
So how do I get there?
So I called up all my contacts,some really smart people, and
by April 7th we had the wholething automated with CRTs that
basically acted as operators andthe information would come in,

(59:39):
go to the CRT, it would start tosearch on its own, it would
find something, it would jam itthrough the ticketing process,
it would throw it throughaccounting, it would do all that
stuff and it was all automated.
So you are MacGyver, I don'tknow about that.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
It seems like it that day I was so.
You did what you needed to do.
You got it done Right so.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Portitude Well, with like three hours of spare Still
dead.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
You got to remember A win is a win.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
There's a team of like 20 guys that are working
day and night and then going outto a club, maybe for six hours,
to blow off some steam.
Which club?
You know which club.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
I'm going to make some assumptions.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Yeah, you know what they say about assuming.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Yeah, okay, then I'll presume.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Yeah.
So it started to work.
Everything was great.
So I felt pretty good aboutwhat I had done.
They give me, like this,employee award.
The whole cafeteria was full ofpeople screaming and cheering.
It was a good day, Awesome.
And then.
So I went back to my so-calledboss.

(01:00:45):
Even though I reported straightto Jay, Jay had a guy in
between us you know for the Dalystuff and I said to him okay,
so here's my deal.
I said I want as much stock asthe CTO has.
I said if I have to save him,then why would he make three
times more than me?
That's right.

(01:01:06):
So we went into this wholething and the short story is
that I made a big noise.
I told him I was quitting,Packed my box.
Jay went crazy and they matchedmy request.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Okay, is that good advice for today, in this day
and age to-.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
It depends on your situation, right?
If you have a solid case, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
So if you are the lead, the best, the known hero,
always that you should stand upfor what you want and make
demands.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
It's about timing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Timing is everything.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
All right If you're going to go tell somebody you're
the best just because you thinkit.
Better check yourself, but ifyou just hit, a home run, then
that's an opportunity to shine.
Remember Ben Franklin.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
You know, sundial in the shade Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Right.
So that's been my motto for mywhole life it's timing and it's
not being ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
So a successful life is for those who take it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah, I don't think you can just let it.
It doesn't come over as a wave.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
What I can say from plenty of experiential data and
evidence is those employees thatare great but they don't ask
for what they want, don't getwhat they want Right.
Same thing in life.
If you don't ask, if you'reafraid to ask a question, worst
case you get a no Right.
If you're afraid to ask aquestion, you will never get
what you want, because peopleare not going to give you wealth

(01:02:32):
, riches, promotion, unless youare ready for it and you ask for
it, right.
But there's a right way to askfor it Asking, Maybe it was
Henry Ford.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
He said well, how can you afford to keep these people
?
He says how can I afford to letthem leave?
Yeah, that's right.
Why would I train them forseven or eight years and then
pull them off to somebody else?

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
That's right, let them grow out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Yeah, because I'm training my best.
Yeah, so I believe in that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
So that's Lesson for employers is take care of your
best people, because someoneelse will.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
So chapter two at Priceline Mm-hmm.
So I've done all these things.
I built a packaging programthat could combine all three and
I pitched it to the seniormanagement and they said, no,
we're going to do insurance.
I said no.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
So I went to insurance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Yeah, so name your own price for insurance.
Name your own price for fallmanage name your own price for
gas, groceries, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
You really cornered the market of name your own
price.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yes, but I said we have all the stuff.
I have 90% of it built already.
All we have to do is turn it on.
And what we'll do is we wouldattract a lot of business
customers, because businesscustomers get no advantage in
packaging.
But if you're going toCincinnati and you need a hotel
and you need a car, then you'reripe for me.
Yeah Right, Because I can.

(01:03:52):
In travel business, everybodywants to hide their fare.
Remember the opaque part of it.
So when you buy a package youdon't know what each component
costs.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
So you can shuffle the prices from each and the
cost from each.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
So an airline will sell you a ticket for 50 bucks
if you buy a million tickets,right, and if you don't tell
anybody, yes, so what you do isyou make a deal with them.
Then you go to the Holiday Innor Hilton or whoever and you say
I'm going to buy a millionrooms and they say, well, here's
your price.
So the whole deal behind awholesaler if you know anything

(01:04:29):
about the travel businessthere's wholesalers that build
your packages you want to go toHawaii and all that stuff and
what they do is they buy volumeand then they price out the
volume in the beginning to for abreak even.
So they buy a million airlinetickets and if they break up,
even at 600, then they dropprice just for profit.
So they were charging $120 aticket originally on all the

(01:04:52):
package and all the packages arebought early Because people
want to go to Hawaii, they'replanning and all that, and then
you can dump packages.
That's why you see thesepackages for $85 three nights.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Last minute deals.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
Yeah, and that's the whole premise there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Because they already made their revenue number, so
the rest is just gravy on top.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
So instead of that, they came up with the great idea
that they were going torecreate the IPOs in Europe, in
Australia and in China.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
IPO meaning.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
A new stock.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Oh, okay, initial.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
So they put this guy in charge who doesn't have a
passport, and I said, well,ironing, yeah.
I said you guys are making amistake, let me do it.
And while this guy is brilliant, it was very good at what he
did.
He just didn't know theinternational market.
And when you deal with theinternational market, you're

(01:05:48):
dealing with culture.
When you go to China, thepeople that are important listen
.
The other people are sleeping.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
We heard that on one of the episodes of this podcast,
Lou Kimball.
He ran Foot LockerInternational and dealing with
each individual culture has verycomplex challenges.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Right German, it's straightforward and yelling and
screaming.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
They're not happy, you will know it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
You will be insulting .

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
You are the dumbest person in the room if you are
not British.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
So I said, let me do this.
So I lived in Sydney for ninemonths and we started.
We couldn't call it price linethere, so we called it my price.
Why is that?
Because it was already patented.
It was a drug store that was aname your own price line and
started in Hong Kong.
I lived in Hong Kong orcommuted to both these places

(01:06:40):
for a year, and then I had anapartment in London for three
years.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
What was your favorite place to live?
To live.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
I don't know Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
That's where your family is, that's where the
heart is All right.
So Bob is from Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Yeah, so Greece.
I have a lot of family inGreece, holland.
It really depends on whatyou're going for.
If you're going for romance toGreek islands, yeah.
If you're going for party, rio,cape Town, singapore, you know,
it really depends.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Partying in Singapore .

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Would not have thought that, with all the
strict laws, yeah Well, there'sstrict laws about strict things.
But no gum chewing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
They have a separate part of town that's just
dedicated to the decadentsociety.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Huh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
And it's got a name, but I don't think we should use
it on the podcast.
Okay, I'll tell you when themicrophones are off.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
They're enough, I'll put it in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
So just a fast forward Lee Kaixing, who was
he's one of the richest peoplein the world.
He was a gateway to Chinathrough Hong Kong.
If American businesses wantedto go into China for
manufacturing or anything, theyhad to go through Lee Kaixing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
He went through him.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Right.
And then he had a companycalled Hutchison Wampoa.
Hutchison Wampoa is the largestowner of commercial real estate
ports and airports in the world.
Okay, when you talk about theChinese owning airports and
ports, that's Lee Kaixing Got itAll right.
And then he had a guy thatworked for him that ran
Hutchison Wampoa named CanningFuck F-O-K.

(01:08:22):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Sorry to laugh.
Yeah Well, we all did.
I can't tell you the jokes butI can imagine the jokes because
I'm thinking of you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Right.
And Kaixing is a very small man, canning Fuck is a small guy
too.
And then Ian Wade, who I lovedto death.
Ian Wade was an English guyworking in Hong Kong.
Remember, at that time youstill had the English rule in
Hong Kong and I was flying on anairplane one day for my commute

(01:08:52):
and I opened it and it was theWall Street Journal and it says
price line should buy price line.
And we were going through atough time with our stock.
At the time I told you we wentto 162.
Well, we were down to 90 cents.
Yeah, all right.
So we had to beef up the stockand one of the reasons is that
they were trying to do all theseIP.
I told them they didn't need todo other IPOs, that when you

(01:09:13):
opened up Hong Kong and Sydneyand all that, the strength of
your business grows and thevalue of your stock.
And the other thing is that theAmericans don't give a shit
about, don't care about you,didn't care, that's fine.
Yeah, they don't care about theChinese.
Yeah, they don't care about theAustralians.
And the Australians could givea crap about the.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
US.
Well, this is business, right.
You're competing with your own.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah, but they had to rebuild the systems and like
this is the internet, you don'tneed to rebuild system.
One system can operate theworld Well, again, they didn't
listen to me, so so the moral ofthe story is always listen to
Bob.
No, but at least think If I saysomething that's probably worth
thinking about.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
If Bob says it, then he's probably thought it out, so
you should think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
So I went and met with Kenny Falk and Ian and I
said look, I think you guysshould buy A major stock in
price line US and break downthis crap and just add it to
their company, as opposed totrying to do separate IPOs.
So Jay was trying to get out atthe time and he owned probably

(01:10:23):
30 percent of the company.
It's still at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Which is a lot of the company Right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
So I remember our stock was at 90 cents.
So I worked with the Chineseand they bought all of Jay's
stock for four dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
Which made him a lot of money.
That is a great multiple.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Well, yeah, it made him a lot of money.
He got him whole because he puta lot of money in, but then he
had taken a lot out.
You know, obviously with thestock he wasn't hurting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
And the Chinese bought it.
The stock went to eight.
Then they split the stock sixto one and then they sold it 38.
So they made a lot of money, Alot, and everybody that is a big
multiple, and that's when priceline started.
It's a huge climb to where itis today at $2,200 a share.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
That is insane Rapid growth.
So you are the man.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Well, I was part of it, but I had to get out, do you
?
Because I had 90 days.
I had to get off everybody andgot the Chinese to buy it.
I could understand that, yeah,At that time Jay Walker, who was
the guy, and Rick Braddock, whowas the chairman, didn't like
each other Because Jay wanted tobranch out into gas and

(01:11:37):
groceries and all those thingsand Rick was like no, you know
cars, I had a thing worked outfor a name your own price for
diamonds.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
It would have been huge, it would have done very
well.
I think there are some sitesthat do that in a way.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Well, there's a glut in diamonds, believe it or not,
but the glut is in one carat,half a carat, up to about two.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Well, what were you saying about common person?
Yeah, what can the commonperson afford?
Now, two carats is a bit morethan the common yeah, the one
carat.
Half a carat and one caratabsolutely.
Yeah, those were, you know theearrings and the ring, the first
engagement ring for the commonperson that's falling prey to
you must get a diamond.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
You could get a you know one carat diamond for 400
bucks.
You would take it, yeah forsure, and then you would fit it
onto a band and whatever.
There are plenty of Costcodiamond sales around that price
Right, but again, that was tooforward thinking for them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Got it.
So they asked me to leave Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Did they?

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
take care of you on the departure.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Yeah, okay.
They paid me a lot of money andthey signed me to a contract
that I wouldn't write the book.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
But you can do this podcast, oh yeah that's been a
long time ago.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I left in 2003.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah Well, things have certainly changed since
then, but if we're reallylooking back at your successful
journey and story, you are ahustler from the beginning,
always a strong work ethic andmentality, and you saw
opportunity in people and youtrusted your own judgment and
you, essentially, areresponsible for creating what
the price line is today, alongwith others.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Yes, not solely, but Jay Walker is the guy without
his vision.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
There's a domino effect right Without hiring you,
and him standing up to hire youand all of those things Without
you going and saying I'll takethe job, but I'm showing up to
the office Right Without youtraveling overseas.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Here's the one thing they don't teach you at MIT and
then Harvard and then all theIvy League schools.
It's called Street Smarts.
You, I love that.
All right.
Street Smarts is, you know Jaywas talking about opening up a
university where we would paystudents to go there, as opposed
to you paying a.
It was kind of like the Mormonchurch.

(01:13:51):
You know, I put you throughschool, I give you the best
education I possibly can giveyou, and then you pay me 10% of
your salary for the rest of yourlife.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
But it's a multimillion dollar education.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
I think Facebook was doing something along those
lines.
I'll need to be fact-checkedwhere they would sponsor the
best and brightest to go tocollege and then they would have
to work for Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
So, in your way, you were capitalizing on the loan.
You were becoming your ownstudent loan bank.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
Well, more importantly, we were creating a
wealth of knowledge, kind oflike the Young Presidents
Association, right, yep, theYoung Presidents Association.
Why are they successful?
Because they have all thesesmart people.
Whether they went to college ordidn't go to college, everybody
could get into YAP because oftheir their acumen, their result

(01:14:42):
, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
So I will fully agree with you that you can't teach
entrepreneurship, and I'm nottalking about the college
courses about entrepreneurship.
No, you can't teach streetsports?
Well, I'm getting there.
So entrepreneurship is born oran entrepreneur is born, Right?
They are not made.
I agree with that 100% you needthe guts right, you need the

(01:15:04):
intuition.
Now street sports.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
Well, you need to find out if you have the guts.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
You have to be put to the test.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
That's why this university that we were talking
about, you know, I told Jay, Isaid I'll teach street sports.
Yeah, and he goes, that's great.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
That's a great idea.
If you didn't grow up withstreet sports, I don't think you
can take a crash course on that, but it's true, I grew up from.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
But if you have the noodle in there, you Okay, if
you're a kid you can grow it.
But there's, if there's no seedif you're a timid guy and
whatever no, you can't changethat.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
So I believe you should hire people in
personality and work ethic overtheir learned ability or talent,
because you could always traincertain skills you can train
talent.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
A resume is a piece of cake.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
It gets your foot in the door.
Now having street smarts,having been in a fight or talked
yourself out of getting beat up, that lasts with you forever
and that could help you turn theart of a deal.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Right, or also how to figure out what the other
person's angle is.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Yeah, or how to scrap and find a meal or food.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
I mean, when we started Price Flying, we hire
all these Harvard and MITeducated kids and they were
brilliant.
Yeah, of course, but when youasked them to do something, they
said well, no.
And when I went to school, theysaid you couldn't do that.
And then they and you'd say,well, nobody's had this ever
before.
This is outside the box.
So we hired hackers.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Well, they weren't ethical when we hired them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
But you turned them into ethical.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
Right, because we wanted to break the system, so
we knew how to fix the system,so we had guys trying to bang
our system.
That's how we got it with thecredit card.
The safety and the credit cardwas that we had really good
people trying to break the codes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
So fast forward.
Your career at Price Line hadended Right and you went on to
starting different ventures ofyour own.
You used your street smarts,your intuition, your
intelligence.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
Yeah Well, I got thrown a curveball.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Got thrown a curveball.
Why's that Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
In 2006,.
You know, I was tired of beingbehind a desk and all that, so I
wanted to be outside.
So I started building houses.
I had been dabbling in buildinghouses for most of my life, but
I started to take it seriouslyand I was building houses and
purchase New York and inHarrison, new York and I got

(01:17:31):
caught in 2008 with a wholebunch of vibrancy Yep, so you
know, I had my ups and downs.
I got divorced.
I still live with my ex-wife.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
I got cancer.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
So that kind of slowed me down.
But now I'm involved in acouple of things.
I was in the pop business for,you know, three years trying to
fix that cowboy mess.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
That is a mess because everybody's rushing in
to find the pot of gold.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Well, half the people smoke in the pot.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
So that I realized too is until it becomes a fully
regulated industry, you're goingto have people that are Well,
you know who you compete withthe most.
Getting high on their ownsupply.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Well, do you know who you compete with the most?
As the farmer itself, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
Of course.
That's the reason why certainnatural medicines that grow in
the ground are illegal.
Can't profit off of a mushroom,can't profit off of a plant.
Right, you have to make itillegal, yeah right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
You have to make it back.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Blue China is legal because you can't profit off of
somebody's bathtub gin.
Although it could kill you too.
Right, well, that's half theissue, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
But people grow corn.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
You can grow corn.
You can grow lots of corn.
You just can't turn it intomash.

Speaker 2 (01:18:38):
Well, what happens is that there's the pot business
and then there's the farmer.
And I'm not talking about thesmall-time farmer, I'm talking
about big-time farmers, like inKentucky.
Yeah, they've been growing potfor 100 years.
Yeah Right, they started togrow tobacco.
Tobacco started to get wipedout, so the tobacco farm started

(01:18:58):
shrinking.
They went into hemp, right.
Closing Well, our forefathersgrew hemp, but for oil Right the
CBD was becoming very popular,very popular yeah.
But what was happening was theywere selling their plants to
processors.
Processors were processing itand trying to put it out in the

(01:19:20):
market.
But the market was so volatile.
When I first started it was$3,800 for a liter of CBD oil.
When I left it was at $450.
So what happens when the pricekeeps dropping?
The processor has no money, buthe's got a lot of inventory and
the farmer's stuck with theplants.
So the farmer started toprocess his own and then compete

(01:19:44):
with the processors becausethey weren't paying them.
So they said well, screw you,I'll just do it myself, and
that's when the price started todrop and nobody knew.
Nobody knew anything.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
So is it going to bounce back?

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
It's starting to bounce back down.
I mean with more legalizationand more regulation.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Legalization.
But it's more than justlegalization.
Just because something's legaldoesn't make it happen, it's
regulation yeah, it's regulation.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
That is going to be what's set to end Right, because
what we were doing when I leftwas that we were identifying the
plant to the field and whatpart of the field it was growing
, in case something happened.
So you had a barcode on everyplant.
So you actually are processinglike a business, you're acting
like a true inventory managementbusiness, but the unfortunate

(01:20:31):
part about it is that'sexpensive, especially in the CBD
market, because that's all oiland powder, like in plants.
You now have dispensaries andyou can make money off of THC,
but it's hard to get thelicenses.
Well as with everything,there's a little bit of
corruption in getting thoselicenses.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
You think, yeah, just a little bit, but sometimes
there is major profit to be had.
There's always some corruptionbehind it, right?

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
So now I'm dealing with some new currency concepts.
Okay, you know I retired for awhile With cancer and all that.
I've been living a good life.
My ex-wife has nothing to worryabout, so she's got a good life
.
My kids are 34 and 38.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
So they're grown Two grandchildren.
Yeah, life is good.
Do you feel like you'resuccessful?

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
I believe that I made a difference.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
You made a difference .

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
That's important so is that your definition of
success?
I think it's better thansuccess.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Well, I always had this dream.
I had this interview once withthis guy and he was trying to
sell a Pritzker's travel agencyand I knew all about his travel
agency and it had real problems.
So he wanted me to go toPritzker and say buy this for
some ridiculous amount and thathe would take care of me.
And that's not me, I work foryou.

(01:21:47):
Yeah, I'm loyal, right?
So I told him.
I said look, here's what I want.
I want my picture in a WallStreet Journal in Dots.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
Pixelism.
Yeah, you know how they used tohave that on the front page of
the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
I had the little pixel things.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
I remember in our class having to do that and I
hated it.
It was so hard to do all thosedots.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
So which was the joke ?
So then, six months later, I'mon the phone with Pritzker, jay
and Bob, and Jay was thepatriarch of the family, bob was
my boss, but one of thebrothers, and Warren Buffett.
And then these guys, becausePSA owned this travel company

(01:22:34):
and they were asking me about itand I was trying to be
diplomatic and I said, look, youknow, if it was my money, I
wouldn't buy it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
So Buffett says well, why don't you come out and take
a look?
All right.
So Jay and Bob say hang on thephone.
I said I'm going to send someof my guys and we're going to do
a deep audit on them.
We want you to part of the team.
Now this is unbeknownst tothese guys that I was arguing
with before that wanted me tobetray the Pritzker.

(01:23:04):
So the night before we put ourstrategy together and then I
show up the next day and theseguys were shocked what are you
doing here?
It goes around, comes around myfriend.
Here's Johnny, here's Johnny.
Yeah, by the way, you have astriking resemblance to Jack.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Nicholson.
That's amazing.
So parting words, any sagewisdom that you would give to
either a budding entrepreneur,success minded individual or, in
your case, someone who needs tosell.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
I'd say stand your ground, be kind.
I think being kind is one ofthe biggest attributes anybody
can have.
We're all on this earth for avery short time, and being an
asshole, there are times forthat, but the most important
thing is to be kind.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
It's easy to be an asshole, but you are right.
We are in this rented suituntil we have to return it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
Right, and being kind pays back.
You talk about karma.
I mean, I see it all the time.
I see that kind people getrewarded in space and in
business.
If somebody's struggling,you're not competing against
them.
You're in this together, right?
If you're in a company andsomebody has a better idea than

(01:24:26):
you, good, embrace it, try tomake it better.
If you're a salesperson, youknow the sales starts when the
person says no.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Haha.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
Right.
If the person says yes, it'seasy.
The person says no, that's whenyou become a salesperson.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
That's when you have to turn it on and turn the no
into a yes.
That's right.
In fact, you should sometimesembrace the fact you got the no,
because at least they gave yousome feedback.
Which gives you energy.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Yeah, and to be honest, I mean don't somebody
asks you to cross the line.
Look, I'm willing to go up tothe line, but I won't cross the
line.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
So be honest, be ethical, be nice, celebrate your
partners, your friends, yourbusiness colleagues.
Celebrate your family most ofall.
Celebrate your family,Celebrate yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Because when you celebrate with your family,
everybody wins.
That's right.
Right, Because I'm not doingthis for me.
I didn't travel all around theworld and spend a shitload of
nights in hotels For me.
I wanted to make sure my kidswere happy, that my wife was
taken care of, that my parentswere happy before they passed so
successful.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Well, bob Wiss, while most people went to work today,
you went to hustle, and what doyou think of that aqueduct back
there?
I think it's beautiful.
It's man-made construction.
You want to take some picturesthere, right, yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yeah, it's not the Hoover Dam, but it's not the
Giv-a-Dam.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
Next time on I Took a Hike.
We are enchanted by theinspirational tales and trails
of a storyteller.
When I took a hike withMitchell Slater-

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Bob Wisse - Navigating the Turbulence of Life & Business

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bob Wisse - Navigating the Turbulence of Life & Business