0:00:11 The most successful social video I ever produced for Disney, and it was still the most successful one we ever produced, was because I refused to go through the approval process, which was, I’m sure if it had gone wrong, I’m sure I’d have been fired.
0:00:13 But sometimes you have to stand up in what you believe for.
0:00:18 I loved Disney because if you had a big idea, somebody would fund it for you.
0:00:30 I have to say that of the 260 guests we’ve had on this podcast, you have by far the best background behind you.
0:00:35 And it’s real, it’s drawn, it’s painted, so it’s not one of those fake backgrounds.
0:00:38 I worked for this guy for 30 years.
0:00:44 I finished as Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilms, Marvel, but it didn’t start that way.
0:00:46 I started as a coffee boy in the London office.
0:00:49 I used to go and get my boss six cappuccinos a day from a bar at Tannehill, First Street.
0:00:54 And about three weeks into the role, I was told I would be the character coordinator at the Royal,
0:00:58 that’s the person that looks after the characters that walk around, at the Royal Premier of Who Frames Roger Rabbit,
0:01:01 in the presence of the Princess of Wales.
0:01:02 Diana was like, what do I do?
0:01:05 They said, well, you stand at the bottom of the stairs, Roger Rabbit will come down the stairs,
0:01:09 the princess will come in along the receiving line, she’ll greet him or she’ll blow him off.
0:01:12 How could you possibly screw that up?
0:01:14 Well, that was the day when I found out what a contingency plan was.
0:01:19 A contingency plan would tell you if you’ve got to bring a very tall rabbit with spectacularly long feet
0:01:24 down a giant staircase towards the princess of Wales, you might want to measure the width of the steps first.
0:01:25 So I hadn’t.
0:01:29 Roger trips on the top step and he’s now hurtling like a bullet, head and feet,
0:01:34 directly down the stairs towards Diana’s head, whereupon he was met in midair by two Royal Protection officers
0:01:35 who just took him out.
0:01:38 There’s a very famous picture of Reuters of Roger going back like this,
0:01:40 two Secret Service heavies diving towards him in a suit,
0:01:44 and a 21-year-old PR guy from Disney in the back going, ah, shit, I’m fired.
0:01:49 So I got a call the next day from a place called Burbank, which I’d never heard of,
0:01:53 from somebody called a CMO, didn’t know what they were either, I thought I was going to tell him I’m fired.
0:01:59 And all I heard was, that was great publicity, was that I can make a career out of this.
0:02:06 And so basically for 20 years at Disney I did, I got to have some of the more mad, audacious, outrageous ideas.
0:02:07 That’s kind of what I did.
0:02:16 Well, Madison, I think that that was probably the best start of a podcast in the history.
0:02:17 They’re remarkable people.
0:02:21 Usually, Duncan, we like to introduce the guests, but, you know,
0:02:26 we’ve got to get out of that box and let the guests tell their own story.
0:02:30 When people ask me to, they want me to read my bio when I get up on the stage
0:02:32 and was like, do you remember the Charlie Brown cartoons?
0:02:33 You remember the principle?
0:02:37 Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, don’t read the bio, please don’t.
0:02:39 So I always do two truths of the lie.
0:02:41 And the funny thing is, when you get off the stage, you think,
0:02:44 ah, this person’s coming up to me, they’re going to ask me a really important question.
0:02:47 They go, oh, they just want to know which one was the lie.
0:02:56 Okay, so clearly we are not going to do a tradition or introductions.
0:03:04 So, you know, I have to ask you this dumb question, but man, what was it like to work at Disney?
0:03:10 I mean, was it like being the Super Bowl MVP and every year you go to Disneyland?
0:03:12 What was it like?
0:03:14 I hosted pretty much all of those guys.
0:03:17 My job was, this was in the days before contracts.
0:03:21 So you literally, at the end of the game, you had to get onto the field at the end of the game,
0:03:25 grab the MVP, but everybody else was yanking your cameras,
0:03:26 and throwing them all over the place.
0:03:30 So your job was just get to the MVP, get the line up, go to Disney World,
0:03:33 get them on the corporate jet and fly them down to Disney World.
0:03:38 That sounds easy, but there’s the MVP who doesn’t want to go with you.
0:03:39 They want to go drinking somewhere.
0:03:42 So I got separated on the field from my cameraman.
0:03:44 And he comes on the radio and goes, where are you?
0:03:46 I said, I’m on the pitch at the halfway line.
0:03:49 And somebody else goes, I think he means he’s on the field at the 50-yard line.
0:03:55 So I worked for, basically for, I suppose, 50% of my career was with Michael Eisner,
0:03:57 50% with Bob Iger.
0:04:01 But Roy Disney was still there all the time, and I loved Roy and John Lasseter.
0:04:06 They were the old school, but the old school were just, they had less corporations.
0:04:08 We’ve got so tight and tidy and pretty now.
0:04:10 I think they pushed boundaries more.
0:04:13 I admired them both because they broke the rules.
0:04:17 The most successful social video I ever produced for Disney, and it was still the most successful
0:04:22 one we ever produced, was because I refused to go through the approval process, which was,
0:04:24 I’m sure if it had gone wrong, I’m sure I’d have been fired.
0:04:26 But sometimes you have to stand up in what you believe for.
0:04:32 I loved Disney because if you had a big idea, somebody would fund it for you.
0:04:35 And I loved working for Michael in particular, because every time he walked in the door,
0:04:38 he was always respectful and very courteous, but he’d say, you know what?
0:04:40 We’re the world’s number one entertainment company.
0:04:42 Come back when you’ve got something that scares me.
0:04:43 Come on, all right, bring it.
0:04:44 And so it was great.
0:04:50 And working with Bob was also fascinating because here comes Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilms, ESPN,
0:04:56 ABC, and suddenly you’ve got all these cultures who are very unique, who, but the challenge
0:04:58 was everybody was better than everybody else.
0:05:03 So the task that Bob gave me was how might we embed a culture of innovation and creativity
0:05:04 into everybody’s DNA?
0:05:08 So the first thing I did was hire somebody else who knew what they were doing.
0:05:10 I said, make me look good.
0:05:11 They were a consultant.
0:05:14 They were never around for execution, but they were never going to show me how they did what
0:05:16 they did, or they were frightened I wouldn’t hire them again.
0:05:19 Model number two, I’ll be in charge of innovation and creativity.
0:05:20 What could possibly go wrong?
0:05:23 Well, it’s kind of like having a legal team or a marketing team or a sales team.
0:05:26 When you have an innovation team, you’ve kind of told everybody else you’re off the hook.
0:05:27 So that model failed.
0:05:32 The accelerator program, we bring in some young tech startups and take a 50-50 stake in their
0:05:32 business.
0:05:34 For them, we could scale.
0:05:35 That’s what Disney does.
0:05:38 For them, they could help us bring products and services to market much quicker than we normally did.
0:05:43 But we’d failed in Bob’s overall goal, which was, how might we embed a culture of innovation
0:05:45 and creativity into everybody’s DNA?
0:05:50 And so I asked 5,000 people, I said, what were the biggest barriers to being more innovative
0:05:51 and creative where you work?
0:05:53 Number one, don’t have time to think.
0:05:55 Number two, we don’t have the resources.
0:05:59 Number three, we say we’re consumer and client-centric, but we measure by quality results.
0:06:03 Number four, our ideas seem to get stuck, diluted or killed as they move through approval
0:06:03 process.
0:06:06 And number five, we all had a very different definition of creativity.
0:06:09 So I set out to create a toolkit that has three principles.
0:06:13 Takes the BS out of innovation and makes it more accessible to normal, hardworking people.
0:06:17 Makes creativity tangible for people who are uncomfortable with ambiguity and great.
0:06:19 Far more importantly, make it fun.
0:06:22 Give people tools they choose to use when you and I are not around.
0:06:24 So I was with Disney for 30 years.
0:06:28 I got the Jiminy Cricket, thank you, for 30 magical years of service bronze.
0:06:31 And I looked at it and I thought, shit, I’m nearly dead.
0:06:33 I’ve got to do something else.
0:06:37 So I left and I went home to England for a while and sat in the pub and felt sorry for
0:06:37 myself.
0:06:39 I thought, OK, what do I do now?
0:06:41 And somebody said, could you come and give a speech?
0:06:41 Sure.
0:06:43 And it just took off.
0:06:46 But see, I am the antithesis of so many other people.
0:06:49 The word, the creative, drives me nuts.
0:06:50 I’m sorry, it just does.
0:06:53 I know some people are better at writing stories.
0:06:55 Some people are better at writing music.
0:06:56 Some people are better at acting.
0:06:58 I believe everybody’s creative.
0:07:02 When you were a kid and you were given a gift for Christmas, it came in a huge box.
0:07:04 It took you ages to take the toy out of the box.
0:07:05 What do you spend the rest of the week playing with?
0:07:06 The box.
0:07:07 It was your rocket ship.
0:07:07 It was your force.
0:07:08 It was your creative.
0:07:09 But here’s the challenge.
0:07:11 Here comes AI.
0:07:14 And I was working with the engineer on their DeepMind project.
0:07:18 And I asked her, I said, how am I going to compete with what you do and what you’re
0:07:18 creating?
0:07:23 She said, well, she believed the most employable skill sets of the near term will be the ones that
0:07:25 will be the hardest for her to program into AI.
0:07:26 What are they?
0:07:28 Well, the ones with which we’re born.
0:07:29 We’re born with imagination.
0:07:30 We’re born creative.
0:07:31 We’re born curious.
0:07:32 We used to ask why, why, why again.
0:07:35 We’re born with MP and we’re born with intuition.
0:07:36 Will they be programmed one day?
0:07:37 I don’t know the answer.
0:07:39 But in the short term, probably not.
0:07:41 But the problem is that we go to school.
0:07:44 And the first thing our first grade teacher tells us to do is don’t forget to cover in
0:07:44 between the lines.
0:07:47 And then they say, stop asking why because there’s only one right answer.
0:07:49 So I did a talk at a university.
0:07:51 I had 3,000 students at university age.
0:07:55 So I brought in one first grade class of 30 little six-year-olds and sat them in the middle
0:07:56 with their teacher.
0:07:57 I said, hands up here.
0:07:57 Who’s creative?
0:07:58 Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
0:08:00 A 30 little hand shot into the air.
0:08:02 The other 3,000 stayed down.
0:08:05 We are taught that we are not creative.
0:08:07 By the time we’re 18, most people have given up.
0:08:11 And yet here comes AI, which would doubtless take away many roles but create new ones.
0:08:13 But what have we got left?
0:08:15 I genuinely believe the things with which we were born.
0:08:23 Duncan, has anybody ever told you that you need to come out of your shell and learn to
0:08:24 express yourself?
0:08:27 And I haven’t had a drink yet.
0:08:35 If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a few questions in my podcast.
0:08:48 So I want to hear about the philosophical impact of Disney calling people guests, not customers.
0:08:49 What’s behind that?
0:08:51 There’s a tool I call HowElse.
0:08:53 How by simply reframing a challenge?
0:08:57 Can you get people to stop thinking the way they always do and give them permission to think
0:08:57 differently?
0:09:00 So we’ll try and experiment and then I’ll answer your question.
0:09:01 Where do you live, by the way?
0:09:03 I live in Watsonville, California.
0:09:08 So if I was coming to Watsonville and you and I were going to open a car wash together,
0:09:12 tell me if you would, what are the three essential ingredients, three or four things we must have
0:09:12 in a car wash?
0:09:15 I would say good Wi-Fi is number one.
0:09:16 Wi-Fi.
0:09:16 All right.
0:09:22 And then obviously you have to have the car really clean.
0:09:22 Yeah.
0:09:26 And I would say the third thing is that…
0:09:27 Well, the essential ingredients.
0:09:33 The essential ingredients is your car comes out clean and then while you’re waiting for it,
0:09:34 you’re somewhat entertained.
0:09:37 And I would say that’s about it.
0:09:39 Well, maybe there’s a third.
0:09:45 The third one would be that I hope that the water and the resources are being effectively
0:09:46 recycled.
0:09:47 We’re just not polluting.
0:09:48 Okay.
0:09:50 So now you’re an high venture capitalist.
0:09:53 We’ve been invited to open a new franchise of auto spas.
0:09:55 Who are a spa?
0:09:56 What have you seen in a spa?
0:09:58 What would you like to see in your auto spa?
0:09:58 Anything you want.
0:10:00 What would you love to have in your auto spa?
0:10:07 So I think what you’re trying to say is that if you define it as car wash, you think of
0:10:09 just the rollers and the sprays.
0:10:13 But if you say auto spa, you think of manicure, pedicure, massage.
0:10:16 You think of like hippie music.
0:10:18 You think of relaxation.
0:10:19 You think of zen.
0:10:21 You’re not thinking of…
0:10:22 And that’s exactly how Walt used the tool.
0:10:23 Just getting your toenails cut.
0:10:27 Yeah, that’s exactly how Walt used the tool.
0:10:32 He said, look, July 17th, 1955, when he opened the doors to Disneyland, which has come out
0:10:34 for a 70th in a couple of months.
0:10:35 Now I feel old.
0:10:38 He said, we will not have any customers in our park.
0:10:39 We will only have guests.
0:10:40 We will not have any employees.
0:10:41 We’ll only have cast members.
0:10:43 They’ll be cast for a role in the show.
0:10:45 They’ll wear a costume, not a uniform.
0:10:46 They’ll work on stage, not backstage.
0:10:51 With that simple re-expression of the relationship between the employee and the customer as the
0:10:55 cast member and the guest, Walter created a culture of hospitality that’s rarely
0:10:56 been repeated elsewhere.
0:11:00 So now, fast forward, how is it actually used in business today?
0:11:04 In 2011, if we’d asked the question, how might we make more money, we’d have put the
0:11:05 gate price up at Walt Disney World.
0:11:06 People would have complained.
0:11:06 They’d have still come.
0:11:08 We’d have made our quarterly results.
0:11:10 You don’t get to iterate in a post-pandemic world.
0:11:13 So instead of saying, how might we make more money, we reversed the challenge and said,
0:11:16 how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point?
0:11:17 Everybody knew what it was.
0:11:18 It was called standing in line.
0:11:20 And I said, well, what if there were no lines?
0:11:21 Didn’t know how to do it.
0:11:23 Again, if you know how to do it, you’re iterating.
0:11:24 If it scares you a bit, you’re innovating.
0:11:27 So we used another tool, which is about looking outside.
0:11:31 I believe a lot of the insights for innovation come from looking outside of your industry.
0:11:36 And we found a very small pharmacy in Tokyo, Japan, that used RFID technology to enable
0:11:38 people not to stand in line when they came to pick up their prescriptions.
0:11:39 Bing!
0:11:41 Welcome to the World of Disney’s Magic Band.
0:11:42 I’m not wearing one today.
0:11:42 Oh, wait a minute.
0:11:43 Yes, I am.
0:11:43 Here we go.
0:11:46 Do they come in red or grey in the mail?
0:11:47 Yes, of course they do.
0:11:47 Why?
0:11:49 Because you’ll look great to the Star Wars edition or the Mickey Jedi edition.
0:11:51 Does it come in matching merchandise?
0:11:52 Of course it does.
0:11:53 This is my room key.
0:11:55 I don’t check in or check out of a Disney resort today.
0:11:56 It’s my theme park ticket.
0:11:57 The turnstiles are gone.
0:12:00 My reservations for my favourite character meet and greets, my favourite rides.
0:12:01 I can pay for food with it.
0:12:03 I can pay for merchandise with it.
0:12:07 I walk into the restaurant when I want to walk in and the food comes fresh to me.
0:12:11 Had we started by saying how might we make more money, we’d have made a 3% profit margin.
0:12:16 But by reversing the challenge and saying how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point,
0:12:20 the average guest at Walt Disney World today has over two hours free time they didn’t have
0:12:21 each and every day six years ago.
0:12:22 What has that resulted in?
0:12:23 Record intent to recommend.
0:12:25 Record intent to return.
0:12:28 And what is it you lovely people do with your free time at Disney e-books?
0:12:30 Spend money.
0:12:33 One of the biggest single revenue generating ideas Disney ever created.
0:12:36 And what’s the consumer doing every second of every day?
0:12:40 They’re crowdsourcing the future of every product and service Disney creates by telling
0:12:41 what they like and what they don’t.
0:12:43 And it comes in themed merchandise.
0:12:49 I swear, I have my list of questions and I was going to ask you about this wristband case.
0:12:55 So is this something that if you go back, it was like somebody in innovation thought of it
0:13:00 or was it security thought of it or the hotel lobby staff thought of it?
0:13:02 Like what was the genesis of this?
0:13:06 Well, the genesis was how might we stop people from standing in line?
0:13:08 When you’re hosting 25 million guests a year, that’s going to be tricky.
0:13:12 And so we looked in the theme park industry, but nobody was solving the issue.
0:13:17 So this tool is about where in the world has somebody already solved the challenge of people
0:13:18 not standing in line?
0:13:21 So you look outside of your industry and borrow about the underlying principle.
0:13:23 And that’s how we found the pharmacy.
0:13:27 But I will tell you there’s another story, not specific, not pertain to the magic band,
0:13:29 but it is all about I love Ed Catnall.
0:13:31 He always said creativity doesn’t follow job titles.
0:13:32 It just comes from where it comes from.
0:13:34 I love the naive expert.
0:13:35 Actually, do you have a pen and a piece of paper?
0:13:37 Yes, I do.
0:13:37 Good.
0:13:38 All right.
0:13:38 Come on then.
0:13:41 So the naive expert, who or what is a naive expert?
0:13:44 They are somebody who doesn’t know what you’re working on.
0:13:46 What does that give them permission to do that you can’t?
0:13:49 Well, they can ask the silly question you’re too embarrassed to ask in front of your colleagues.
0:13:53 They can throw out the audacious idea ungoverned by your river of thinking.
0:13:55 I define our river of thinking.
0:13:59 And the more experience, the more expertise we have, the more reasons we know why the new
0:14:00 idea won’t work.
0:14:01 So we constantly shoot it down.
0:14:03 So I was bringing a naive expert.
0:14:08 We were designing a new retail dining and entertainment complex for Hong Kong Disney in the room that
0:14:10 day with the Disney Imagineers, the people you would expect.
0:14:14 But on that particular day, I was faced with 12 white male American architects over 50.
0:14:16 So I brought in a young girl from China.
0:14:16 Why?
0:14:18 She was female, not male, under 20.
0:14:20 This is the dim sum girl.
0:14:20 Right.
0:14:21 Exactly right.
0:14:22 So hang on.
0:14:24 So I gave them the same challenge I’m going to give you now then.
0:14:26 So I’ll give you seven seconds to draw a house.
0:14:27 Go.
0:14:27 Come on.
0:14:28 Seven.
0:14:29 Come on.
0:14:29 Draw that house, guy.
0:14:30 Come on.
0:14:31 Seven.
0:14:31 Six.
0:14:32 Five.
0:14:33 Four.
0:14:34 Three.
0:14:34 Two.
0:14:34 One.
0:14:35 Here’s the thing.
0:14:39 See, if you’d drawn it, I know it’s going to look like this.
0:14:39 So here’s the thing.
0:14:43 Everybody drew this except the young female Chinese chef.
0:14:43 She drew.
0:14:45 Let’s see if I’ve got a picture of it over here.
0:14:46 Let’s see.
0:14:48 Oh, here we go.
0:14:50 She gave dim sum architecture.
0:14:50 Why wouldn’t she?
0:14:52 She’s a young female Chinese chef.
0:14:54 Never occurred to her to draw the house the same way we would.
0:14:58 On the way out the door, somebody put a post-it note over her drawing that simply said,
0:15:00 distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese.
0:15:05 Seven years later, the strategic brand position, the guy did the entire design of the Shanghai
0:15:06 Disney Resort.
0:15:08 Distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese.
0:15:11 The point is this, and companies don’t understand it.
0:15:13 Diversity is innovation.
0:15:16 If somebody doesn’t look like you, they don’t think like you.
0:15:18 And that, shockingly enough, they can help you think differently.
0:15:21 And I believe that sometimes we get leadership meeting.
0:15:24 Well, for goodness sake, inviting somebody who’s not a leader.
0:15:29 Some young 28 superstar who’s been on touchscreen technology since the day they were born.
0:15:31 Virtual reality since the day they were five.
0:15:34 And they’ve been on ChatGPT for a year longer than any of us.
0:15:35 But we don’t.
0:15:37 Because why do we do leaders and leaders?
0:15:38 Because that’s the way we’ve always done it here.
0:15:40 Maybe think about it differently.
0:16:01 I see a lot of companies where there’s like a chief innovation officer.
0:16:03 There’s a department of innovation.
0:16:06 There’s R&D specifically tasked with innovation.
0:16:11 But should everybody in the company be thinking creatively in innovation?
0:16:11 Yes.
0:16:15 Or just these people who are supposed to be tasked with this?
0:16:16 The creatives.
0:16:17 Oh, give me a break.
0:16:18 There was a lady.
0:16:19 I won’t go through the whole story.
0:16:25 So we were doing a strategic pricing session surrounded by the EVPs, the SVPs, and the gods
0:16:26 from Mount Olympus had joined us for a day.
0:16:28 So how might we make more money?
0:16:32 And they were all strategists and future planners and accountants and finance.
0:16:33 So I invited in Maggie.
0:16:34 Well, who’s Maggie?
0:16:37 Maggie was a 78-year-old cast member from our call centre.
0:16:40 Now, why would I invite Maggie into a strategic pricing session?
0:16:41 Let me think.
0:16:44 She spends eight hours a day talking to our guests at the call centre.
0:16:45 We don’t.
0:16:47 So we were just chatting during the lunch break.
0:16:49 And I said to her, I said, Maggie, why do you do this?
0:16:50 You’re 78.
0:16:51 You should be retired.
0:16:52 She goes, well, no, dear.
0:16:53 My husband passed away a few years ago.
0:16:54 And this keeps me company.
0:16:56 And I like making people happy.
0:16:57 I was like, oh, you lovely person.
0:17:00 I said, if you don’t mind my asking, what do you not like about your job?
0:17:01 She goes, oh, that’s easy, dear.
0:17:02 My boss.
0:17:04 I said, hang on a minute.
0:17:05 Why don’t you like your boss?
0:17:06 She goes, he makes me get off the phone.
0:17:08 It’s obvious she’s there for the gossip and the chat.
0:17:12 I said, if you don’t mind my asking, how many people do you book in a shift?
0:17:17 She goes, for every 20 calls I get, I’ll probably book a, convert one, one of those phone calls
0:17:18 to a Walt Disney World vacation.
0:17:19 I said, is that good or bad?
0:17:20 I don’t know how to think about it.
0:17:23 She goes, I reckon I could get three or four out of 20 if people would trust me.
0:17:24 Maggie, you’re a grandmother.
0:17:25 Everyone trusts me.
0:17:27 You work for the most trusted brand on the planet.
0:17:28 She goes, no, dear, they don’t.
0:17:29 I said, why not?
0:17:31 She says, oh, we’ve got this policy called guest request and suggest.
0:17:33 I said, oh, God, who came up with that title?
0:17:34 So I said, what’s that?
0:17:39 She said, if the consumer is online, and let’s say it’s the Valentine’s Day offer, let’s say
0:17:43 you have to travel, book in January, travel in February, you get a free character breakfast
0:17:44 with Anna and Elsa.
0:17:48 She said, if the consumer doesn’t mention that offer in those three specific bullet points
0:17:50 first, I’m not allowed to mention it.
0:17:51 My intuition was like, ah, that sounds good.
0:17:55 So I went off to meet the head of strategic pricing, and yes, I should have been a bit
0:17:56 more diplomatic in my response.
0:17:59 I said, tell me about guest requests, don’t suggest.
0:18:02 And he said, it’s worth X million dollars in incremental revenue.
0:18:03 And I said, what, by cheating people?
0:18:04 Probably didn’t come quite out the right way.
0:18:06 And he said, we’re not cheating people.
0:18:07 We just don’t make the offer first.
0:18:11 I said, listen, Maggie here reckons she could get three or four out of 20 if we take her out
0:18:12 of your policy.
0:18:16 Could you think we could take her and six of her colleagues out of your policy for six weeks
0:18:17 to see how they perform?
0:18:20 Six weeks later, they were all booking three or four out of 20.
0:18:24 The policy went away, and Disney made X amount of dollars in incremental revenue.
0:18:28 I am a great believer that ideas come from anywhere.
0:18:30 I was head of the innovation department.
0:18:31 I think that was a mistake.
0:18:40 Well, you know, you spend a lot of time in your book talking about no, because, as opposed
0:18:41 to yes, and.
0:18:46 So now, I understand the concept there, but can you just tell us, how do you walk the fine
0:18:49 line, because you cannot say yes to everything?
0:18:51 You cannot say no to everything either.
0:18:54 So how do you decide what’s yes or no?
0:18:55 I’m very clear in my signaling.
0:18:57 I say, this is an expansionist session today.
0:19:00 We will be having a reductionist session, but today we’re expansionist.
0:19:03 And in this session, you don’t get to say no because.
0:19:05 And I don’t let people say no because.
0:19:08 I’ll make them stand up just like an alcoholic and say, I’m a reductionist.
0:19:09 And we all laugh and cheer, and they sit back down again.
0:19:13 You must clearly signal what you’re looking for from people today.
0:19:18 As long as they know they’ll have the opportunity to evaluate the ideas later on, they’ll stay
0:19:19 with you on the yes end.
0:19:21 I also think a physical room is very important.
0:19:23 Steve created it first at Pixar.
0:19:28 These rooms like the greenhouse or the Toy Story room, rather than room 3450.
0:19:29 I mean, come on.
0:19:30 You could have the Death Star room.
0:19:35 And these physical signals to everybody that when we’re in this room, we don’t get to shoot
0:19:36 ideas down.
0:19:40 The challenge for all of us is the more experience and the more expertise we have, the more reasons
0:19:41 we know why the new idea won’t work.
0:19:43 So we constantly shoot it down.
0:19:47 So I actually have an exercise that I do when I actually, do you want to play?
0:19:47 Why not?
0:19:51 OK, so are we going to do a Star Wars party or a Harry Potter party?
0:19:52 What would you prefer?
0:19:53 Star Wars.
0:19:53 All right.
0:19:55 So I’m going to come at you with some ideas for a Star Wars party.
0:19:59 I’d like you to start each and every response with the words, you know, you’ve heard every
0:19:59 day.
0:20:00 No, because.
0:20:02 And then you’ll tell me no because and tell me why not.
0:20:05 So I was thinking we could actually take over some.
0:20:08 Oh, that the new blimp, the Goodyear, they’re coming out with that new blimp again.
0:20:12 And we could turn it into the Death Star and we could have a Death Star canteen with food
0:20:13 and wine from Hoth and Naboo and Tatooine.
0:20:17 And now I’m supposed to say no because and come up with a reason.
0:20:18 No because and tell me why not.
0:20:18 Yeah.
0:20:19 OK.
0:20:22 No, because the blimp cannot hold that many people.
0:20:25 People will be waiting for hours in line to get on the blimp.
0:20:26 All right.
0:20:30 But I tell you what, then we do it at Disneyland at Galaxy’s Edge and everybody could come dressed
0:20:31 in their favorite character.
0:20:33 Tall people could be Vader and small people would be Ewoks.
0:20:34 Pretty great.
0:20:38 Well, then security will go crazy because everybody will look like Darth Vader.
0:20:40 And how do we know one of them isn’t a criminal?
0:20:41 Fair point.
0:20:45 What if we just did a 24 hour movie marathon and people could get free coke and popcorn?
0:20:53 Well, how many people can really take a 24 hour kind of movie marathon?
0:20:55 Yeah, it sounds great on paper.
0:20:57 But how many people will actually do it?
0:20:57 All right.
0:20:58 So we’ll stop there.
0:20:59 And now we can do the exercise again.
0:21:04 This time, I want you to start each and every response with the words yes and and we’ll just
0:21:06 build on each other’s idea as we go.
0:21:07 Can we do Harry Potter?
0:21:08 Sure.
0:21:09 Cool.
0:21:11 So I’m going to cover you some ideas for a Harry Potter party.
0:21:14 I’d like you to start each and every response with yes and and build on the idea.
0:21:19 So I was thinking we could come to your house, put a sorting hat inside the front door and
0:21:22 all the good people get the Gryffindor party and all the dark, mysterious people get the
0:21:23 Slytherin party.
0:21:24 Yeah.
0:21:28 And then we could have this Quidditch contest and I have a bocce court.
0:21:32 We could convert it to some kind of Quidditch court and have everybody flying around in
0:21:33 their brooms.
0:21:33 Yes.
0:21:34 And we could.
0:21:34 Yeah.
0:21:37 Put them in one of those anti-gravity chambers where they could actually fly.
0:21:39 Yeah.
0:21:42 All right.
0:21:42 So we’ll stop there.
0:21:46 Listen, a lot more laughter, a lot more energy.
0:21:48 And most of it became Italian for the first time.
0:21:51 In the first exercise, do you think our idea was getting bigger or smaller as we were going
0:21:52 through the Star Wars idea?
0:21:54 Which direction was it?
0:21:54 Smaller.
0:21:57 And with the Harry Potter idea, are we getting bigger or smaller?
0:22:00 Bigger and bigger, yes.
0:22:04 Now, we have colleagues and clients and constituents to bring on board with our ideas at work.
0:22:06 Sometimes it’s hard, the bosses and colleagues, et cetera.
0:22:10 By the time we just finished building the Harry Potter idea together, whose idea was it by the
0:22:11 time we finished?
0:22:13 I hope all of us.
0:22:14 Exactly.
0:22:17 Yes, and has the power to turn a small idea into a big one really quickly.
0:22:21 We can always value engineer a big idea back down again, but far more importantly inside
0:22:26 as any organization has the power to transfer my idea to our idea and accelerate its opportunity
0:22:27 to get done.
0:22:29 That is the value of yes and.
0:22:33 But I want to come back to when I ask people who are the most creative people you ever met,
0:22:34 people always say kids.
0:22:37 And you ask, what do kids do better than you?
0:22:37 I say play.
0:22:40 And then I’ll ask people, who’s encouraging playful at work every day?
0:22:42 And nobody puts their hand up.
0:22:44 So, let me ask you a question.
0:22:45 Close your eyes.
0:22:46 We’re going to play a word association game.
0:22:48 I want you to shout out.
0:22:48 Keep your eyes closed.
0:22:52 I have to violate HIPAA here, Duncan.
0:22:56 I am deaf and I’m listening to you through a cochlear implant.
0:22:59 And I’m also seeing a simultaneous transcription.
0:23:03 So, if I were to close my eyes and just depend on audio,
0:23:05 I probably won’t understand what you’re saying.
0:23:06 That’s fine.
0:23:08 So, keep your eyes open.
0:23:11 But I just want you to shout out the first word that pops into your mind
0:23:13 when I ask you the following question.
0:23:14 Where are you usually?
0:23:17 And what are you doing when you get your best ideas?
0:23:20 I am surfing and it is between sets.
0:23:23 So, I have nothing to do but think.
0:23:26 So, people will say surfing, jogging, walking, playing, exercising,
0:23:28 in the park, in the forest.
0:23:30 And do you know I’ve done it with up to 20,000 people?
0:23:32 And I get them to write it down, that one word.
0:23:35 And I say, hands up, who put down at work?
0:23:37 Nobody ever has our best ideas at work.
0:23:38 Why not?
0:23:41 You remember that classic argument you were in with somebody recently?
0:23:43 A bit of a shouting match, angry at each other.
0:23:45 You turn to walk away from that argument.
0:23:47 And the second you turn to walk away from the argument,
0:23:48 what just popped into your head?
0:23:50 The second you turn to walk away from that argument, what was it?
0:23:52 How I could have wanted.
0:23:53 The killer one line.
0:23:55 Yeah, that one perfect, beautiful line.
0:23:56 You wished you’d used, but you didn’t, did you?
0:23:56 No.
0:23:57 Why?
0:24:00 Because when you’re in an argument, your brain is moving at 1,000 miles an hour,
0:24:01 defending itself.
0:24:05 At work, emails, presentations, weekly meetings, compliance training.
0:24:08 I hear myself say, I don’t have time to think.
0:24:10 And when we say we don’t have time to think,
0:24:11 we’re in the brain state called beta.
0:24:12 I call it busy beta.
0:24:14 We’re the reticular activating system.
0:24:18 Much easier, remember, as a door between your conscious and subconscious brain
0:24:19 is firmly closed.
0:24:23 When that door is closed, you only have access to your conscious brain.
0:24:25 So what percentage of our brain is conscious?
0:24:27 13% of our brain is conscious.
0:24:30 87% of our brain is subconscious.
0:24:34 But everything is back here to help you solve the challenge that you’re working on right now.
0:24:36 But when the door is shut, you don’t have access to it.
0:24:37 So what do I do?
0:24:38 I run an energizer.
0:24:39 What’s an energizer?
0:24:40 It’s a silly exercise.
0:24:41 Why am I doing that?
0:24:42 To make you laugh.
0:24:42 Why?
0:24:46 Because the moment I hear laughter, I know that metaphorically, I placed you back in on the
0:24:50 surfboard where it is where you have your best ideas into the brain state science calls alpha,
0:24:54 where the door is just wide enough open between your conscious and subconscious brain.
0:24:57 You can still make an informed decision, but you can still have a big idea.
0:25:00 I don’t expect people to be playful every second of every day.
0:25:03 I do expect people to be playful when they’re trying to have big ideas.
0:25:05 That’s what children do better than they’ve done.
0:25:11 When I was reading your book and I came to that section about the four states of a brain,
0:25:15 when I read alpha, I said, guy, you are Mr. Alpha.
0:25:20 I am an alpha when I’m in the shower, when I’m surfing, when I’m driving.
0:25:21 Ask Madison.
0:25:24 I’m like all alpha all the time.
0:25:27 And can I ask you a question about these four states?
0:25:30 Because you brought up a point here I didn’t quite understand.
0:25:34 So the four states are alpha, beta, theta, and delta.
0:25:41 Now in theta and delta, you talked about Edison and dropping a penny and then it woke him up again.
0:25:48 And then you talk in the delta, the dreamy state about Dolly dropping a key and that would wake him up.
0:25:56 So I didn’t understand why Edison dropping a penny is on theta and Dolly dropping a key is in delta.
0:25:59 It seems like those are very similar things.
0:26:00 Yes and no.
0:26:01 So here’s how it works.
0:26:06 If you know the expression when the penny drops, that eureka moment when I get the big idea, it came from Thomas Edison.
0:26:07 He used thoughtful theta.
0:26:12 He used to fall asleep at night, seated on an armchair with a tin tray on the floor.
0:26:13 The penny was between his knees.
0:26:14 He would fall asleep.
0:26:15 His muscles would relax.
0:26:16 The penny would drop.
0:26:20 It would hit the tin tray and it would wake him up and he’d write down whatever he was thinking.
0:26:21 And we might say, well, that’s nuts.
0:26:22 I’d never do that.
0:26:25 Well, who had more painted inventions in the 20th century than anybody else?
0:26:28 Dolly used to fall asleep against his easel.
0:26:31 As he fell asleep, he’d fall over and that would wake him up.
0:26:33 And he would sketch whatever he was dreaming.
0:26:35 Of course, I want to know he was smoking before he went to bed.
0:26:36 But he’s not one of those.
0:26:38 But neither of them were unsuccessful.
0:26:46 If one of those people who gets our best ideas as we’re falling asleep or waking up, A, keep a notepad by the bed because you promise yourself you won’t forget it by six o’clock in the morning.
0:26:53 Far more importantly, when you’re working with your colleagues, I hear so often clients will come to me and say, could you solve something in two hours?
0:26:54 You’re like, yeah, right, sure.
0:26:56 And the door was shut because we’re stressed.
0:26:59 And so the door between our conscious and subconscious brain firmly stressed.
0:27:01 Brief it in a week or two in advance.
0:27:08 Give people time to go wherever they are, whether they’re in the shower, whether they’re falling asleep, whether they’re in dreaming delta, which is way in the middle of the night.
0:27:11 So theta is the difference in answer to your question between theta and delta.
0:27:15 Theta is just as you’re beginning to wake up in the morning or just as you’re nodding off at night.
0:27:17 Delta is the doors are off.
0:27:20 You’re riding pink ponies and unicorns through the universe at three o’clock.
0:27:24 Probably not the best brain state for creativity at work.
0:27:28 I find the best brain state for creativity at work is the one that you live in is alpha.
0:27:30 How do we get there by being playful?
0:27:32 I want you to answer that question.
0:27:33 How do you get to alpha?
0:27:37 I don’t have a problem getting to alpha, but how do other people get a problem?
0:27:38 There’s a series of them in the book.
0:27:39 They’re called energizers.
0:27:40 They are 60 second X.
0:27:45 When I walk into a room, the first thing I do is sand down and say, hands up, who’s creative?
0:27:47 About 3% of the audience will put their hands up.
0:27:54 So then I get them to stand up in pairs and I tell person A they are the leading designer of Parachutes for Elephants.
0:27:55 Person B, they’re a news reporter.
0:27:58 They have to interview person A about how they get their job done.
0:28:02 And for the next two minutes, you just stand back and listen to the laughter in the room.
0:28:10 All I’m doing is opening the door between the conscious and subconscious brain and putting them back in wherever it is when they have their best ideas, when they’re an amazing alpha.
0:28:12 That’s what the energizers are for.
0:28:14 They are playfulness with purpose.
0:28:17 And again, ask us who are the most creative people we’ve ever met.
0:28:18 Kids, what do they do?
0:28:18 Play.
0:28:19 This is not rocket science.
0:28:27 I have to tell you, Duncan, that I’m almost afraid to admit this because people in California might go crazy when I tell them this.
0:28:33 But I take three showers a day and I’m thinking in those showers all the time.
0:28:35 And I surf once a day.
0:28:36 Plenty of ideas.
0:28:37 An idea factory.
0:28:42 Ask Madison, am I an idea factory or not?
0:28:43 Yes, very much so.
0:28:44 Always new ideas.
0:28:50 And Madison always says, no, because.
0:28:54 Madison, yes, Angel.
0:28:55 Yes, Anne, come on.
0:28:57 I’ll work on it.
0:29:03 Madison is my beta.
0:29:08 Between my alpha and her beta, we are an unstoppable team.
0:29:18 I would love to find out, do you even think it’s possible or does it merit doing this?
0:29:20 But how do you measure creativity?
0:29:23 That’s a tough one.
0:29:24 I know how to measure an idea.
0:29:25 Would that help?
0:29:27 Yes, that’s close enough.
0:29:35 So, you know, at the end of the brainstorm, we finish the brainstorm and we’re told we can put our three purple dots on the three ideas we like the most, the best.
0:29:37 So we read all of the ideas and then we look around the room.
0:29:38 Where’s our boss?
0:29:39 Oh, yeah, they’re over there.
0:29:41 Where are they going to put their red dots?
0:29:42 Oh, idea number 17.
0:29:46 So we line up right behind them and we put our idea on our dot on number 17.
0:29:47 We tell them how much we liked it, too.
0:29:48 But guess what?
0:29:49 We didn’t.
0:29:57 And so when the idea goes off to execution, it will get stuck, diluted or killed because the people who are responsible for getting it done were not passionate about it in the first place.
0:30:02 So I have a talk called Passionometer where I allow people to vote anonymously on their favorite ideas.
0:30:03 This is voting with your heart.
0:30:05 Got nothing to do with the head, nothing to do with strategy.
0:30:09 This is the idea that I want to take home and tell my loved ones I got to work on this.
0:30:10 It was one of my ideas.
0:30:11 That’s Passionometer.
0:30:14 You want to find out where the passion of the team is first.
0:30:19 I can get down from 50 ideas to about eight in a nanosecond doing that exercise, but it is done anonymously.
0:30:24 Then I’ll share with you this tool that I borrowed with pride from Richard Branson.
0:30:26 I love Richard Branson.
0:30:29 When was the last time anybody ever called him a CEO?
0:30:29 Never.
0:30:30 Yes, he is.
0:30:30 Of course he is.
0:30:31 He’s an entrepreneur.
0:30:32 He’s an entrepreneur.
0:30:34 So think of all the things he’s launched that failed.
0:30:41 Coca-Cola, Virgin Cola, Virgin Volca, Virgin Massages, Virgin Mobile, Virgin, you name it.
0:30:41 So what?
0:30:43 Virgin Bride?
0:30:45 Yes, Virgin Wedding’s got to remember.
0:30:47 He uses a tool called Stargazer.
0:30:50 So this is about voting with your head, not your heart.
0:30:52 Virgin is a very elastic brand, right?
0:30:54 Disney is a very non-elastic brand.
0:30:57 So Virgin, he’s done condoms and space travel and everything in between.
0:31:03 So how does Virgin evaluate what new ideas and products and services they should bring to market?
0:31:05 I use the same tool.
0:31:06 I call it Stargazer.
0:31:10 Let’s just say for today’s argument, is this idea a strategic brand fit?
0:31:11 I’m making that up.
0:31:14 People would choose their own criteria, obviously.
0:31:16 Is this idea embedded in consumer truth?
0:31:19 Maybe our target audience today is 21 to 24-year-olds.
0:31:24 Can I get this idea executed in the next 12 to 18 to 24 months?
0:31:25 My boss wants that done.
0:31:27 Is it going to make us a bucket load of money?
0:31:28 You’ll have a financial goal.
0:31:30 And is it socially engaging?
0:31:34 Is it going to get the 21 to 24-year-olds to talk about it on their social media?
0:31:36 And all you do is you take each idea.
0:31:40 And the problem with ideas are they’re horribly subjective, right?
0:31:40 You like pink.
0:31:41 I like blue.
0:31:41 Our boss likes yellow.
0:31:43 It’s a very good chance we’ll be doing the yellow idea.
0:31:46 All you do is you go around and score the idea.
0:31:50 Does it do a poor job, a good job, or an outstanding job of being aligned with our brand?
0:31:51 It does a pretty good job.
0:31:53 Is it going to make us a bucket load of money?
0:31:54 Oh, hell yes.
0:31:55 Is it socially engaging?
0:31:56 It’s fairly good.
0:31:59 Can I get it in the market the next 18 to 24 months?
0:32:00 Not a chance.
0:32:01 Is it embedded in consumer truth?
0:32:02 It does a fairly good job.
0:32:06 And then with a different colour for each of the last eight ideas you’ve got,
0:32:11 at some point, one idea will rise to the top as to meeting your criteria the most,
0:32:12 not the one you like the best.
0:32:16 By the way, the other thing that Branson always said was,
0:32:20 if it’s not a three out of three of embedded in consumer truth
0:32:24 and aligned with the Virgin brand, we must have the courage to throw it out.
0:32:27 When we were bringing two new Disney cruise ships into market,
0:32:29 we were bringing the big ones in,
0:32:31 we had to decide where the old ones would go.
0:32:34 Like any big corporation, that conversation takes too long.
0:32:36 And, oh, Dave’s not here today.
0:32:37 Oh, Sally’s not here today.
0:32:38 Oh, I’ve got to wait for Sally.
0:32:38 No.
0:32:41 Or it comes to all the VPs sitting in the room and go,
0:32:42 do you know what?
0:32:43 Last year I went to the Med.
0:32:44 It was great.
0:32:46 Oh, my wife loved the Alaska cruise.
0:32:47 I don’t give a toss.
0:32:49 We use this tool.
0:32:52 We’re 16 senior vice presidents of the Walt Disney Company.
0:32:55 We made a decision in 59 minutes.
0:33:01 Because one of them was, can I actually get a berth in the port in which we want in the next 12 months?
0:33:03 And if you can’t, you shouldn’t be doing it.
0:33:05 And it’s just great for cutting through all the nonsense.
0:33:08 And again, the tools are designed to be simple, powerful, fun.
0:33:18 So just as a little bit of realism here, if you looked at the top of the funnel when everything was yes and,
0:33:23 and the bottom of the funnel, like what percentage gets out and into reality?
0:33:24 That’s very fair.
0:33:29 So people often ask me what percentage of time they should spend in expansive versus reductive.
0:33:32 And so everybody says, oh, 80% expansive.
0:33:33 No, it’s the opposite.
0:33:36 It’s 20% expansive, 80% reductive.
0:33:37 The hard stuff is getting it done.
0:33:40 Having ideas, like you said, hundreds a day.
0:33:44 Getting them done through all the corporate approval processes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
0:33:45 That takes time.
0:33:47 And that’s where the innovation tools come in.
0:33:50 My favorite, as you could probably guess, is the one called What If.
0:33:51 Why?
0:33:52 Because it’s about breaking the rules.
0:33:54 So it was a marvelous tool.
0:33:58 It was created by Walt Disney for the film Fantasia in 1940.
0:34:01 He wanted to pump mist into the theater and heat into the theater.
0:34:03 And the theater owner said, no, Walt, too expensive.
0:34:04 That’s not the way we do it here.
0:34:07 So Walt, step one, list the rules of your challenge.
0:34:10 So he just wrote down the rules of going to a movie theater.
0:34:11 I must sit down.
0:34:12 I must be quiet.
0:34:12 It is dark.
0:34:13 I must go to set time.
0:34:15 I must watch the previews.
0:34:16 I, Walt, can’t control the environment.
0:34:18 Step one, list the rules.
0:34:19 Step two, pick one.
0:34:20 He chose the environment.
0:34:22 And he said, what if I could control the environment?
0:34:24 Well, that wasn’t audacious enough.
0:34:30 The more audacious, outrageous and provocative your what if, the further out of your own river of thinking you’ll jump.
0:34:35 So he said, well, OK, if I can’t control the environment inside the theaters, what if I take my movies out of the theater?
0:34:36 Don’t be daft, Walt.
0:34:36 They’re two-dimensional.
0:34:37 They fall over.
0:34:39 What if I made them three-dimensional?
0:34:40 How do you do that, Walt?
0:34:43 What if I just had people dressed as princesses and cowboys and pirates?
0:34:45 People would be more immersed in that.
0:34:47 Yeah, but you can’t have Cinderella standing next to Jack Sparrow.
0:34:49 People would be immersed in her story.
0:34:51 So he said, well, what if I put them in different themed lands?
0:34:52 Boom.
0:34:53 What if I called it Disneyland?
0:34:57 Now, for people watching, it’s easy to say, oh, but I don’t have the resources.
0:34:58 So I’ll give you another example.
0:35:00 If I give you a big one, give you a small one.
0:35:05 There was a very small company in Great Britain in the 60s that used to make glasses that we drink out of.
0:35:08 They found too much breakage and not enough production when the glasses were being shipped and wrapped.
0:35:13 So they went down to the shop floor, observed the industry and wrote down the rules.
0:35:16 26 employees convey about 12 glasses to a box.
0:35:17 Boxes made out of cardboard.
0:35:18 Six on the top, six on the bottom.
0:35:20 Glasses separated by corrugated cardboard.
0:35:22 Glasses wrapped individually in newspaper.
0:35:24 Employees reading the newspaper.
0:35:27 So somebody asked the somewhat provocative, outrageous, what if question.
0:35:28 They said, what if we poke their eyes out?
0:35:30 That’s against the law and it’s not very nice.
0:35:34 But because they had the courage to ask it, somebody sitting next to them, the lady said, hang on a minute.
0:35:36 Why don’t we just hire blind people?
0:35:37 So they did.
0:35:38 Production up 26 percent.
0:35:40 Breakage down 42 percent.
0:35:44 The British government gave a 50 percent salary subsidy for hiring people with disabilities.
0:35:50 It’s about listing the rules of the challenge, taking one and asking the most audacious, what if question.
0:35:54 Why didn’t they just put newspapers in language that the people didn’t read?
0:35:58 Ooh, see, there you are, an amazing alpha again.
0:35:59 Dude, nice one.
0:36:00 Should have done it in Japanese.
0:36:08 Okay, but I asked you a very specific question from the top of the funnel to the bottom.
0:36:10 Like, what’s a percentage?
0:36:13 One out of 100, 20 out of 100.
0:36:16 What’s the order of magnitude that get through this?
0:36:19 I don’t think there’s a set percentage key.
0:36:22 I will tell you one of the things that helped me get things done was persistence.
0:36:24 I was like a bulldog and I wouldn’t let go.
0:36:27 If I believed in something long enough, I would go at it and go.
0:36:30 I would drive my boss absolutely mental, I would drive my boss absolutely mental and I wouldn’t give up on it.
0:36:39 As I mentioned earlier on that the social video that we produced, which was the most successful social video we ever produced, I refused to go through the approval process.
0:36:46 Because the approval process will get everybody in from brand strategy touching everything and diluting the content completely.
0:36:49 And when we produced the video, somebody said, where’s our logo?
0:36:50 I said, he’s five foot two.
0:36:52 He’s got big black ears and everybody loves him.
0:36:53 Get over yourself.
0:36:55 Probably not the best.
0:36:59 If you want somebody who stays inside the raw box, that’s probably not me.
0:37:05 But the percentage of ideas that we came up with Disney that came back out the other end, 5% maybe.
0:37:07 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:37:11 We were tasked by Disneyland Paris to get more people to come more often spend more money.
0:37:15 Our data told us who could afford the brand, who had affinityed the brand, who had been shopping online.
0:37:16 It was a 10 out of 10 of I’m coming this year.
0:37:17 Well, they hadn’t come.
0:37:20 So our intuition told us our data was missing something.
0:37:22 These people were either liars or procrastinators.
0:37:23 So let’s go find out.
0:37:36 Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:37:39 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:37:45 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it.
0:37:48 Even better, forward it to a friend.
0:37:50 A big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:37:55 You’re listening to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:38:02 How do you feel about these requirements of returning to the office?
0:38:10 Do you think that returning to the office increases collaboration or returning to the office is going to kill the alpha state in most people?
0:38:10 Think about this for a moment.
0:38:11 Who’s making that decision?
0:38:13 Oh, the boomers generation.
0:38:13 Yeah.
0:38:14 Okay, great.
0:38:15 Well done, you.
0:38:16 And what are you going to do?
0:38:17 You’re going to lose talent.
0:38:19 Because the talented people can leave.
0:38:20 They can get a job somewhere else.
0:38:23 If they don’t need to be there, they don’t need to be there.
0:38:23 I’m sorry.
0:38:24 I just vehemently disagree.
0:38:27 As long as you get your job done, I don’t care if you’re standing on the moon.
0:38:31 Here’s the biggest challenge facing corporate America in the next five to ten years.
0:38:32 Guess what?
0:38:33 Generation Z doesn’t want to work for you.
0:38:34 You already know it.
0:38:35 It terrifies you.
0:38:39 How would you stay relevant if this entire generation doesn’t want to work for you?
0:38:39 Why?
0:38:41 Because you’ve been driven by quarterly results.
0:38:42 They’re driven by purpose.
0:38:44 You think they’ll bend to change to you.
0:38:49 No, they won’t, just because you had to bend to change to your elders, because you could
0:38:51 only tell two people down the park.
0:38:52 They can tell the world.
0:38:57 So I was asked to give a talk to, let’s just call it the largest tool manufacturer, about
0:38:58 innovation and millennials.
0:39:02 So I didn’t know anything about this generation in terms of how they reacted with tools.
0:39:06 So I went down to Home Depot and Lowe’s, hung out in the aisle like some creepy dude.
0:39:10 And I was just listening and watching at the point of purchase that we’re taking this home.
0:39:14 And I went back to this brand, who is the largest manufacturer of tools in the United States
0:39:16 and I said, listen, this generation has never heard of your brand.
0:39:17 They didn’t mention you once.
0:39:20 They didn’t mention your products, the hammer, the chisel, the sword.
0:39:22 They didn’t even talk about the price, but they talked about what’s important to them.
0:39:25 We’re going to remodel our dream kitchen, our dream bathroom, our dream apartment.
0:39:29 I said, your purpose, if you choose to create one, is you could be the brand who helps people
0:39:30 build their dreams.
0:39:33 You could see the finance guys going, how quickly can we get this guy out of here?
0:39:34 I said, well, hang on a minute.
0:39:37 If you’re the brand who can help people build their dreams, could you be in banking?
0:39:37 Yes.
0:39:37 Finance?
0:39:38 Yes.
0:39:39 Engineering?
0:39:39 Yes.
0:39:40 Health?
0:39:40 Yes.
0:39:41 Education?
0:39:41 Yes.
0:39:42 Hospitality?
0:39:42 Sport?
0:39:43 You’d be in any line of it.
0:39:44 No, no, we make tools.
0:39:45 We’re really good at it.
0:39:47 In fact, we’re going to expand into Mexico and India.
0:39:48 They have a great middle class.
0:39:49 They will buy our tools.
0:39:50 Oh, yeah.
0:39:51 OK, good luck with that.
0:39:53 Have we seen the world of 3D printing recently?
0:39:53 Right.
0:39:56 India bypassed laptop computers and went to mobile phones.
0:40:00 Generation Z will bypass tools and go to 3D printing.
0:40:02 There’s a chap now.
0:40:04 I don’t know if you saw the CBS special January last year.
0:40:06 That’s how much impact it had on me.
0:40:13 young guy in his 30s in Texas building houses fully sustainable for $1,500 in five days and
0:40:14 the first houses he gave to the homeless.
0:40:20 NASA have now employed him to print a landing pad on the moon from which he can print a printer
0:40:21 from which he can build housing.
0:40:25 And if we don’t have purpose, I believe Generation Z won’t work for us.
0:40:32 And if you don’t have a new generation of employees, cast members, staff members, then I don’t care how successful you are today.
0:40:33 You’re not going to be around 10 years from now.
0:40:40 I got to say that if I’m listening to this and I’m buying into this, my first question would be, I’m stuck in this company.
0:40:44 It’s full of no because and my bosses and stuff.
0:40:45 What do I do?
0:40:46 Now run to the door.
0:40:47 Run for the exit.
0:40:49 Literally, you’re saying leave.
0:40:52 Here’s what I do with senior executives.
0:40:55 I get them to do that no because yes and exercise.
0:40:57 You can’t tell people what to do.
0:40:58 They have to do it for themselves, right?
0:41:00 And so people learn different ways.
0:41:03 Some people will learn by seeing, some by doing, some by listening.
0:41:08 And so I get them to do the no because and the yes and exercise because then they get, oh, I’m a no becauseer.
0:41:11 And I tell them, I know you have responsibilities.
0:41:12 You’re the CEO of you.
0:41:17 So just remind yourselves, we’re not greenlighting this idea for execution today.
0:41:19 We’re merely greenhousing it together using yes and.
0:41:22 But I want to come back on those learning abilities for a moment.
0:41:25 I can’t get you to close your eyes, but we’ll try it anyway.
0:41:26 How many days are there in September?
0:41:28 30, I would guess.
0:41:29 Okay.
0:41:29 How did you know?
0:41:30 How did you remember?
0:41:31 How did you learn it?
0:41:33 What did you just think of?
0:41:36 What could you see with your metaphorically eyes closed?
0:41:38 How did you know there were 30 days in September?
0:41:41 Madison, how did you know there were 30 days in September?
0:41:44 Just remembering like a calendar when I was younger.
0:41:44 A calendar.
0:41:46 So Madison can see it.
0:41:46 Okay.
0:41:47 Guy, how did you remember it?
0:41:52 I did it because I figured there’s very few months with 29 days.
0:41:54 So it’s 30 or 31.
0:41:56 And so it’s 50, 50.
0:41:59 So just pick one and you’ll rewrite half at a time.
0:42:02 30% of any audience would do this.
0:42:04 30 days have September, blah, blah, blah.
0:42:04 And November all the way.
0:42:06 They are auditory learners.
0:42:07 How do I know that?
0:42:10 They just told me because how old were they when they learned the rhyme?
0:42:10 Six.
0:42:11 How do they remember it?
0:42:12 Because they heard it.
0:42:14 40% of the audience would do what Madison just did.
0:42:17 They go, oh, no, I could just see a candle with a number 30, the word September.
0:42:19 They’re your visual learners.
0:42:21 And then these, but you’ve never seen anybody do this?
0:42:24 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August.
0:42:25 These are kinesthetic learners, right?
0:42:26 They learn by doing.
0:42:30 And when I decided to create a book, I said to the publisher, it’s not a book.
0:42:31 He goes, what do you mean it’s not a book?
0:42:32 I said, it’s not a book.
0:42:32 If it’s a book, we fail.
0:42:33 Why?
0:42:36 Because when you see a book in an office, where is it?
0:42:37 It’s on the coffee table.
0:42:37 It’s on the bookshelf.
0:42:38 That’s a waste of money, isn’t it?
0:42:43 So I decided, OK, what nonfiction book have I ever read where I could read one page today,
0:42:45 put the rest of the book down, but know exactly what to do next?
0:42:47 I thought, my mum’s cookbook.
0:42:48 You want shepherd’s pie?
0:42:49 I said, page 67.
0:42:49 Cherry trifle?
0:42:50 Page 42.
0:42:52 So the book is designed the same way.
0:42:54 It says, have you ever been to the contents page?
0:42:56 It literally says, have you ever been to a brainstorm where nothing ever happened?
0:42:57 Go to page 12.
0:42:59 Work in a heavily regulated industry?
0:43:00 Go to page 42.
0:43:04 But it’s also designed for our visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learners.
0:43:05 There’s QR codes throughout.
0:43:07 They’re dynamic, so I can change them at any time.
0:43:11 For the auditory learners, it’s Sposify, but I’ll change it to an audio book over time.
0:43:15 For the visual learners, I am now an animated character, because I love doing things I haven’t
0:43:16 done before.
0:43:20 So I went into a studio in LA and bounced around with some characters.
0:43:23 I teach you how to use the tools inside the imagination.
0:43:28 But for the kinesthetic learners, I don’t know if it’s the first, but I haven’t seen another
0:43:29 one.
0:43:32 It’s the first ever fully integrated artificial intelligence book.
0:43:36 So you can ask the book questions through the QR code on the back of the book, and the
0:43:37 book will answer you.
0:43:39 Now, here’s the power of AI, right?
0:43:43 So I thought, ooh, I live in the most litigious country on the planet, so careful now.
0:43:46 So I thought, okay, I could just say, how do I use the tool on Pay67?
0:43:47 Nah, who cares?
0:43:48 I’ve just read the book.
0:43:48 Why would I need that?
0:43:53 No, you can ask the book, how do I use the tool on Pay67 to sell more orange pencils in
0:43:55 the state of Pennsylvania on January the 3rd next year?
0:43:57 The book will answer you.
0:44:00 But I thought, oh, but if they lose money on the orange pencils, are they going to sue me?
0:44:03 So it’s like, here come the terms and conditions.
0:44:05 I love doing things I haven’t done before.
0:44:07 That’s the only thing that excites me.
0:44:09 If I know how to do it, I get bored really easily.
0:44:11 So the book is, it’s a toolkit.
0:44:12 Now, I wanted to give it away for free.
0:44:14 The publisher had slightly different ideas.
0:44:18 Still want to give it away for free for students, because these are tomorrow, and these are the
0:44:21 people being told to stop asking why, because there’s only one right answer.
0:44:22 Don’t forget to color between the lines.
0:44:26 And they’re identifying as not creative by the time they leave university.
0:44:27 And that’s just sad.
0:44:29 I read your book cover to cover.
0:44:32 And wow, there’s so much in there.
0:44:34 30 bloody years, mate.
0:44:35 Try to get into 12 pages.
0:44:37 The editor had a field day.
0:44:40 So the next book I want to write is called Rolling Back the Ears.
0:44:43 It’s all the fun stuff that happens behind the magic to make it happen.
0:44:46 Like the day I stole the turkey from the president of the United States of America on Thanksgiving
0:44:50 Day, or the day I sent my son’s Buzz Lightyear into space for the opening of Toy Story.
0:44:52 That’s what I love doing about Disney.
0:44:56 What I loved the most was this Henry Ford quote.
0:44:58 Whether or not you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.
0:45:00 It was Disneyland’s 50th anniversary.
0:45:02 The actual anniversary was over.
0:45:03 The media were tired of hearing from us.
0:45:06 I was like, what else do the media have to cover, even if they don’t want to?
0:45:09 Well, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, etc.
0:45:10 I said, tell me about Thanksgiving.
0:45:13 And this bloke said, well, the president pardons a turkey.
0:45:14 I said, well, hang on.
0:45:17 That’s the only turkey that doesn’t get killed that year.
0:45:17 He goes, yeah.
0:45:19 I said, wouldn’t that make him the happiest turkey on earth?
0:45:23 And everybody goes, oh, don’t even go there, dude, because Disneyland is the happiest place
0:45:23 on earth.
0:45:24 So I’m a great believer.
0:45:25 You pick up the phone.
0:45:26 You make your pitch.
0:45:26 They can laugh.
0:45:27 They can say no.
0:45:28 They can put the phone down.
0:45:28 Who cares?
0:45:32 So I phoned the White House and I got through to the director of communications.
0:45:34 I said, hey, what do you do with a turkey after the pardoning ceremony?
0:45:36 He says, oh, we give it to the National Turkey Federation.
0:45:38 I was like, oh, didn’t know we have one.
0:45:39 Couldn’t give me their number, could you?
0:45:42 So I called the president of the National Turkey Federation.
0:45:43 I said, what do you do with the turkeys after?
0:45:45 He said, oh, we’re just putting on a petting seal.
0:45:46 I said, well, can I have them?
0:45:46 He goes, yeah.
0:45:49 I was like, oh, aren’t we supposed to negotiate or haggle?
0:45:53 Then I found out more about turkeys than you could possibly want to know.
0:45:56 Turkeys, when grown to a certain size, have heart attacks and die.
0:45:57 I thought, oh, great.
0:45:57 You want coverage.
0:46:01 The one turkey pardoned by the president of the United States of America
0:46:03 is killed by a British PR guy on a stunt for Disney.
0:46:06 So in a moment of total and utter stupidity,
0:46:08 guy, we’ve all had those moments in our career
0:46:10 which seemed like a good idea at the time.
0:46:12 Well, I sent Pilgrim Mickey, the walk-around character,
0:46:16 and the parade music up to the pen, get the turkey kind of acclimatized.
0:46:18 And then I phoned the National Turkey Federation.
0:46:20 I said, you have told the White House we’re taking the turkey, right?
0:46:21 He said, no.
0:46:23 I said, you have to because we’re going to do the Super Bowl spot.
0:46:24 Turkey won.
0:46:26 You’ve just been pardoned by the president of the United States of America.
0:46:27 What do you do next?
0:46:27 Gobble, gobble.
0:46:28 I’m going to Disneyland.
0:46:31 So they phoned back and said, no, the White House is in.
0:46:31 I said, oh, great.
0:46:33 So then I get a call from our chairman.
0:46:35 He said, Duncan, I see you booked the corporate jet
0:46:38 for the 23rd of November from Washington, D.C. to L.A.
0:46:41 Can you tell me the passenger manifest, please?
0:46:44 I was like, well, Jay, I’ve got a couple of turkeys I need to move.
0:46:45 He goes, absolutely not.
0:46:49 I said, Jay, this is the second busiest travel day of the year.
0:46:50 It’s two days before Thanksgiving.
0:46:52 If you cancel, we can’t get this done.
0:46:53 And the president says we’re doing it.
0:46:54 He goes, I don’t care.
0:46:55 We’re not doing it.
0:46:57 Which I realized why afterwards.
0:47:02 I wish he just told me this would be his first request of the corporate jet from Bob because
0:47:03 Bob would just become CEO.
0:47:05 And imagine being your first request.
0:47:06 I need the corporate jet.
0:47:07 What for?
0:47:08 A couple of turkeys.
0:47:11 So I’m now in my favorite meeting of my 30 years at Disney.
0:47:13 36 people around a table.
0:47:15 Very serious conversation.
0:47:18 Animal welfare rights, corporate communications, operations, entertainment.
0:47:23 If the turkey dies halfway down Main Street, USA, will we run out and shroud it?
0:47:25 Or will you just look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen?
0:47:29 So then, God bless America, unbeknownst to any of us, the turkey that travels to the White
0:47:31 House travels with a stunt double.
0:47:32 This is what I loved about Disney.
0:47:35 When you said, here’s a problem, somebody went, I got you.
0:47:38 So this guy called Denny from Entertainment pops up out of nowhere.
0:47:41 He goes, do you remember the old spy movies, the black and white ones?
0:47:43 I was like, Denny, you really want to bring that up right now?
0:47:44 He goes, yeah, yeah.
0:47:47 Remember when the bad guy’s running away, the good guy’s running away from the bad guys?
0:47:49 He hits the wall and the wall turns around.
0:47:50 He’s on the other side of it.
0:47:51 I said, yeah.
0:47:53 He goes, I’ll build you one of those.
0:47:56 We’re going to put turkey one out the front of the float, turkey two out the back.
0:47:58 If turkey one goes down, I’ve got your back.
0:47:59 I said, oh, genius.
0:48:03 So now when you think nothing else could possibly go wrong, there’s a couple of weeks to go.
0:48:05 Bird flu hits the United States of America.
0:48:08 So I phoned up the director of comms at United Airlines.
0:48:10 I said, come on, we’re going to have a bit of fun with this.
0:48:13 And unbeknownst to us, they’d work with the Federal Aviation Authority.
0:48:15 So we walk into the airport.
0:48:20 And this is back in 2005 now, where the airports used to go, where the flights would drop down.
0:48:24 And it just came, instead of United Airlines 253, it just said, Turkey one.
0:48:26 I was like, oh, my God.
0:48:29 So then we get on the plane and they’ve got postcards in all the seats.
0:48:35 This is in honor of today’s guests, Marshmallow and Yam, who have been pardoned by the Presidents of the United States of America on their way to Disneyland.
0:48:38 We will not be serving turkey sandwiches in today’s flight.
0:48:39 We’ll be serving ham or cheese.
0:48:41 So now we get into the briefing room.
0:48:43 And the very first, we did it for seven years.
0:48:45 We did it with George Bush and President Obama.
0:48:53 George Bush comes in, unbeknownst to any of us, his script writer finds out where the turkeys are going, decides to have a bit of fun at our expense, but nobody had told us.
0:48:55 And I’m in charge of public relations at the time.
0:49:01 So George comes in, he goes, this year, Marshmallow and Yam were a little bit nervous about going back to a place called Frying Pan Park.
0:49:03 I was like, who the hell called it Frying Pan Park?
0:49:05 He goes, so this year, the turkeys are going to Disneyland.
0:49:08 I was like, oh, my God, did the President of the United States of America just…
0:49:11 And he goes, not only that, they were served the rest of their days at Disneyland.
0:49:12 I was like, my God, he said it twice.
0:49:19 And then he wrapped up his speech, he said, and not only that, they were served as grand marshals in Disneyland’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
0:49:20 I was like, I can retire.
0:49:22 This is the best day of my life.
0:49:27 So the head of entertainment for Disney Parks comes across the room looking really angry, very frustrated.
0:49:28 It was like, dude, chill out.
0:49:29 This is the best day of my life.
0:49:32 He goes, we don’t have a Thanksgiving Day Parade.
0:49:34 I was like, oh, my God.
0:49:38 He goes, in order to build you two floats in a couple of days, it’s going to cost you a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
0:49:40 I said, well, Matt, I don’t have any money.
0:49:42 The President says we’re doing it.
0:49:42 So over to you.
0:49:51 And two days later, God bless Matt, Marshmallow and Yam came down the street of Main Street USA at Disneyland as grand marshals in Disneyland’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
0:49:57 To me, it’s the epitome of, I love the Thomas Edison quote, whether or not you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.
0:50:03 I dare you to try this again this November.
0:50:05 Don’t go there, don’t go there.
0:50:06 Don’t, do not.
0:50:08 Do not go there.
0:50:12 You and Elon with two turkeys.
0:50:13 I can see that.
0:50:18 There’s a joke there somewhere, but I’m not going.
0:50:19 I’m not reaching for it.
0:50:27 My last question for you is that you mentioned the concept of how to read your customer.
0:50:29 Oh, not, I used the C word.
0:50:33 How do you read your guest’s mind?
0:50:35 How do you read the mind of your guests?
0:50:37 Yeah, intuition.
0:50:42 So if I were to ask people, have you ever stared at the back of the head of somebody you think looks totally hot?
0:50:44 And that person is a total stranger.
0:50:46 They immediately turn around and look at you to look away really quickly.
0:50:47 Well, we’ve all done it.
0:50:48 How did we know?
0:50:48 How did they know?
0:50:53 We have 120 billion neurons in this brain and 120 million neurons in this brain.
0:50:58 The brain with which we as consumers and as business people make a lot of our decisions when we say we went with our gut.
0:51:02 So what is the power of intuition in an AI dominated world?
0:51:06 We were tasked by Disneyland Paris to get more people to come more often spend more money.
0:51:10 Our data told us who could afford the brand, who had affinity to the brand, had been shopping online.
0:51:11 It was a 10 out of 10 of them coming this year.
0:51:12 Well, they hadn’t come.
0:51:15 So our intuition told us our data was missing something.
0:51:17 These people were either liars or procrastinators.
0:51:18 So let’s go find out.
0:51:22 So we went to go and live with one of 26 different families for a day.
0:51:26 Now, going into hypotheses based on data and data alone was if we build it, they will come.
0:51:29 Well, that’s a $250 million capital investment strategy.
0:51:30 So you better be right.
0:51:32 So we went off to live with a series of different families.
0:51:34 Now, let me ask you a question, Guy.
0:51:34 Do you have children?
0:51:36 Four of them.
0:51:40 OK, so I kind of need you to close your eyes, but not close your eyes.
0:51:42 So picture the favorite photograph.
0:51:44 It’s in your house somewhere.
0:51:45 It’s a physical photograph.
0:51:47 It’s that favorite one of your children.
0:51:50 It makes you smile every time you think of it.
0:51:52 Which room is that favorite photograph in?
0:51:55 It is a picture of me with my children.
0:51:57 We’re all in wetsuits.
0:51:58 We’re holding our surfboards.
0:51:59 We just finished surfing.
0:52:01 And where were you that day?
0:52:03 Where was the photograph taken?
0:52:06 Well, there’s two versions of that photo.
0:52:09 One is in Waikiki and the other is in Santa Cruz.
0:52:10 But let’s say the Waikiki one.
0:52:11 OK, Waikiki one.
0:52:14 And are you comfortable telling us your children’s names?
0:52:15 Oh, of course.
0:52:19 It’s Nick, Noah, Noemi and Nate.
0:52:22 Nick, Noah, Noemi and Nate.
0:52:24 How old were they the day the photograph was taken?
0:52:33 Oh, something like 22, 20, 13 and 11.
0:52:33 Something like that.
0:52:35 And how old are they today?
0:52:38 Oh, they are 32, 30.
0:52:40 I know I’m going to get this wrong.
0:52:43 And 21 and 19.
0:52:44 Something like that.
0:52:45 So give or take the photograph.
0:52:47 I hope my wife doesn’t listen to this.
0:52:50 So give or take the photograph about 12 years old.
0:52:51 The one that you just thought of.
0:52:54 OK, so I asked the lady that I was living with.
0:52:56 I said, how old are your children?
0:52:59 The photograph looked like they were 24, 24 or five.
0:53:01 She goes, oh, no, love, they’re 24 and 25.
0:53:02 So I wrote it down.
0:53:03 It’s an individual clue.
0:53:04 It means nothing at the time.
0:53:05 It’s an individual data point.
0:53:08 So when we got back together, we all had the same data point.
0:53:10 When we asked the parent, when I asked you just now,
0:53:12 when I asked her how old the children were,
0:53:14 they turned out the picture was 20 years older in reality.
0:53:17 So my intuition was like, well, why is that?
0:53:20 But why did you just pick the one that you just thought of?
0:53:22 Why have people who are watching today or listening today,
0:53:25 who don’t have children, close your eyes
0:53:27 and think about that one in your parents’ house.
0:53:30 The dorky one of you from 15 or 20 years ago
0:53:31 where you look like a complete and utter dickhead.
0:53:32 But it’s still there, isn’t it?
0:53:34 Yes, staring you in the face every time you walk in.
0:53:35 Why?
0:53:36 Why is it still there?
0:53:38 So I use the seven whys like a child.
0:53:39 Why, why, why, why, why, why?
0:53:42 The insight for innovation comes on the fifth or sixth way,
0:53:43 not the first or second way.
0:53:46 And all the mums talked about three moments in time
0:53:48 through which a parent and a child must cross.
0:53:49 I’ve been through all three.
0:53:50 I know where I was for all three.
0:53:54 I knew when I was the day that my son, who was about nine,
0:53:55 he had tears in his eyes.
0:53:56 He said, are you Santa Claus?
0:54:00 And what hurt was, what was behind what he said?
0:54:01 I’m not your little boy anymore, daddy.
0:54:02 I’m growing up.
0:54:04 I know where I was when my daughter was 13,
0:54:06 dropped my hand in public for the first time.
0:54:08 It’s a seminal moment between a father and a daughter.
0:54:11 And I’m sure, like me, you know exactly where you were
0:54:12 when you had to say to your eldest,
0:54:16 goodbye for the very first time in their freshman year of college.
0:54:17 And you had to turn around and walk away.
0:54:20 And so our going in hypothesis was,
0:54:21 if we build it, they will come.
0:54:22 But what we realized was,
0:54:24 despite what our data was telling us,
0:54:25 there isn’t a single mum on the planet
0:54:26 that woke up this morning saying,
0:54:29 oh, I wonder if Disneyland’s got a new attraction this year.
0:54:32 But mum wakes up every morning, as she does every day,
0:54:34 worried about how quickly her children are growing up
0:54:36 and how she wants to make special memories for them.
0:54:37 While they still believe,
0:54:38 while they still hold my hand,
0:54:39 while they’re still here.
0:54:41 That’s the segmented communication campaign.
0:54:42 Disneyland Paris,
0:54:43 while Johnny still believes.
0:54:44 Disneyland Paris,
0:54:45 while Sarah will still hold your hand.
0:54:46 Disneyland Paris,
0:54:47 where Dave is still here.
0:54:51 Drove a 21% incremental attendance to the parks
0:54:54 and turned a somewhat arrogant product-centric organization
0:54:56 to a genuinely consumer-centric organization.
0:54:58 It’s now mandatory for every Disney executive
0:55:00 to go sweep the streets of Disneyland
0:55:01 one day or two days a year.
0:55:03 and one day a year in the living room
0:55:04 of one of our consumers
0:55:06 using our intuition.
0:55:08 And that happens to this day.
0:55:09 That still happens.
0:55:09 Yeah.
0:55:10 Oh, God, yes.
0:55:11 The thing is, right,
0:55:12 when you get to my age,
0:55:13 you get down on your knees
0:55:14 to do some pin training with a small child.
0:55:15 Then you think,
0:55:17 shit, I can’t get back up again.
0:55:19 Oh, my.
0:55:24 Duncan, I…
0:55:27 Man, it’s seldom we have a podcast
0:55:29 at such a pace.
0:55:34 And this is like the real drinking out of a river.
0:55:37 I know you use the concept of river,
0:55:39 of thinking in a negative way
0:55:40 where you’re stuck in that river,
0:55:42 but this is drinking from a river
0:55:44 of creativity and innovation.
0:55:47 So I thank you for being on my podcast.
0:55:49 I’m going to look at Disneyland
0:55:51 and Disney a whole different way,
0:55:53 even more positive if that’s possible.
0:55:55 And congratulations on your book.
0:55:57 Again, Duncan’s book’s name
0:56:00 is Imagination Emporium.
0:56:02 And I cannot think of a book
0:56:04 that is designed the way this one is
0:56:06 and with the colors and the illustrations.
0:56:08 So, yeah, as you would expect
0:56:10 the book from Duncan Wardell
0:56:11 to look like,
0:56:13 it fulfills your every fantasy.
0:56:16 So thank you very much, Duncan.
0:56:16 And thank you, Madison.
0:56:18 Yes, thank you.
0:56:18 I’m going to thank
0:56:20 the Remarkable People team,
0:56:22 which is, of course, Madison Neismar,
0:56:24 producer and co-author,
0:56:26 Tessa Neismar, researcher,
0:56:28 who dug up all the dirt on you for me.
0:56:32 And there is my sound design engineers,
0:56:34 which is Shannon Hernandez and Jeff C.
0:56:36 So we are the Remarkable People team.
0:56:39 And I find it hard to believe
0:56:41 that you’re not a little bit more remarkable
0:56:43 after listening to this episode
0:56:44 and you’re going to be more creative
0:56:46 and innovative and change the world
0:56:48 and empathetic and all that good stuff.
0:56:50 And you’re going to look at turkeys
0:56:52 in a completely new way.
0:56:55 So thank you, Duncan.
0:56:56 And until next time,
0:56:58 mahalo and aloha
0:57:00 from the Remarkable People team.
0:57:07 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:05 It takes a large chunk of the population that makes it clear that it has a set of priorities
0:00:10 that they will hold politicians accountable for pursuing, and politicians will respond
0:00:12 to that incentive 10 times out of 10.
0:00:16 I think it’s one thing that Donald Trump has done really well is he’s made it entirely
0:00:22 clear to all Republican elected office holders that his voters will respond to him, they
0:00:26 will show up, they will vote, and they will vote against the people who cross them.
0:00:31 If you want to push back against that, you’ve got to show that you can be equally powerful
0:00:37 at organizing from the bottom up.
0:00:38 My name is Guy Kawasaki.
0:00:43 This is the Remarkable People podcast, and as you may gather, we’re in the business of
0:00:49 helping people be remarkable by finding other remarkable people to interview and find out
0:00:54 their story and find out what they’re doing and how they got to where they are.
0:00:57 And we have a Remarkable Guest, of course, for you today.
0:01:06 His name is Yoni Applebaum, and he is the Deputy Executive Editor of The Atlantic.
0:01:09 And I want people to know I love The Atlantic.
0:01:13 It is a bastion of freedom of expression and freedom of thought.
0:01:17 And Yoni, I want you to know I am a paid subscriber.
0:01:21 I’m not just free-loading on your intellectual efforts, okay?
0:01:22 Love to hear it.
0:01:30 Now, Yoni has also taught at Harvard, Babson, Babson, that enlightened educational institution
0:01:32 gave me an honorary doctor.
0:01:33 I love Babson.
0:01:35 I’ve got to make sure I pronounce this right.
0:01:37 Is it Brandeis or Brandeis?
0:01:38 How do you say that at university?
0:01:39 Brandeis.
0:01:40 Brandeis.
0:01:41 All right.
0:01:43 So, obviously, I didn’t go there.
0:01:51 And I have to tell you that Yoni has one of the best stories about how he got his job
0:01:55 – ever, ever.
0:01:58 So I know you must be tired of telling this story.
0:02:01 It’s like when people ask me, “What was it like to work for Steve Jobs?”
0:02:07 But I got to ask you, “Please tell the story of how you got this job at The Atlantic.”
0:02:10 I got my job by procrastinating.
0:02:14 I was a doctoral student in American history.
0:02:17 And what you do if you’re getting a doctorate is you write a dissertation.
0:02:21 What you actually do if you’re getting a doctorate is you do almost anything to avoid
0:02:22 writing the dissertation.
0:02:24 It’s a really big project.
0:02:25 It’s really hard.
0:02:27 And I was prone to distraction.
0:02:33 And I was on my computer one day when I was supposed to be writing and clicked over and
0:02:36 saw a new blog I’d never seen before.
0:02:39 And the blogger had written something that I thought was wrong.
0:02:43 So I jumped into his comment section to tell him why I thought he was wrong.
0:02:47 This is the kind of thing a lot of people waste a lot of time doing on the internet.
0:02:51 But something really unusual happened, which is that he jumped into the comment section
0:02:53 himself and said, “Oh, that’s a really good point.
0:02:54 I’m glad you said that.”
0:02:56 I thought, “That’s unusual.”
0:03:01 So I came back the next day and engaged on his next post and we struck up a conversation.
0:03:06 I was commenting anonymously and was mortified when one day he reached out to me and said,
0:03:08 “You sound like you’re a historian.”
0:03:14 And I thought, “On the internet, nobody’s supposed to know if you’re a dog, right?
0:03:18 I’m writing in such stilted paragraphs and in such a long-winded way that it’s obvious
0:03:21 to him I’m an academic because who else talks like that?”
0:03:24 And so he outed me and so we talked.
0:03:28 And he was a staff writer for The Atlantic and his name was Ta-Nehisi Coates.
0:03:33 And he was thinking out loud on his blog and inviting others into the conversation.
0:03:38 And he’s a wonderful and warm and generous guy and he went to his editor about me.
0:03:39 I didn’t know that.
0:03:42 I’m sitting at my desk one day and the phone rings.
0:03:45 The editor of The Atlantic is on the other end of the line and he says, “Ta-Nehisi says
0:03:48 there’s a guy in this comment section who should be writing for us.
0:03:51 How would you like to be a contributor to The Atlantic?”
0:03:54 And that’s how I ended up doing journals.
0:03:57 Man, when I read that story, I said, “Wow.”
0:04:02 That is literally the only positive thing I’ve ever heard coming from commenting on
0:04:05 somebody else’s podcast or somebody else’s column.
0:04:08 That’s a great story.
0:04:09 Oh, man.
0:04:14 But do you think it’s because he has such an open mind and he’s so smart?
0:04:18 I mean, I don’t know if this would work with most people.
0:04:23 I wrote for The Atlantic for five years and then I got another call and they said, “Why
0:04:28 don’t you resign your post to Harvard, give up the only profession that still offers a
0:04:34 guarantee of lifetime employment, and switch to journalism?”
0:04:36 That was an IQ test, Shione.
0:04:37 And I failed.
0:04:38 That’s the sad thing I failed.
0:04:41 I did switch it, but it was a hard choice, right?
0:04:44 It was another one of those branching moments in my life where I thought, “God, why would
0:04:45 I do that?
0:04:46 I’m doing what I love.
0:04:47 I really loved teaching.
0:04:52 I loved writing, and I thought, why would I give that up to switch to a profession that
0:04:54 seems like it’s in free fall?”
0:04:56 But this is the answer to your question.
0:04:58 The two things that drew me to journalism.
0:05:01 One was when I was an academic, I was supposed to have all the answers.
0:05:05 I’d stand in front of the classroom and my students would ask me things, and I needed
0:05:06 to know.
0:05:12 As a journalist, and this was, I think, Tanhasi’s superpower, you’re encouraged to be ignorant.
0:05:14 You’re not supposed to have the answers.
0:05:17 You get this amazing privilege just because you’re a journalist.
0:05:21 You get to pick up the phone and call people or stop them on the street corner and say,
0:05:23 “Hey, I’d like to understand this.
0:05:24 Could you explain it to me?
0:05:27 Could you tell me how the world looks through your eyes?
0:05:30 Could you explain this complicated thing that I don’t get?”
0:05:33 It was a privilege to be ignorant.
0:05:34 It was a privilege to be curious.
0:05:38 To get to ask the questions rather than have to have the answers.
0:05:39 That was one reason I left.
0:05:44 I think it was the big thing about Tanhasi that really set him apart was he took that
0:05:45 to the end degree.
0:05:48 He was relentlessly, is relentlessly curious.
0:05:52 He was open to hearing different things from different people, and I’ve tried to model
0:05:53 myself on that.
0:05:56 The other part of it was academia.
0:05:57 It’s a solitary pursuit.
0:06:01 I was pursuing my own glory, my own research, sat in my own office on the end of a long
0:06:05 hall with a lot of other brilliant people who were smarter than I was, who were sitting
0:06:06 in their offices.
0:06:09 Sometimes I’d see them down by the coffee machine.
0:06:14 In the job I moved into, my job as an editor is to make other people’s work better.
0:06:17 That just turned out to be a lot more satisfying.
0:06:22 Pray tell, did this job change involve a physical move?
0:06:24 I’m glad you asked that.
0:06:26 It involved an involuntary move.
0:06:30 I was very happy where I was, and they said, “You’re going to have to leave Cambridge,
0:06:33 Massachusetts,” which is where I was living, and move down to Washington, D.C. if you
0:06:36 want to take this job, and so I did.
0:06:39 You weren’t stuck.
0:06:45 I wasn’t, but I was thinking about it already, and what you’re getting at there is the thesis
0:06:49 of my new book, which is about moving.
0:06:54 We will come back to the subject of stuck, because I know you’re on my podcast, not
0:07:00 because you like me, but you want people to read your book, which is, I understand that.
0:07:02 You have such an interesting background.
0:07:08 Let me fast forward to March 2019, and you know what questions is coming.
0:07:13 You write this piece recommending the impeachment of Donald Trump.
0:07:17 Just tell me, when you write a piece like that at The Atlantic, what the hell happens
0:07:18 to you?
0:07:24 Do you just get shitloads of angry emails, and what happens when you do something like
0:07:25 that?
0:07:26 Yeah.
0:07:32 So as an argument, I backed my way, and I started writing a piece about President Andrew
0:07:36 Johnson, and the first impeachment, I thought, “What could I learn from this history?”
0:07:40 And by the time I was done with the research, I thought, “Well, I’ve learned a big thing
0:07:45 here,” which is, “This is an important and valuable process, and I got to lay that out.”
0:07:50 It’s actually something that Congress should be taking much more seriously than it has.
0:07:51 And then I published that.
0:07:56 I threw it out into the world, and discovered that not everybody agreed with me on this,
0:08:02 in fact, a lot of the President’s ardent supporters let me know in detailed and graphic
0:08:06 ways just how profoundly they disagreed with me about this.
0:08:08 And some of that could be laughed off.
0:08:14 Some of that was detailed and threatening in ways that posed a direct risk to safety.
0:08:19 Unfortunately, our political atmosphere means that these things often move in really unpleasant
0:08:23 directions if you’re going to make a bold claim that the backlash can be switched in
0:08:24 fears.
0:08:31 Even today, when you hear the candidate to run the FBI or the Attorney General is saying,
0:08:35 “Now we’re going to hunt down all Donald Trump’s enemies,” you’re probably on that
0:08:37 enemies list, right?
0:08:41 So, I mean, right after they arrest Nancy Pelosi, are they going to come for you?
0:08:44 Do you have any paranoid thoughts like that?
0:08:47 I think everybody in my line of work has paranoid thoughts right now.
0:08:52 It’s not a subject I like to dwell on a whole lot, because my ultimate responsibility is
0:08:53 to our readers.
0:08:58 And the articles we assign, the reporting that we do, it’s in the interest of pursuing
0:08:59 the truth.
0:09:04 And you don’t want your selection of stories to be shaped by too many thoughts about how
0:09:06 people are going to react to it.
0:09:10 You select the stories that are worth going after, you pursue them wherever the facts
0:09:13 lead you, and then you owe it to your readers.
0:09:18 I owe it to our readers to write whatever it is that I come to as a conclusion without
0:09:21 fear of favor, without worrying about what the consequences will be.
0:09:26 Well, maybe you’ll be roomies with Heather Cox Richardson.
0:09:31 Think of the conversation that two of you could have at night, that would be a great
0:09:32 conversation.
0:09:34 I’d be a little intimidated.
0:09:39 Heather was on my doctoral committee, and I already had the pastor judgment once and
0:09:45 would worry about what she’d say about my latest work.
0:09:50 Back then, when you wrote that story, I think the attitude of many people was that impeachment
0:09:51 is going to work.
0:09:56 It’s going to prevent the abuse of the Constitution, et cetera, et cetera.
0:10:00 But obviously, we’ve been proven wrong twice.
0:10:02 So what happened?
0:10:08 Going into that, there was much more optimism coming out, two-time impeachment, and now
0:10:09 reelected.
0:10:11 Like, how do you explain that?
0:10:12 It’s a great question.
0:10:19 I think one problem that we’re all grappling with is that the founders, when they designed
0:10:25 the Constitution, expected the branches of government to be jealous of their powers.
0:10:30 They were balancing the branches against each other, and they just assumed that if you had
0:10:35 an executive who was pushing the boundaries of what the executive should do, and then
0:10:39 stepped way over the line, that the legislative branch would say, “Whoa, hold on there.
0:10:41 We may agree with you on policy.
0:10:45 We may like some of what you’ve done, but you’re upsetting the system.”
0:10:49 And so it’s our job, our constitutional responsibility to push back at that.
0:10:54 They didn’t count on the kind of toxic partisanship that has really come to predominate in this
0:10:59 country where people tend to see things more through that partisan lens than through the
0:11:00 constitutional one.
0:11:05 And we’re all grappling with what that means because the basic checks and balances that
0:11:09 were built into the Constitution, they’re not going to work in a highly partisan atmosphere.
0:11:14 The only kind of checks right now we have is to the inauguration committee, and the only
0:11:18 kind of balances, how much is a billionaire worth?
0:11:21 That’s checks and balances circa 2025.
0:11:25 And now Al Green is looking into doing this for number three, right?
0:11:30 Trump has a higher probability of a three-peat than the Kansas City Chiefs.
0:11:31 Wow.
0:11:34 You know, that’s an interesting thought, right?
0:11:38 Because the Kansas City Chiefs went out there and everybody knew what the outcome was going
0:11:43 to be before the first kickoff, and by the end, it was not what people had expected.
0:11:49 What can happen, and this is a lesson that politicians have repeatedly learned, is that
0:11:54 you’re riding high, you think the public’s behind you, you feel invulnerable.
0:11:57 And that’s precisely when people tend to overstep and overreach.
0:12:02 The check and balance that is still there, that still operates, is the participation
0:12:04 of the American people.
0:12:07 And I think in this administration, when it runs up against limits, that’s where it’s
0:12:08 going to find them.
0:12:12 You can be Donald Trump and order your attorney general to charge somebody with a trumped
0:12:16 up crime, but they still have to go to a grand jury and get an indictment, which means that
0:12:22 you have to persuade a dozen ordinary Americans that there’s been at least enough evidence
0:12:24 to charge somebody with a crime.
0:12:27 Then you got to go in front of another jury and you got to secure the conviction.
0:12:34 And again, that puts the ball back in the hands of ordinary Americans who tend to not
0:12:38 like to shield what to do, who tend to like to form their judgments.
0:12:44 I would expect that if there is a check on Donald Trump’s pushing the boundaries of executive
0:12:46 authority, it’s not going to come from Congress.
0:12:51 And it will only be sustained if it comes from the courts if ordinary Americans make
0:12:55 clear their own views and their own fidelity to the Constitution.
0:12:56 So I want to emphasize this point.
0:13:02 So you’re saying that if the courts fail because the courts have no real way to, I mean, what’s
0:13:04 the U.S. marshals going to do?
0:13:06 They’re going to invade the White House, right?
0:13:12 So if the courts fail because they don’t have much power to enforce.
0:13:18 But you are still optimistic because ultimately it is the will of the American people that
0:13:19 will survive.
0:13:25 I have a lot of faith in the American people to eventually do the right thing when they’ve
0:13:27 run out of all their options.
0:13:32 But ultimately our democratic system does not depend on a document.
0:13:37 It doesn’t depend on the virtues of the politicians that they put in office.
0:13:38 Thank God for that.
0:13:44 I imagine if our democracy rested on politicians being virtuous, it would have been over a
0:13:45 long time ago.
0:13:48 It really rests on the extent to which we believe in each other.
0:13:52 And as long as Americans are committed to our common project, I tend to think that there
0:13:57 will be elections that put people in office with whom I disagree and elections where I’m
0:13:58 happier about the result.
0:14:02 But that’s what will make democracy survive is the American people being thrown into that
0:14:04 composite.
0:14:23 Yoni, every part of my body that can be crossed is crossed right now, hoping you’re right.
0:14:29 Recently, I got into a discussion with a history professor and I said, like right now, if you
0:14:36 go to a history class in college or high school, they’re teaching you about Samuel Jackson
0:14:41 or the original framers of the Constitution and they’re going back hundreds of years and
0:14:46 trying to opine and trying to interpret what happened.
0:14:53 But it seems to me that we may be living the most important and interesting time ever in
0:14:54 American history.
0:14:59 So I said, why are you constantly referring to the past?
0:15:05 You should just be studying current events every day now because 200 years from now people
0:15:08 are going to be looking back and saying, who was this Donald Trump?
0:15:09 How did it happen?
0:15:12 And the history professor said, you cannot do that.
0:15:17 You have to use history to understand the present.
0:15:23 So we have to teach about Clinton and Nixon and Jackson in order to understand today.
0:15:29 So do you agree with that or can history today in such an interesting time just be the study
0:15:31 of current events?
0:15:36 When I was a boy, I sometimes resented that I didn’t get to live through any great momentous
0:15:37 events.
0:15:42 There were no wars raging, there were no, not in the Great Depression.
0:15:47 It’s the kind of childish thing a lot of us are prone to and then all of a sudden you
0:15:52 find yourself in the middle of very interesting events and create just a small hint of normalcy.
0:15:56 It’s a tough moment to be living through and there’s enough to see every day that you could
0:16:00 occupy yourself just chronically in what we see unfolding around us.
0:16:03 But the past is actually really valuable.
0:16:04 It’s in two ways.
0:16:08 One is it helps us understand how we’ve gotten to where we are.
0:16:14 But the other way that you can look at the past is as a palimpsest of possibilities.
0:16:18 So much of what we see at present can feel for ordained.
0:16:21 It can feel as if there’s no other option.
0:16:22 This is the way things are.
0:16:24 This is the way things were meant to be.
0:16:27 And when you go back into the past, it’s a strange world.
0:16:31 People did things really differently and you come to understand that the way we do things
0:16:38 today is as much a result of accident of contingency as it is of inevitability.
0:16:42 And to me, that gives me a lot of hope in this moment because it means that the things that
0:16:47 feel like historical inevitabilities, things that feel as if they’re bound to happen, that
0:16:51 we’re stuck on this one track and we’re barreling it toward the future.
0:16:53 That’s not how the past is usually unfolded, right?
0:16:58 Things happen unexpectedly, contingent events intervene.
0:17:04 People organize themselves and decide collectively to make change in ways that nobody had anticipated.
0:17:09 And when you look back into that kind of history, I think it’s not just about explaining how
0:17:11 we got to this moment.
0:17:14 It’s also a way of imagining other directions we could take.
0:17:19 If we’re sitting here trying to imagine directions and a podcaster says to you, “So yes, you’re
0:17:20 a historian.
0:17:22 You understand what happened in the past.
0:17:24 You understand what’s possible now.
0:17:28 You’re deputy executive editor of The Atlantic.”
0:17:36 So give me some practical tips about what can I do to help preserve the America I love?
0:17:37 Yeah.
0:17:42 I can’t give any simple solutions because it’s not a simple problem that we face.
0:17:47 The first thing I’d suggest is actually get involved with your community at the local
0:17:48 level.
0:17:50 That’s the place to start.
0:17:56 And by involved not tweeting or posting or clicking like on somebody else’s post, too
0:18:02 often we become political hobbyists who follow politics as if we were following the NFL.
0:18:07 And you’re sitting on your couch cheering for the quarterback who throws the deep strike
0:18:12 and feeling as if you’re putting on that special game day jersey made a big difference.
0:18:14 It’s fandom, right?
0:18:18 That’s really different than going out there on the field yourself.
0:18:23 And so the first way to make a difference is to stop being a fan, stop being somebody
0:18:29 who’s a spectator who’s doing this on social media and to start be a participant, to come
0:18:35 off the bench to say, “Okay, I’m going in and maybe I can’t fix the world, but I can
0:18:39 make a difference with my local school board.
0:18:43 I can make a difference with something that’s happening in my local community.
0:18:44 I can get back.
0:18:47 I can find a way to affect positive change in the world immediately around me.”
0:18:51 And I think that’s tremendously empowering if it changes our whole attitudes.
0:18:56 If you’re out there making a positive change in the world, other possibilities open up.
0:18:59 So that’s the second thing is like to think about how to scale that change.
0:19:04 If you have people who are really invested in the country, not as it is, but as they
0:19:07 think it should be, as they think it could be, and they’re willing to work together in
0:19:13 order to realize that vision, and they start to hook up with each other, they start to
0:19:14 build.
0:19:17 We’ve seen too many social movements in the last couple of decades that call millions
0:19:20 of people out into the streets and they feel as if they’re going to change everything.
0:19:23 And then everybody goes home and there’s no infrastructure there.
0:19:26 There’s not weekly meetings where somebody’s keeping the minutes and somebody else is making
0:19:27 a motion.
0:19:29 That’s how Americans used to affect social change.
0:19:32 They built this infrastructure slowly from the ground up.
0:19:33 It was hard work.
0:19:37 It was difficult work, but it meant that when something big happened, there was an infrastructure
0:19:38 to activate.
0:19:42 It meant that after everybody went home from the rally, there was follow-up and they said,
0:19:44 “Hey, and on Tuesday, please write to your senator.”
0:19:48 And on Wednesday, we’re looking for people to come testify to the local city council.
0:19:51 Without that infrastructure, it’s really, really hard no matter how well-intentioned
0:19:53 people are to affect change.
0:19:57 So you start at the local level, you hook up with other activists, other people who are
0:20:01 just ordinary Americans trying to make the world a little bit better, and you create
0:20:06 that infrastructure, and then ultimately it scales to the national level where politicians
0:20:09 are really reactive, craven creatures.
0:20:13 When they see that people are well-organized, when they’re articulating what they want,
0:20:17 it doesn’t actually take a majority of the population to move.
0:20:21 It takes a large chunk of the population that makes it clear that it has a set of priorities
0:20:25 that they will hold politicians accountable for pursuing.
0:20:29 And politicians will respond to that incentive 10 times out of 10.
0:20:33 I think it’s one thing that Donald Trump has done really well is he’s made it entirely
0:20:39 clear to all Republican elected office holders that his voters will respond to him, they
0:20:43 will show up, they will vote, and they will vote against the people who cross them.
0:20:48 If you want to push back against that, you’ve got to show that you can be equally powerful
0:20:51 at organizing from the bottom up.
0:20:54 Let’s switch to your book for a second.
0:21:01 All right, so walk me through the gist of your book stuck about how the lack of mobility
0:21:08 is a key factor in American society today, so unstuck my mind about stuff.
0:21:11 I started writing this book more than a decade ago.
0:21:15 I was living in Cambridge, I was in an apartment, it was already getting a little too small
0:21:19 for my family, and I could look out the window at the streets around me.
0:21:23 And I knew as a historian something about the neighborhood I was living in, it was a
0:21:24 special neighborhood.
0:21:29 For a hundred years, it had been a neighborhood where the children of immigrants moved in
0:21:31 and moved up.
0:21:35 One wave after another, after another, had gotten onto that bottom rung of the American
0:21:37 ladder of opportunity, and they’d kept climbing.
0:21:39 They started in that neighborhood, and they kept going.
0:21:44 And by the time I’d lived there, I could look out that window, and I mostly saw young professionals
0:21:45 walking by.
0:21:49 The city I was living in had lost two-thirds of its kids, families couldn’t afford to
0:21:53 live there anymore, and I thought, “This is really weird.
0:21:59 How was it able to accommodate all that growth for all those years and bring in so many different
0:22:02 people seeking opportunity in America and help them find it?”
0:22:04 And now it can’t do that anymore.
0:22:08 Now the people I’m talking to are moving out, the pastors at the local churches were telling
0:22:12 me that their parking lots fell on Sunday because their parishioners had all moved to
0:22:13 other communities.
0:22:16 They’d drive back on Sunday, but there was nobody to fill the pews.
0:22:20 Something had gone very badly wrong in this place, and I wanted to know what it was, and
0:22:22 I started digging.
0:22:29 And what I landed on eventually was that we had given communities a set of tools that
0:22:34 had broken the most powerful part of the American idea.
0:22:40 That was that you had the opportunity as an individual to move toward opportunity and
0:22:45 to leave the circumstances of your birth, the identities you’d inherited.
0:22:46 You had the option.
0:22:49 You could embrace them, or you could build your own identity.
0:22:54 You could stay where you were, or you could move someplace new.
0:22:58 And over and over and over again, the people who moved someplace new, they thrived, their
0:23:02 children thrived, they were able to go toward the new opportunities that were opening up
0:23:05 in some other part of the country and some other part of their own community.
0:23:10 And as long as we gave people the chance to do that, this society became more equal over
0:23:11 time.
0:23:14 It spread rights more broadly over time.
0:23:18 And as we’ve rolled that back over the last 50 years and really priced people out of the
0:23:20 prosperous places, it’s broke.
0:23:23 I mean, why can’t somebody move?
0:23:29 Because my experience, I moved from Honolulu to why I went to undergraduate, then I moved
0:23:34 to LA, then I moved to Orange County, then I came back and I went to San Francisco, I
0:23:40 went to Atherton, I went to Santa Cruz, I went to Watsonville, I moved six, seven times.
0:23:44 So what is preventing people from moving?
0:23:45 It’s not like there’s immigration.
0:23:49 You can’t move to Texas unless you get a resident card or something.
0:23:53 Yeah, no, I love the way you laid out that sequence of moves.
0:23:57 I love asking people for their stories and I bet a lot of your listeners have stories
0:24:01 like that themselves where they moved many times in their lives.
0:24:04 And those are very American stories.
0:24:07 It used to be the case in this country that it was like you needed a permit.
0:24:12 If you moved into a community in America in the colonial period, they could warn you out.
0:24:17 Even if you owned a house, even if you’d rented property, even if you had a job, they could
0:24:20 deliver a notice to your door that said, “We don’t want you here.”
0:24:21 And they did it.
0:24:22 They did it routinely.
0:24:26 They did it often to poor people, they did it to racial minorities, they did it for
0:24:29 people who were moving in where there was already a blacksmith in town and they didn’t
0:24:30 want a second one.
0:24:34 This was like European societies, it was a very closed society.
0:24:36 You couldn’t just live where you wanted.
0:24:38 You needed the permission of the community to accept you.
0:24:43 And then right around 1800, we launched this legal revolution for the first time in world
0:24:44 history.
0:24:49 Instead of the communities choosing their people, in America we say, “People can choose
0:24:50 their own communities.”
0:24:56 If you can find a place to live in that community, you can establish residents in that community,
0:24:59 not because anybody gave you permission, but just because you decided it was where you
0:25:00 were going to live.
0:25:03 Residents will be a matter of intent rather than acceptance.
0:25:08 That was like a revolutionary thing, right, that communities no longer got to function
0:25:11 like members of the clubs, but they used to.
0:25:12 So that was what we got right.
0:25:18 And then what we got wrong was that after 100 years of remarkable fluidity, and these
0:25:23 are the, in the 19th century, maybe one out of three Americans was moving every year.
0:25:25 Today it’s fallen to one out of 13.
0:25:30 The thing that shifts is that we give communities a whole new set of tools.
0:25:36 And it starts actually, the very first tool starts in 1885 in Modesto, California, where
0:25:42 the town really, really doesn’t want any Chinese immigrants living in its borders.
0:25:45 And they try all kinds of ways to get rid of the Chinese.
0:25:47 They try arson, burning down their buildings.
0:25:50 They try vigilante violence.
0:25:52 They come in, they round them up, they beat them.
0:25:56 And they can’t force them out because those Chinese residents want the same thing everybody
0:25:57 else wants, right?
0:25:58 They want opportunity.
0:25:59 They want better lives with their kids.
0:26:01 They can see that Modesto is going to give that.
0:26:03 And then they hit on this really ingenious solution.
0:26:07 They say, well, we can’t pass laws that discriminate against the Chinese because the courts won’t
0:26:09 let us do that.
0:26:13 And beating them up hasn’t worked, burning them out hasn’t worked.
0:26:17 But we could pass a law in this town, which says that the laundries, which were the only
0:26:22 thing that would employ the Chinese at that point, they all have to be in this one narrow
0:26:27 part of town, China town, we’ll push them back in.
0:26:29 And that was the first American zoning statute.
0:26:32 It’s the first time that a municipality passes a zoning rule.
0:26:36 It was to push the Chinese out of Modesto and back into China town.
0:26:39 And that tool proves remarkably powerful.
0:26:45 So after 100 years of almost unlimited mobility, America starts to roll it back.
0:26:52 But wouldn’t somebody say that the reason why there are zoning regulations is to prevent
0:26:58 excessive traffic or excessive population or something like that?
0:27:00 They’re not going to say it because they’re Chinese.
0:27:03 So how do they do it today?
0:27:08 Yeah, the amazing thing about 1885 is they actually said it.
0:27:11 This is a pretext, which is sort of, as a historian, it’s a wonderful thing to see somebody
0:27:13 say the quiet part loud like that.
0:27:17 But yeah, there’s lots of good reasons to regulate land use.
0:27:22 Where you run into trouble is where you let people create one set of rules for really
0:27:28 rich areas and another set of rules for the poorer areas because always those rules will
0:27:30 be rigged against the poor.
0:27:36 And today, the zoning rules that go into affluent areas are often very well-intentioned.
0:27:40 They’re about protecting the environment, protecting the history of the community.
0:27:45 They’re about worrying about traffic and light and shadow.
0:27:47 There’s always a good reason not to build.
0:27:51 But the way I’ve come to think of this is it’s a little bit like dropping an apple
0:27:53 core on the sidewalk.
0:27:58 If I drop one apple core on the sidewalk, I’m not really making the world much worse off.
0:28:01 If everybody drops through apple core on the sidewalk, pretty soon that sidewalk gets a
0:28:05 rat infested, smelly, disgusting, right?
0:28:06 It’s the same thing with blocking buildings.
0:28:11 For zoning rules, you can create rules that apply really well in any individual circumstance.
0:28:14 And if you block one building, that’s not a big deal.
0:28:17 If you block all the buildings, then there’s no longer a way in.
0:28:21 And so these rules that come out of a history of discrimination get sort of laundered over
0:28:24 time where we come up with polite ways to talk about it.
0:28:25 You’re right.
0:28:29 Nobody these days says, “Oh, I’m zoning this for single family homes because I don’t want
0:28:32 any Hispanic immigrants moving into my community.”
0:28:37 Instead they say, “I’m zoning this for single family homes because apartment buildings are
0:28:40 not a fit for the character of this place.”
0:28:45 But they sometimes mean that they’re more worried about the characters in those apartment
0:28:46 buildings.
0:28:50 There is a way in which we’ve come up with polite ways to talk about segregating ourselves
0:28:52 economically in America.
0:28:55 If you segregate yourself economically, it usually means segregating yourself racially
0:28:56 too.
0:29:00 Now, you mentioned three ways to deal with it.
0:29:04 This is consistency, tolerance, and abundance, right?
0:29:10 Now, if I may paraphrase those three, so consistency means that there’s not local regulations.
0:29:14 It’s consistent for the entire state, at least, let’s say.
0:29:19 And then tolerance is tolerance of differences and abundance means create more housing.
0:29:24 But as I read that, I said, “Man, this guy, can you name three more impossible things
0:29:25 to do?”
0:29:29 You’re going to go to this progressive mafia and say, “All right, so we’re going to have
0:29:31 no more local zoning.
0:29:36 We’re going to have you understanding other people’s frameworks and skin colors and religions
0:29:40 and genders and sexual orientation, and we want you to build more housing.”
0:29:44 Man, I hope you don’t run for office on that platform.
0:29:49 Yeah, in some ways, it’s a tough sell, but I’ll tell you this.
0:29:54 If you walk up to somebody and say, “Do you want multi-family housing on your block?”
0:29:56 Usually they’ll say, “No, we’re all change-a-first.
0:29:58 We’re used to the way things are.”
0:30:02 And if you say, “Should there be an apartment building across the street?”
0:30:03 And most people say, “No, I don’t want to.”
0:30:07 But that’s not the only way you can ask the question.
0:30:11 You can ask them, “Do you think that your neighborhood should be a place where young
0:30:13 families can still move in?
0:30:18 Do you think that the service workers who are making your life possible, the daycare
0:30:23 workers and the hospital nurses and the firefighters, should they get to live in the same town
0:30:27 where they’re providing services on behalf of the people?
0:30:31 Do you think that your community should be welcoming to people of diverse backgrounds
0:30:33 or reserved for the rich?”
0:30:39 If you ask the questions that way, Americans will overwhelmingly say, “No, no, I want opportunities
0:30:40 for families.”
0:30:44 And if the price I have to pay is that there’s an apartment building in a neighborhood of
0:30:47 single-family homes, I’m happy to pay it.
0:30:52 And so a lot of this depends on whether you see the problem as one isolated building where
0:30:56 you don’t want the change, or whether you can help people zoom out and see the bigger
0:31:01 picture and say, “This was a country that grew prosperous and diverse because it let
0:31:03 people move toward opportunity.
0:31:04 We’ve broken that.
0:31:06 It’s embedded in our politics.
0:31:11 It is the thing that, above all else, I genuinely believe, drove support for Donald Trump.
0:31:16 It was the rage he tapped into, the sense that people had, that there were islands of
0:31:19 prosperity that had walled themselves off from the rest of the country.
0:31:21 And he was angry at the right people, right?
0:31:22 He was championing their costs.
0:31:25 People really felt stuck in their lives.
0:31:27 And if you put it to them like that, it’d be like, “Do you want to fix America?
0:31:29 Do you want to restore the American dream?
0:31:33 What you have to do is let somebody build in your neighborhood so that new families
0:31:34 can move in.
0:31:36 The firefighters are supposed to live.”
0:31:38 My experience with these is people say, “Yeah, I wanted to pay that price.
0:31:39 That’s a good trade.”
0:31:46 I mean, you must run around with different people than I do, Yoni, because if I ask people
0:31:52 that I know, and let’s take the extreme example of Atherton, California, the most expensive
0:31:57 zip code in the United States, if I said to them, “Don’t you want to make it so that
0:32:02 young families can move here so your service workers don’t have as difficult a commute
0:32:03 and blah, blah.”
0:32:04 They would say, “Nope.
0:32:05 Nope.
0:32:06 I like it.
0:32:09 I want minimum zoning of two acres, and I don’t want any affordable housing.
0:32:10 I don’t want any more traffic.
0:32:13 I’m already spending too much time in my G-Class.
0:32:16 I need to get a new set of friends, Yoni.”
0:32:19 No, it’s a good objection that you’re raising, right?
0:32:22 And I don’t mean to sugarcoat this too much.
0:32:26 A hundred years ago, and it’s really that reason, we gave towns a new set of tools
0:32:28 they’d never had before.
0:32:29 Zoning wasn’t legal.
0:32:34 When people started passing zoning laws, they knew it was unconstitutional, that they were
0:32:38 deliberately trying to spread it around the country so fast that by the time we got to
0:32:41 the report, it would be too widespread to undo.
0:32:45 The drafters of zoning rules understood that what they were undertaking was like a legal
0:32:50 revolution and that if the courts heard about it too early, it wouldn’t take.
0:32:51 They pulled it off.
0:32:52 They spread it.
0:32:55 By the time the Supreme Court hears the first zoning case, Washington, D.C. is zoned, and
0:32:59 they’re walking to court, to their jobs, through a zoned city.
0:33:04 And it comes to seem unimaginable that you could roll it back, but it’s a recent change.
0:33:08 And it came from states delegating powers down to local communities.
0:33:13 And what we’ve seen over time is that the richer those communities are, the better educated
0:33:20 their inhabitants are, the better able they are to use these rules in order to create
0:33:22 a members-only club back out of their community.
0:33:26 I remember we talked about America starts as members-only clubs, these communities that
0:33:29 could warn you out if you were poor, if you had the wrong skin color, like, we’re back
0:33:31 to that now.
0:33:35 Communities today have figured out how to build new walls around themselves, how to wall themselves
0:33:36 off.
0:33:38 But there’s no reason that they have to have that power.
0:33:40 They didn’t historically have that power.
0:33:44 When they got that power, everyone had initially thought it was unconstitutional.
0:33:45 And it’s up to the states.
0:33:49 The states have the capacity to say, most of the voters in the state don’t get to live
0:33:50 in Atherton.
0:33:54 And what we’re going to do is try to create a society that shares prosperity more broadly.
0:33:59 If Atherton’s got great schools, then let’s build more housing in Atherton so that more
0:34:01 kids get to go to those schools.
0:34:05 And that will be good for all of us, because those kids, they’re going to grow up to be
0:34:10 the next generation of venture capital barons out on Sand Hill Road, right?
0:34:15 There’s a way in which, you know, rather than creating an elite that’s self-perpetuating,
0:34:20 if you allow people to move, you can create a genuinely meritocratic society that gives
0:34:23 new opportunities for new waves of people to move up.
0:34:25 Up next, unremarkable people.
0:34:30 I think this country is an amazingly resilient place.
0:34:33 America will die if it chokes itself off.
0:34:38 If it loses its optimism, if it loses its ability to innovate, if it loses its openness
0:34:39 to change.
0:34:41 We’re at some risk for that right now.
0:34:44 That is the direction, I think, in which Donald Trump has pointed us.
0:34:50 And so I don’t mean to suggest that America is invulnerable, but I think that fundamentally
0:34:57 most Americans view this as a land of opportunity, think that the country is stronger because
0:35:02 it has their neighbors in it, too, and as long as we don’t lose sight of those fundamental
0:35:06 values, I think America will survive a heck of a lot longer than I will.
0:35:24 Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:35:27 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:35:33 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:35:39 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:36:06 And listening to “Remarkable People” with Guy Kawasaki.
0:36:14 I’m going to be working at a Starbucks in Hiroshima right now.
0:36:20 What’s the consequence of trying to prevent people from coming to America?
0:36:24 So first you want me to advocate apartment buildings in Atherton, and now you’re asking
0:36:26 me to go after immigration guys.
0:36:27 Exactly.
0:36:32 No, but it’s a good question and it’s not unrelated, right?
0:36:37 Whatever you think our immigration policy should be, whatever the right level of immigration
0:36:41 is, whatever the right enforcement mechanisms are, I don’t think anyone doubts for a moment
0:36:43 that immigration is one of America’s great strengths.
0:36:48 We have brought so many talented people to this country through the years, and I know
0:36:53 something about the psychology that comes with mobility.
0:37:01 People who feel stuck, who are born someplace and want to leave and can’t, they change
0:37:02 psychologically.
0:37:09 They grow more cynical, more pessimistic about the world, more hostile to outsiders.
0:37:14 They tend to see the world as a zero-sum game in which anyone new coming into their community
0:37:18 is dividing the same pie into smaller slices.
0:37:24 And that frankly describes a good number of Trump supporters who were much more likely
0:37:27 than Democratic voters to still live in the communities in which they were born, much
0:37:31 more likely to report that they wanted to move than they could, and much more likely
0:37:37 to be really resentful of immigration, to see it as diminishing their possibilities.
0:37:44 If you let that same person move toward opportunity, they get a sense of agency in their own lives.
0:37:48 Suddenly instead of the world being on them, they’re taking control of their own lives.
0:37:49 They’re making their own decisions.
0:37:50 That’s really empowering.
0:37:55 It’s not just empowering, it makes them more optimistic and it does something else.
0:37:57 They stop seeing the world as a zero-sum game.
0:38:02 They start to understand that they’ve moved toward opportunity, the place where their
0:38:05 living will thrive if others have that same chance.
0:38:08 They start to see the pie getting bigger, and instead of somebody else taking a slice
0:38:13 out of that pie diminishing their slice, they understand that together they can make that
0:38:17 pie big enough that everybody gets a larger slice than they started off with.
0:38:22 It sounds a little counterintuitive, but one of the things that has changed the American
0:38:28 debate over immigration is that more and more Americans are stuck where they are and feel
0:38:33 cynical about the world because they’re not getting in their country the kinds of opportunities
0:38:34 they expect it to have.
0:38:40 If you can restore that sense of agency, of mobility, you can restore the kind of optimism
0:38:47 that had for a long time, you will do unique American ability to absorb new waves of immigrants
0:38:49 and to build a cohesive country.
0:38:51 Let me make sure I got this right.
0:38:59 Are you saying that if Americans had a greater sense, and it was actually true of mobility,
0:39:05 that we would be more empathetic and tolerant of immigrants moving into America?
0:39:07 That is what the psychologists tell me.
0:39:12 When you look at people who have moved in the last year, they feel better about the world.
0:39:17 They are more tolerant of others, they’re more likely to reach out to others of diverse
0:39:22 backgrounds and when you look at people who want to move and can’t, the opposite things
0:39:23 are true.
0:39:24 All right.
0:39:28 So I’m going to switch gears again, don’t worry, we’ll let you plug your book at the
0:39:29 end.
0:39:34 Okay, so now, do you believe that the, because I caught this sentiment earlier in your writing
0:39:45 that the Republican Party is fighting a battle they cannot win against the pure math of demographics.
0:39:54 But it seems to me, since you made that kind of sentiment 2019-2020, it seems to me that
0:39:59 they have disproven that, that they are not fighting a losing battle.
0:40:03 They own all three branches, they theoretically are more popular than ever.
0:40:07 So what happened to this demographic inevitability?
0:40:09 Yeah, that’s a great question.
0:40:14 And there were a lot of people out there suggesting that there was some irresistible demographic
0:40:18 tie that’s going to sweep Republicans from power.
0:40:24 I think the most interesting thing that Donald Trump has done is found ways to build his
0:40:30 support, particularly among young men who don’t have the benefits of a college education.
0:40:32 And he’s done that across racial boundaries.
0:40:35 In some ways, we should all be happy about this.
0:40:40 American politics was becoming increasingly racial polarized and Donald Trump has depolarized
0:40:41 it a little bit.
0:40:47 In other words, it’s really worrying because some of the appeal that he’s exercised is
0:40:50 about enlarging.
0:40:53 He did what the Republicans I thought needed to do, just not the way I was hoping they would
0:40:54 do it.
0:40:55 Right?
0:40:58 He enlarged a sense of who could be a Republican.
0:41:03 He said, “I’ll take people of all backgrounds, of all colors, we’ll build that kind of party,
0:41:06 and we’ll do it through our hatred and resentment of them.”
0:41:08 And so he managed to switch the us and them.
0:41:15 He enlarged the Republican us by targeting them, progressives, liberal elites, and that
0:41:18 was a very effective political message for Donald Trump.
0:41:24 It still ultimately doesn’t leave the Republicans in a great spot where they have struggled
0:41:27 when Donald Trump is not at the top of the ticket.
0:41:31 He has fused this coalition of resentment together, but it’s not a coalition that holds
0:41:33 in midterm elections.
0:41:37 It’s not a coalition that holds in gubernatorial races.
0:41:43 Where they continue to face this problem that Trump can weld these folks together, but there
0:41:45 are other politicians who don’t seem able to do it.
0:41:52 I need a Harvard educated brain or Harvard professor to explain to me how Donald Trump
0:41:59 did this because from the outside looking in, I completely agree with the demographic
0:42:05 inevitability, but then I’ve learned that young black men and young Hispanic men and
0:42:10 young Muslim men and all that, they voted for Donald Trump.
0:42:14 Explain that to me that this guy says that the Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers
0:42:19 and the black people are all like criminals and the Muslims are terrorists, but their
0:42:21 young people are voting for me, huh?
0:42:23 I’m having an out-of-body experience here.
0:42:27 I only went to Stanford, I didn’t go to Harvard, so explain this to me.
0:42:32 I think this is a question a lot of people have, and there’s two ways to think about
0:42:34 political preferences.
0:42:38 One is shaped by a bunch of disqualification, so you look at it and you say, “Well, this
0:42:42 candidate said this and that and the other thing, and I don’t agree with that, I’m not
0:42:43 going to back him.”
0:42:48 Another way to think about it is thinking about what they call negative polarization,
0:42:54 so not what is this candidate and what’s disqualified him, but rather who does this candidate resent,
0:42:55 who do they hate?
0:42:57 Do they hate the same people that I hate?
0:42:59 Are their enemies the same as my enemies?
0:43:04 And I think for an awful lot of Americans, and you’ll forgive me for this, is one of
0:43:07 the things I’m getting at in the book, for an awful lot of Americans, there’s a sense
0:43:12 that something has gone wrong in their lives, particularly young men without college degrees
0:43:16 don’t have access to the same kinds of jobs that they did a generation ago.
0:43:19 We don’t have the same kinds of blue collar jobs in this country.
0:43:22 Donald Trump has talked about that over and over again.
0:43:26 We don’t offer those young men the same kinds of opportunities.
0:43:29 60% of college matriculants are now women.
0:43:32 Women are much less likely to be going to college than their female peers.
0:43:34 They’re much less likely to wind up with full-time employment.
0:43:39 They’re much less likely to be able to build the kinds of happy and productive and satisfied
0:43:40 lives.
0:43:46 And Trump is a genius for spotting resentment, and he channeled that anger.
0:43:48 That doesn’t mean that he has any practical solutions.
0:43:53 It doesn’t mean that he’s given them a vision that can turn their lives around, but it does
0:43:59 mean that he was able to make them feel seen, and people will overlook a lot in somebody
0:44:03 — they’ll overlook the things he said, they’ll overlook the things he’s done — if he makes
0:44:09 them feel as if they are real, they are recognized, that somebody has looked at their pain or their
0:44:13 suffering, understands it, blames some of the same people that they blame, gives them a
0:44:16 narrative that explains why it’s happening to them.
0:44:19 Those are really powerful political forces, and that is one thing I think that Donald
0:44:23 Trump has done brilliantly that Democrats have really struggled to match.
0:44:29 I gotta tell you alone, if I had not lived through it, I would not believe it.
0:44:33 If this happened 200 years ago, I was — this is impossible.
0:44:36 There’s no way that happened, but, wow.
0:44:42 Okay, I’m gonna ask you one last heavy question, then I have some short questions.
0:44:48 And the last heavy question is, what’s your thoughts on if and when America will die?
0:44:53 I think this country is an amazingly resilient place.
0:44:59 America will die if it chokes itself off, if it loses its optimism, if it loses its ability
0:45:02 to innovate, if it loses its openness to change.
0:45:04 We’re at some risk for that right now.
0:45:08 That is the direction I think in which Donald Trump is pointing us, and so I don’t mean
0:45:11 to suggest that America is invulnerable.
0:45:17 But I think that fundamentally, most Americans view this as a land of opportunity, think
0:45:23 that the country is stronger because it has their neighbors in it too.
0:45:28 And as long as we don’t lose sight of those fundamental values, I think America will survive
0:45:30 a heck of a lot longer than I will.
0:45:35 Like I said before, every part of my body that can cross is now crossed again.
0:45:36 Yeah, thank you.
0:45:39 Okay, so some quickie questions for you.
0:45:40 Okay.
0:45:43 First, where do you get your news?
0:45:48 I get my news from mainstream outlets, so I read as many newspapers and magazines as
0:45:54 I can, and I like particularly to read magazines and newspapers that publish things I disagree
0:45:55 with.
0:46:01 Okay, so tell us, what are the things you disagree with?
0:46:04 I love reading op-ed pages.
0:46:09 I love reading really smart reporting that pushes me in some direction I didn’t expect
0:46:10 to get.
0:46:16 I already know what I think, but when I open a newspaper, I really like to read something
0:46:18 that surprises me or tells me what’s wrong.
0:46:23 Which newspapers are you opening when you look for these op-ed?
0:46:27 I get The New York Times, The Washington Post, every day at my door, and I do that so I can
0:46:31 share them with my kids so they can see me not staring at a phone, but actually opening
0:46:33 a newspaper and reading it.
0:46:38 I didn’t even know there were print editions.
0:46:43 What do you think of the work of Katie Drummond and Wired?
0:46:48 In my mind, Wired was this thing that would talk about artificial intelligence and virtual
0:46:54 reality, and all of a sudden it’s like The New Washington Post, so what’s going on with
0:46:55 Wired?
0:46:59 I love the reporting they’re doing, and it’s a reminder that part of what’s happening
0:47:06 here is a transfusion of people and values from Silicon Valley into Washington, and Wired
0:47:12 is uniquely well positioned to cover that because they understand the Valley, they’re familiar
0:47:17 with the players, and a lot of the outlets that are based in DC, they’re covering it
0:47:18 like foreign correspondents.
0:47:22 Wow, the Silicon Valley people, who are they, and what are they up to, but Wired is there
0:47:24 to bring readers to that store.
0:47:29 Madison, make a note that we got to go subscribe and pay a subscription to Wired.
0:47:31 I’ve been forgetting to do that.
0:47:34 All right, next quick question.
0:47:39 Do you participate in social media at all, or is just a waste of time for you?
0:47:41 More than I should.
0:47:42 I’m on X.
0:47:43 You’re on X.
0:47:44 I am.
0:47:46 You’re a collaborator.
0:47:47 What?
0:47:54 Well, I enjoy on X, Blue Sky, on Facebook.
0:47:59 I enjoy being reminded that other people don’t see the world the way that I do.
0:48:04 It’s the biggest danger I have as a journalist is sitting in a room with a bunch of other
0:48:07 people whose views may more or less align with mine.
0:48:10 If I want to be interesting, if I want to find good stories, I’ve got to constantly
0:48:15 expose myself to things that might be a little enraging, but at least show me the world through
0:48:17 a different set of eyes.
0:48:20 For all of its flaws, that is one thing that social media does beautifully.
0:48:24 It can give me the perspective of somebody living in a different state, somebody with
0:48:28 a different education, somebody with a different set of values, and it reminds me that mine
0:48:30 is not the only way to see it.
0:48:35 I get the point of read-only access, but are you participating?
0:48:40 Are you posting and commenting or you’re just using it as a data source?
0:48:41 Not as much as I did.
0:48:47 It’s really hard to have a meaningful conversation on social media than it’s just.
0:48:54 This has been a very, very stimulating episode, and I like to give authors, because Madison
0:48:59 and I, we’ve authored a few books too, so I just want to give you this opportunity for
0:49:06 you to pitch stock as your book so that listeners can say, “Well, I got to go read that book.”
0:49:11 I wrote this book because I wanted to understand what had gone wrong in America, and what was
0:49:16 fun about it was giving the whole historical art, how we invented this idea of mobility.
0:49:22 We set Americans loose to define their own identities, that this was the thing that created
0:49:27 so much social and economic mobility in America, it made us able to welcome people from other
0:49:28 countries.
0:49:33 It gave us much of what we consider American values was this outgrowth of this historical
0:49:38 accent that we had set people loose to define their own lives.
0:49:42 One little thing in the book that I particularly loved was Discovering Moving Day.
0:49:47 All the leases in a particular town or city would expire on the same day, and a quarter
0:49:53 or third half the people would pick up and swap apartments, move houses, switch farms.
0:49:57 It was an annual ritual that people would come over from Europe just to watch all the
0:50:03 carts carry the goods through the city going in every direction, and getting the sense
0:50:09 of what mobility had once meant to Americans, and then seeing how we had accidentally choked
0:50:10 it off.
0:50:13 It’s one of those things where it’s like breathing the air, right?
0:50:14 Take it for granted.
0:50:16 You take it for granted that you can decide where you want to live.
0:50:20 It’s easy to take for granted that we have the ability to move someplace new, but when
0:50:25 you see how quickly we’re losing it and how much is at stake, suddenly you see the world
0:50:26 a different way.
0:50:28 At least I did as I wrote the book, and I hope that as people read the book, they’ll
0:50:32 see their own stories in there, and they’ll see their country in a new country on tomorrow.
0:50:33 All right, Neon.
0:50:34 Thank you so much.
0:50:41 I mean, you listeners, I hope you got these main points about fostering mobility and also
0:50:47 of remaining optimistic in the future of America, and you can’t just be optimistic.
0:50:52 You have to actually get involved, and you only suggested rather than just post it, read
0:50:58 and bitch, you’ve got to get involved and actually take action locally, do something.
0:51:05 And I will say that for the fourth time, I think I hope you are right.
0:51:13 And I would tell you, subscribe, pay the subscription for The Atlantic, and wired, and watch what
0:51:14 he does.
0:51:19 Maybe if you want to work at The Atlantic, you start commenting on Yoni’s articles, and
0:51:23 he’s going to reach out to you and give you a job at The Atlantic, and that would make
0:51:28 another great story for the Remarkable People podcast.
0:51:29 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:51:32 This has been the Remarkable People podcast.
0:51:39 Our guest was Yoni Appelbaum, and he is the deputy executive editor of The Atlantic, one
0:51:41 of my favorite publications.
0:51:43 So I think he’s helped us be remarkable.
0:51:49 And my thanks to Madison Nysmer, producer and co-author, Tessa Nysmer, researcher, and
0:51:54 then the two sound design engineers, which is Shannon Hernandez and Jeff Sey, and we
0:51:56 are the Remarkable Team.
0:51:59 I hope we made you a little bit more remarkable today.
0:52:07 Yoni, for sure, you did, so thank you very much.
0:52:08 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:02 We didn’t make it easy and we should just realize that the
0:00:04 comparator in the marketplace is Amazon.
0:00:07 So I talked to my staff and I asked anybody order anything for
0:00:10 Amazon over the holidays and every hand goes up and says, so when
0:00:13 you’re thinking that the DMV or government should be different.
0:00:15 I said, no, we should be good as what we’re trying to do as they
0:00:17 are, we should make the products are on the shelf.
0:00:20 We should know that what they want to buy, we should make it easy
0:00:21 to put it in the car, we should make it easy to pay.
0:00:25 And again, we have some room to go there, but that’s the
0:00:25 direction we’re heading.
0:00:29 Hello, everybody, it’s Guy Kawasaki.
0:00:33 This is the Remarkable People podcast and today I have a
0:00:38 guest that if you had told me when I first started getting
0:00:41 driver’s license in California that someday I would have a
0:00:46 podcast about Remarkable People and I would bring on the show,
0:00:50 the person who ran the California State Department of Motor
0:00:52 Vehicles, I would tell you, you are crazy.
0:00:55 Because I spent half my life waiting at that frickin’
0:01:00 office in Redwood City, so I am very proud that this is the
0:01:02 Remarkable People podcast.
0:01:04 We’re trying to make you Remarkable and I have the
0:01:11 Remarkable Steve Gordon, who runs the California DMV and I can
0:01:15 tell you from personal experience, I love the DMV.
0:01:18 Not many people might say that, but if you really think about
0:01:21 it, you’ve had recent experience, but it’s true.
0:01:25 You’ve had recent experience at the California DMV.
0:01:27 You would be happy, I’m telling you.
0:01:31 I want to give a special shout out to my favorite office,
0:01:34 which is the Capitola California DMV.
0:01:36 They are so great there.
0:01:39 So welcome to the show, Steve Gordon.
0:01:41 Thank you, Guy, glad to be here.
0:01:45 I am sincere in my praise for the California DMV.
0:01:49 I’m telling you, I just look forward to registration time,
0:01:51 I know what it is.
0:01:55 I’m going to go buy more cars after registering more often.
0:01:58 We look forward to helping you with that, so thanks.
0:02:01 And now that I’m getting older, I have to get my license
0:02:05 renewed more often, so it’s all good.
0:02:06 But still, it should only be every five years.
0:02:08 And we’ve simplified.
0:02:10 You still have to have an eye exam, but no longer do you need
0:02:11 a written knowledge test.
0:02:13 So it’s simple.
0:02:14 Wait, when did that happen?
0:02:17 Because I know I took the test in an eye exam.
0:02:20 Just recently, this was probably about six, five months ago,
0:02:23 where we actually removed the requirement
0:02:24 for a knowledge test.
0:02:26 This was popular when we left COVID,
0:02:29 because we had waved it during COVID.
0:02:31 And then we brought it back, and there was outrage.
0:02:33 And then we actually went back and looked at the data
0:02:36 and saw that very little correlation between passing
0:02:38 a knowledge test and safe driving.
0:02:39 So we convinced our administration
0:02:42 that it’s the right thing to do, and we had good controls
0:02:44 and other ways to take care of driver safety.
0:02:47 And we got rid of the exam.
0:02:48 Yeah, it’s fantastic.
0:02:52 Wait, so when you say you convinced your administration,
0:02:53 what does that mean?
0:02:55 You just call up Gavin as a Gavin.
0:02:57 It doesn’t matter if people take a knowledge test
0:03:00 and Gavin says to see, yeah, okay, fine, take it off.
0:03:01 How does that work?
0:03:04 No, I think the governor’s got many, many bigger things
0:03:06 to do than worry about that.
0:03:08 But we work as part of the administration,
0:03:10 and we try to make sure that as we make changes,
0:03:13 that’s very public, and we want to make sure
0:03:17 that we work with the folks that are in our agency
0:03:17 and so we want to make sure they’re aware
0:03:20 of what we’re trying to do, why we’re trying to do it,
0:03:22 and why we believe it’s the right thing to do.
0:03:24 And just want to make sure this is,
0:03:25 government is one of those things that they want,
0:03:26 no surprises.
0:03:28 So we want to make sure we socialize it the right way,
0:03:31 share the data, share the facts, talk about the opportunity,
0:03:34 and making sure that, of course, the skid degrees
0:03:36 so we could roll it out and be successful.
0:03:41 And the state attorney general doesn’t call you up
0:03:44 and say, listen, we cannot lower the standards
0:03:48 because somebody who didn’t have the eye exam,
0:03:50 it is gonna run over a little old lady
0:03:51 and they’re gonna sue the state
0:03:56 because we removed the eye exam from the licensing process.
0:03:57 – We didn’t actually remove the eye exam,
0:04:00 but we took away is the knowledge test.
0:04:01 – Oh, the knowledge test, okay.
0:04:03 – That’s something that people struggle with,
0:04:06 but these people who’ve written to me and I’ve met with,
0:04:09 these are people that have been driving for 50, 60 years,
0:04:11 so it’s nothing they’re gonna learn
0:04:12 about driving from a knowledge test.
0:04:13 Even though we simplified it,
0:04:15 we actually made it more of a video
0:04:17 so you can see how to drive safely.
0:04:19 But so that’s the part that we removed
0:04:21 that we actually, we’ve been studying this
0:04:22 for many, many years.
0:04:27 I have a bunch of R&D folks, PhDs that study driver behavior
0:04:29 and they go back and show you the correlation
0:04:31 between passing an exam and safe driving
0:04:33 and there is no correlation.
0:04:36 So there’s no sensitivity to if you don’t pass the exam,
0:04:37 you’re gonna be a worse driver.
0:04:40 Think about when we were 16 year old boys,
0:04:41 we passed the knowledge exam
0:04:44 and we were not the best drivers out of the chute.
0:04:47 Now the iExam you mentioned is still required.
0:04:48 It’s not actually in statute.
0:04:49 There are different ways to do the iExam.
0:04:51 People that are perhaps more fortunate
0:04:53 that can go to some case lens crafters at the mall,
0:04:55 not to promote a product or go to Kaiser,
0:04:57 which I’m a Kaiser customer or somebody else.
0:04:59 You can actually have that physician send in
0:05:03 other results of the iExam and satisfy that requirement.
0:05:05 – Okay, it’s good to know.
0:05:06 – Yeah, don’t get me in trouble here, guy.
0:05:08 We’re just starting this discussion.
0:05:11 – I’ll put in a good word with Gavin for you.
0:05:12 – Don’t worry.
0:05:13 – Great, thanks.
0:05:16 So I just take me back in history.
0:05:18 So like, how did this come about?
0:05:21 Did the state of California retain a headhunter
0:05:24 or did Gavin personally recruit you?
0:05:27 I don’t even understand how you become in charge of the DMV.
0:05:28 – I didn’t either,
0:05:31 but I was gonna semi-retired to take my wife
0:05:32 would probably say that.
0:05:34 And we were living in San Jose at the time
0:05:37 and we’re local newspaper, San Jose Mercury News
0:05:39 and Aaron Baldassari wrote an article.
0:05:40 I’m sure it was like the editor said,
0:05:42 hey, write something.
0:05:44 So she put an article that I believe the headline was,
0:05:46 hate the DMV, you could run it.
0:05:48 And my wife was reading the Mercury News.
0:05:50 She saw that and she read what was in the post.
0:05:52 She says, honey, that sounds like you.
0:05:54 And the implicit thing in there was,
0:05:57 well, and you don’t seem very busy.
0:05:59 And so anyway, so I read the article.
0:06:01 I looked at the governor’s appointment page
0:06:03 and I’d read a little bit about the DMV and said,
0:06:04 let’s see what happens.
0:06:06 And I did not expect anything to happen.
0:06:07 You put it in this hopper.
0:06:09 It was very much a government forum.
0:06:10 There’s a lot of places to fill things in.
0:06:13 You’re like, this is never gonna fly.
0:06:14 And sure enough, about six weeks later,
0:06:17 I get a phone call from area code 916,
0:06:18 something like, who do I know in Sacramento?
0:06:20 And sure enough, it was part of the recruiting process
0:06:22 and I went to my first interview in Sacramento
0:06:23 a few days later.
0:06:25 So it was completely out of the blue.
0:06:27 This job found me and it just so happens
0:06:29 that given my past experience,
0:06:31 it was not a bad fit with my background.
0:06:32 My wife was absolutely right.
0:06:35 And so when she complains about it’s hot in Sacramento
0:06:37 in the summer and it can be very hot here,
0:06:39 I remind her that she got us here.
0:06:43 And so she should enjoy and make the best out of it.
0:06:46 We have it, it’s Sacramento in the midtown area
0:06:48 for dining, it is fantastic.
0:06:50 We really enjoy the hard time in Sacramento.
0:06:51 – And to get a job like this,
0:06:53 is it like working at Google
0:06:55 where you have 12 rounds of interviews and they say,
0:06:58 so Steve, how would you count the number
0:07:01 of manhole covers in the state of California?
0:07:03 How does it work in this process?
0:07:05 – I’ve been critical of the interviewing process
0:07:06 ’cause it is a bit abstract
0:07:10 and in government we’re trying to be super fair, very even.
0:07:14 So sometimes the questions are just a big goofy.
0:07:16 And it’s where my wife traveled up with me
0:07:17 when we did these interviews.
0:07:18 So we were just commuting up from the Bay Area
0:07:20 and I left the first interview
0:07:21 and I was just like shaking my head and said,
0:07:23 okay, this is done.
0:07:26 Because it was just such an odd interview.
0:07:27 I assumed that they were not serious,
0:07:29 they were just checking the boxes and okay, yeah,
0:07:32 we interviewed some guy from the Bay Area.
0:07:34 And sure enough, a couple weeks later, I got another call.
0:07:38 And it’s now we’re now progressing up the leadership chain.
0:07:41 And eventually I get to meet with the governor’s chief
0:07:42 of staff, Ann O’Leary.
0:07:45 If you’ve Google her, she’s a very serious woman
0:07:47 as it has worked in the highest levels of government
0:07:49 at the federal level.
0:07:50 And you’re meeting with Ann O’Leary and you’re thinking,
0:07:52 okay, this is getting serious.
0:07:54 And as I left the interview that day with my wife again,
0:07:57 I said, you’re gonna have to really consider like right now
0:07:59 that do you wanna move to Sacramento?
0:08:03 Because our next interview is gonna be with the governor.
0:08:05 And sure enough, like five minutes later,
0:08:06 Ann’s calling me on the phone and saying,
0:08:08 hey, can you come back tomorrow?
0:08:10 The governor wants to meet with you.
0:08:11 So we had to decide, I said,
0:08:12 are we gonna move into Sacramento?
0:08:14 Because it’s getting serious.
0:08:17 And I met with governor, super curious guy,
0:08:20 very interested in trying to improve government.
0:08:22 And I was impressed and I shared with him
0:08:24 what he should expect getting from me.
0:08:26 Because I have things that I’m focused on,
0:08:28 the things that I wanna do a certain way.
0:08:31 And I was impressed and apparently I impressed him enough.
0:08:32 And the next thing you know,
0:08:33 they’re trotting me out in a press conference.
0:08:34 And as you know, right?
0:08:36 You never wanna follow a better speaker.
0:08:39 So here’s a governor doing his thing as he does,
0:08:40 is an amazing speaker.
0:08:42 Then they trot me out.
0:08:45 And I’m like, deer in the headlights.
0:08:46 And that was it.
0:08:47 And then next thing you know,
0:08:49 I’m meeting with the staff and getting to know
0:08:52 what’s really going on inside the department.
0:08:54 – Wait, back up for a second.
0:08:57 So just give me an example of a question or two
0:09:00 in the first interview that was goofy.
0:09:01 – It’s probably unfair,
0:09:02 but they were of the type, you know,
0:09:04 like what’s your favorite color?
0:09:05 And I get not being critical,
0:09:07 but they were, I think people are trying to be fair.
0:09:10 So they asked these very generic questions.
0:09:11 And from that,
0:09:13 I’m not sure what you’re supposed to take from it.
0:09:15 But when I’ve talked to my friends,
0:09:16 I say it’s the equivalent of that.
0:09:18 And it’s like, what were they trying to learn from that?
0:09:21 And I know people that of course were in that interview
0:09:23 are gonna listen to this discussion.
0:09:24 They’re gonna say, what do you mean?
0:09:25 But it was very odd.
0:09:28 And I’ve shared with folks that are in the various offices
0:09:31 and say we had to up the game on making sure,
0:09:33 especially at an executive level,
0:09:35 you should be talking about what do you really want to know
0:09:36 from that person?
0:09:38 You can ask tough questions or reasonably tough questions
0:09:41 to a number of people and then still be consistent.
0:09:43 So anyway, that was, like I said,
0:09:46 we were driving home from that as like, okay, that’s done.
0:09:48 We’re gonna go back and gonna do something else.
0:09:50 But it turned out that it wasn’t done.
0:09:50 – My God.
0:09:53 And tell me, so now you’re meeting with the governor,
0:09:55 you get an offer and all that.
0:09:58 And then what do your buddies at Cisco say?
0:10:01 Like what, have you lost your mind, Steve?
0:10:02 Why would you do this?
0:10:04 What was their reaction?
0:10:06 – I thought their reaction was fantastic.
0:10:09 They’re like, thank God someone’s gonna go in there
0:10:09 and do something.
0:10:12 And for the people that work closely with me at Cisco,
0:10:14 I mean, they knew that I’m an operations guy,
0:10:15 I’m no nonsense.
0:10:17 I’m a ton of energy to apply on things.
0:10:19 And they were like, yeah, great.
0:10:21 If you need anything, give me a call.
0:10:23 I even got, of course, I got posted in the press.
0:10:25 Some people were posting on my LinkedIn page.
0:10:27 And the funniest comment was this guy.
0:10:28 I was at Microsoft.
0:10:29 He goes, you know, you ought to see if the governor
0:10:31 will reduce your salary by $6.
0:10:33 ‘Cause if he does reduce your salary by $6,
0:10:35 it’ll be equal to the speed of light
0:10:38 in miles per second or whatever.
0:10:39 And I looked at that and said, okay,
0:10:41 first the guy was pulling for me for success
0:10:43 and he was having a little fun with the speed of light.
0:10:44 It was a math question.
0:10:45 And I thought, okay, I love that.
0:10:47 But I think people truly were pulling for me.
0:10:49 And I tell you, when I got into the job,
0:10:53 there were a number of opportunities for bringing,
0:10:54 or at least needing some context.
0:10:55 So I reached out into my network
0:10:57 and people were extremely generous.
0:10:59 And are still extremely generous.
0:11:00 When I need to understand something
0:11:02 or how to think about this,
0:11:04 people are very generous with their time,
0:11:05 which is fantastic.
0:11:06 And they want to be involved.
0:11:08 They want to see things improved.
0:11:10 And they’re just glad that they can give the ball
0:11:11 to somebody unlike me.
0:11:12 And I’m very fortunate to have those friends
0:11:15 and acquaintances in that network to call upon.
0:11:17 – Well, Steve, let me go on the record right now
0:11:20 that if you ever want my advice
0:11:24 on how to evangelize the DMV,
0:11:26 I’m there for you, bro.
0:11:28 I would love to help you guys.
0:11:29 – That’s great.
0:11:31 We’ll see about what edits we can put into this podcast
0:11:32 and see if we take it.
0:11:33 I’m kidding, no.
0:11:35 No, I mean, people are extremely generous.
0:11:37 And it’s really fantastic that people want to be
0:11:39 that invested and they see that there’s an opportunity
0:11:41 to make change.
0:11:43 We can’t fix everything, but that’s our Prado charge.
0:11:46 We’re attacking this one silo at a time.
0:11:47 And we’ve had a lot of success,
0:11:49 but there’s still a lot more work to do.
0:11:51 – So just to back up a step,
0:11:53 because people outside of California
0:11:56 and outside of America may not be familiar
0:11:58 with what a DMV does.
0:12:01 So can you just explain what it is you do
0:12:03 and what it is you don’t do?
0:12:06 Who does the freeways or is it just licensing
0:12:08 or where’s the dividing lines?
0:12:10 – So all the DMVs across the nation
0:12:11 are slightly different.
0:12:14 California has vehicles and drivers in it.
0:12:18 And we’re also responsible for the automobile dealer network.
0:12:19 So we have oversight over what’s called
0:12:22 an occupational license that are all these things
0:12:26 that touch businesses that are selling cars, motorcycles,
0:12:28 anything that is considered a vehicle.
0:12:31 But by and large, the thing we do the most are vehicles.
0:12:34 You buy a vehicle, title of vehicle, register a vehicle.
0:12:36 There’s 36, 37, 38 million,
0:12:39 and which number you look at of those that are in the system.
0:12:41 We have drivers, of course, that’s you and me,
0:12:44 that are somewhere 27, 28 million unique driver’s license.
0:12:46 So that’s the right of passage for many people.
0:12:48 So that’s another important thing that we do.
0:12:50 And then everything else past that
0:12:52 is really administering those two things.
0:12:54 There are some, like I said, dribs and drabs,
0:12:55 and I don’t mean to be disrespectful,
0:12:58 but we have oversight of the automotive industry.
0:12:59 So that’s an occupational license,
0:13:00 and there are lots of dealers.
0:13:02 We want to take that very seriously.
0:13:05 There are the things that happen to vehicles, lean sales.
0:13:06 I have an investigations unit.
0:13:08 I didn’t know when I got hired
0:13:10 that I have a small law enforcement team.
0:13:13 And they’re very focused on enforcing the laws
0:13:16 that are sort of our narrow lane in the vehicle code.
0:13:18 And so it’s been a great learning curve for me.
0:13:20 When I showed up, I thought it was just vehicles
0:13:21 and driver’s license.
0:13:23 And it turns out that it’s a whole bunch more.
0:13:24 And these are very serious matters.
0:13:26 And we want to take them seriously
0:13:28 and want to do as much good as humanly possible
0:13:29 for the consumer.
0:13:31 We want to make sure businesses can do their thing
0:13:33 and be efficient and effective.
0:13:35 And that means we have to sit in a lot of different chairs
0:13:37 and understand what’s the most important thing we can do
0:13:38 and what’s the best solution,
0:13:41 best path to a solution for this problem or that problem.
0:13:44 – And does your data interface anything
0:13:47 with voter registration or jury duty
0:13:48 or anything like that?
0:13:49 – No jury duty.
0:13:52 I have jury duty, I need to call in for on Monday.
0:13:53 So thanks for the reminder.
0:13:55 But California is a motor voter state.
0:13:57 And all that merely means is that when you come in
0:14:00 to do something for the motor side, DMV sort of stuff,
0:14:03 we pop up a form as part of the application process
0:14:05 from the secretary of state.
0:14:06 And the secretary of state’s form will ask you
0:14:08 if you want to register to vote
0:14:11 or if you want to change your voter registration criteria.
0:14:13 When I arrived that that motor voter system
0:14:15 was in a bit of disarray.
0:14:17 So there was a few crises when I showed up.
0:14:20 I got to meet the secretary of state now, Senator Padilla,
0:14:21 very imposing man.
0:14:24 And we had a good chance to chat about
0:14:27 the motor voter process, what we’re going to do,
0:14:28 how we’re going to govern it.
0:14:30 And we worked closely with the secretary of state’s office
0:14:34 to get it so that that process worked and was improved.
0:14:36 And now I think is highly functional.
0:14:37 And that’s where you want it to be.
0:14:39 And got it off the radar of everyone as a problematic system,
0:14:42 got it to stable and now we just maintain.
0:14:44 – And do you have any interaction
0:14:48 with the federal department of transportation
0:14:52 or NHTSA or anything like that?
0:14:55 – Yeah, so we work with NHTSA on many things.
0:14:57 And we also work with the federal highway administration.
0:14:59 So those two have different jurisdictional roles.
0:15:01 And I’m still new enough,
0:15:03 five and a half years into the thing.
0:15:05 I’m still not sure exactly what each one does,
0:15:06 but I know that they play a role.
0:15:08 And one is responsible for funding
0:15:10 and keeping the highway system going.
0:15:12 The other one is responsible for the vehicle side of it.
0:15:13 So if there’s a vehicle recall,
0:15:15 you’ll see through that department of transportation,
0:15:18 the NHTSA arm will be coordinating those efforts.
0:15:21 And then we’ll have responsibility to make sure that those,
0:15:22 let’s say it’s an emissions recall,
0:15:24 which really may be not from NHTSA,
0:15:26 but we have responsibility of working with them
0:15:29 and making sure that regulations that they promulgate
0:15:33 are as they’re applicable to us are applied in the state.
0:15:35 So we do work with federal agencies.
0:15:37 – So when you first got there,
0:15:40 describe the situation you inherited?
0:15:43 – I had spent 18, 19 years at Cisco Systems
0:15:46 and my last sort of five, 10 years there,
0:15:48 I did a lot of acquisition integration.
0:15:49 If there was a services business,
0:15:52 I would be responsible to get it to tuck in and so on.
0:15:54 So when I showed up at the department,
0:15:55 it was very similar.
0:15:57 There were these different groups.
0:15:58 We call them divisions.
0:16:00 Initially you might call them tribes
0:16:02 where they were these vertically integrated things
0:16:05 and they were independent and driving the ship.
0:16:07 So I had a chance to work with all of the deputies,
0:16:09 trying to understand what we were trying to do,
0:16:11 but understanding that we were on the clock, right?
0:16:12 When my days at Cisco, you had some time
0:16:14 to figure out what we just bought
0:16:16 and where it might fit and how to get the best out of it.
0:16:18 But we were on the clock in the government
0:16:21 because this real ID, the first real ID deadline was looming
0:16:23 and we had to get our act together very, very quickly.
0:16:24 So I gathered the deputies around,
0:16:26 we figured out what the initiatives were,
0:16:28 we tried to figure out who’s who in the zoo, so to speak
0:16:30 and try to make sure that we were focused on
0:16:32 the right things with the right people,
0:16:34 with the right resources, the right metrics.
0:16:36 And we just started to attack
0:16:38 as you would do in any particular business,
0:16:40 making sure that the first things first,
0:16:42 next thing, next thing, next thing.
0:16:43 And there were some really good people.
0:16:45 There still are some really good people here.
0:16:47 Many of those people that I met on day one,
0:16:49 they’re still here, they want to win.
0:16:51 Sometimes they just didn’t know how to prioritize
0:16:54 or how to settle disputes between the tribes.
0:16:56 And we set up a different governance structure
0:16:58 and made sure that in fact we could resolve this issue
0:17:00 so we can actually do the most important thing
0:17:02 for our constituents.
0:17:04 – But do you have some statistics for us
0:17:07 that when you started, the average waiting time
0:17:11 was two hours or whatever, what were service levels like
0:17:12 when you came into this?
0:17:15 – Yeah, government and measurements are not
0:17:17 as strong a partner, should you like to think.
0:17:20 But one simple measure we had, we,
0:17:23 before I started, the governor had asked,
0:17:25 I think this was Governor Brown had asked McKinsey
0:17:29 to come in and work with the government operations group.
0:17:30 They did some really nice work.
0:17:32 And one of the things that I often joke
0:17:34 with the McKinsey partner, we still have a relationship,
0:17:36 the one really great thing they left us
0:17:37 is a value stream map.
0:17:41 And it showed for a real ID, the number of steps,
0:17:44 many of these were just self-imposed policy steps
0:17:46 that we added to the real ID process.
0:17:47 And a value stream map, the way you use it,
0:17:49 you start looking at each step, you challenge each step
0:17:51 and you’re looking for things that are called waste.
0:17:53 And those waste are things you don’t really need to do
0:17:54 but you’re doing, they’re in the way.
0:17:57 And that process at the time was somewhere
0:17:58 around 28 minutes.
0:18:00 And that’s just based on the value stream map
0:18:01 and that’s being generous.
0:18:04 It was actually probably a little longer than that.
0:18:05 So we attacked that with vigor.
0:18:07 We took it from 28 minutes to 10 minutes
0:18:09 and this now runs around routinely around eight minutes,
0:18:12 still four minutes longer than what it needs to do.
0:18:15 But with our current systems, that’s how it works.
0:18:17 So that’s one measure, it was like 28 to 10.
0:18:20 We had wait times that were in the press there.
0:18:22 Four hours, sometimes two and a half hours,
0:18:23 sometimes longer.
0:18:25 I don’t know if any of that was really well measured.
0:18:27 And then on top of that, just one last thing,
0:18:29 that there was also an internal audit
0:18:31 that was ongoing before I arrived.
0:18:34 It was called the OSE audit office of something.
0:18:36 Anyway, some state auditor looking at performance measure.
0:18:39 So they were in there helping to try to figure out
0:18:41 what else was going on in the department.
0:18:42 So all that stuff was, when I arrived,
0:18:45 was just coming to fruition.
0:18:47 So I can actually immediately take a look at that,
0:18:49 figure out which of those things I need to incorporate
0:18:52 into my plan and be able to attack based on that.
0:18:54 ‘Cause you do need baselines and we had a couple,
0:18:56 but they were really not as robust as you’d see
0:18:57 in private industry.
0:19:00 (upbeat music)
0:19:13 – Some people may be wondering what exactly
0:19:15 are they talking about with Real ID?
0:19:17 So can you explain Real ID for the listener?
0:19:20 – Sure, Real ID is actually a spin out, if you will,
0:19:22 of a federal requirement from 9/11.
0:19:25 This was back in the day where we were concerned
0:19:27 about people accessing an airport, getting on a flight,
0:19:29 and we really didn’t know who they were.
0:19:33 ‘Cause each state’s requirements for identification
0:19:36 were different and they still are different to some degree,
0:19:39 but if you wanna access this federal entity, an airport,
0:19:42 there was a law passed, the Real ID Act,
0:19:45 and that tried to standardize what the requirements were
0:19:47 to make sure that identity documents
0:19:49 were the same across the nation.
0:19:51 Residency documents were the same across the nation
0:19:53 so that when you have a Real ID
0:19:57 and you show up at an airport, show up at a TSA stop,
0:19:59 as you’re trying to get into the airport,
0:20:01 they’ll have a high degree of confidence
0:20:03 that you will actually be who you say you are.
0:20:04 And that’s something we’ve been implementing now
0:20:06 for many, many years as are many other states.
0:20:08 And there are states like California
0:20:11 where the Real ID is not a required credentials,
0:20:12 you’re not a must have state.
0:20:14 There are some states that you can only have a Real ID,
0:20:16 but California allows a federally non-compliant card,
0:20:17 as do many other states.
0:20:19 We have a Real ID option.
0:20:22 We have 18, 19 million people that have the Real ID.
0:20:26 So almost majority of people that want to travel,
0:20:28 access federal facilities, have a Real ID.
0:20:31 And that’s gonna be a requirement come up later this summer
0:20:33 to make sure that people get into the airport
0:20:34 with the right credentials.
0:20:36 So TSA, Department of Homeland Security,
0:20:39 is making sure that window of time gets narrowed
0:20:41 so we can actually get everyone who needs to access
0:20:44 an airport or a federal facility has the right credential.
0:20:47 Of course, you can still use a passport, a military ID.
0:20:48 There’s a bunch of other ways to do this,
0:20:51 but a Real ID is certainly something that is easier
0:20:53 because we almost always travel not only with our phone,
0:20:55 but also with our driver’s license.
0:20:58 – So if people in California are listening to this
0:21:01 and they don’t know if they have a Real ID,
0:21:02 don’t you just look at your license
0:21:05 and see if there’s a golden bear on it or not?
0:21:08 – That’s exactly right, very good, very good.
0:21:09 There’s a star for you there.
0:21:11 There’s a bear and a star in the upper right
0:21:12 of the driver’s license.
0:21:14 It’s pretty evident when you just look at the card.
0:21:16 – Okay, I know that now.
0:21:18 So it’s okay, so now you walk in this,
0:21:22 these service levels, 28 minutes to get Real ID,
0:21:23 and you have these internal audits.
0:21:27 Now, what are the phases of when you went through
0:21:29 to improve the situation?
0:21:31 How did you do this?
0:21:33 – I hate to minimize it,
0:21:35 but it was pretty much back to fundamentals, right?
0:21:38 We had to figure out what are our staff doing?
0:21:40 Which tasks are they completing?
0:21:42 Are those tasks we care about?
0:21:43 And we just worked our way down.
0:21:45 You can imagine, created these large Pareto charts
0:21:47 of things that have high volume.
0:21:49 And we looked to figure out how we were attacking those.
0:21:52 You know, the old Boston consultant, two by two grids.
0:21:53 We looked at the volume.
0:21:55 We looked at the ability to execute.
0:21:56 And then we attacked things
0:21:58 that were impediments to success.
0:22:03 For example, having attestations signatures on paper
0:22:05 and printing those copies.
0:22:07 So at the window, you used to walk into the DMV.
0:22:10 We would print your application for you.
0:22:11 We’d slide the application.
0:22:14 There’d be six pages on what’s called now a half sheet.
0:22:16 And it was slide across the counter.
0:22:17 The customer would review them.
0:22:19 They would sign it with a pen, what signature.
0:22:21 They’d slide it back across the counter.
0:22:23 We would then take those at the end of the day.
0:22:25 We’d put those all in an envelope.
0:22:27 We would send them on a journey to Sacramento,
0:22:30 where we would scan them, and then we would dispose them.
0:22:31 It was nuts.
0:22:33 But it was one step in the process.
0:22:35 And we had these tablets that were at the window
0:22:37 that somebody a few years before that had thought,
0:22:40 we’re going to use these for something.
0:22:41 But they never got used.
0:22:43 So my chief digital transformation officer,
0:22:46 a guy that is just an amazing talent,
0:22:48 a Jay Gupta said, why don’t we actually
0:22:50 have the attestation on the tablet?
0:22:51 And people were like, we can’t do that.
0:22:51 Can’t do that.
0:22:53 So we looked at the statute, looked at regulations,
0:22:56 looked at our policy, and found out we actually could do that.
0:22:56 And we did.
0:22:57 We lit those up.
0:22:59 All of a sudden, that paper, those six sheets,
0:23:01 we’d just slide across the counter and bring back,
0:23:05 send to Sacramento, scan, dispose of.
0:23:06 That went to zero.
0:23:07 And because we could.
0:23:09 So we have people that attest online.
0:23:10 And it’s really a thing of beauty.
0:23:11 I don’t know if you’ve seen this guy.
0:23:13 People that have never used a touchscreen before.
0:23:17 And you see them, they’re just like slowly dragging.
0:23:18 But they get it.
0:23:18 They get it.
0:23:19 And it’s a joy.
0:23:20 I don’t want to malign people.
0:23:22 But if people get a little older,
0:23:25 haven’t used as much technology, perhaps as you and I have,
0:23:26 that’s the first time they’ve used a touchscreen.
0:23:28 They’re saying, oh, that’s what that’s about.
0:23:31 And they sign in completely paperless.
0:23:36 And so we’ve gone from tons of paper a week to zero,
0:23:39 no more trips across California to get the headquarters
0:23:41 to be scanned, and so on.
0:23:42 So we’ve reduced our footprint.
0:23:44 We’ve speeded up the process.
0:23:45 We’ve actually made the process better
0:23:48 because it’s digital from day one.
0:23:49 So it’s things like that.
0:23:51 And there’s 1,000 of those.
0:23:53 And that’s just one that you saw at every window
0:23:56 in every driver’s license transaction.
0:23:58 I read a report.
0:24:00 I think it was in the Harvard Business Review
0:24:03 about management by driving around.
0:24:05 So I want to hear about that.
0:24:08 In my days working at Cisco, our CEO at the time
0:24:09 was a guy named John Chambers.
0:24:11 And John Chambers–
0:24:13 I mean, at that level, you’ve got to be a master storyteller.
0:24:15 So he would go off, and he’d be visiting a customer,
0:24:17 he’d come back with a story.
0:24:18 I’d be doing this, and I saw this.
0:24:20 This is what they’re working on.
0:24:22 And he kind of put things in context.
0:24:24 So you’re always taking notes, right?
0:24:26 As you’re rising to your career, so what things
0:24:28 do I need to bring into my portfolio?
0:24:31 So if I ever get to that level so that I will be able to communicate
0:24:34 effectively– and one of the things I pulled from John Chambers
0:24:37 is that he was really good about getting out,
0:24:39 and it was really good about bringing back what he saw
0:24:40 when he was out.
0:24:42 So I made that one of the things I wanted to do,
0:24:44 a deliverable I wanted to do.
0:24:47 Because sometimes when you’re doing the number of changes
0:24:49 we were doing at the time when I first joined,
0:24:51 your staff needs a break from you.
0:24:53 And sometimes you need a break from your staff.
0:24:54 So I would go out on the road.
0:24:56 I would just say, OK, this week I’m going here.
0:24:57 And I would just start driving.
0:25:00 And we have 220-plus offices, 180 field offices,
0:25:02 and a bunch of other offices.
0:25:03 And I would just go hit a reach.
0:25:04 And I did a lot of driving.
0:25:06 My wife came with me.
0:25:08 And I was doing it for two things.
0:25:11 One is I wanted to make sure that I had first-hand knowledge
0:25:12 of what was going on.
0:25:14 I mean, look, you’re not going to have representative view
0:25:16 by spending 15 minutes or 30 minutes in a field office.
0:25:18 But you started building simple relationships.
0:25:20 You started showing that you care.
0:25:22 Many times this was the first time
0:25:26 the staff had ever seen the DMV director, ever.
0:25:29 And then in some cases, when I started to visit him twice,
0:25:30 three times, four times, you’re like, well,
0:25:31 we’ve never seen the director twice.
0:25:33 You start building these little small relationships.
0:25:36 And when you do that, you start seeing things
0:25:37 that you wouldn’t normally see.
0:25:39 And the staff sees you in a different light.
0:25:42 And our call was down in one of the offices in the LA area.
0:25:44 And this woman brought to me this lean release.
0:25:48 So she financed her car, as many people do, JP Morgan.
0:25:49 They’re going through their process.
0:25:51 And she was trying to sell her car to her neighbor,
0:25:52 but couldn’t get the lean release.
0:25:53 It’s just a mess.
0:25:55 It was just those things take time.
0:25:57 But I gave her my card.
0:25:58 I took copies of her material.
0:26:01 I said, look, I’ll be happy to help you and send me an email.
0:26:02 Let’s work on this together.
0:26:04 So I can actually learn more about the lean process.
0:26:06 And the staff got to see that, oh, he’s not
0:26:08 afraid to talk with a customer.
0:26:10 He’s not afraid to reach across the counter.
0:26:11 He’s not afraid to take on work.
0:26:14 And it also encouraged them to say, you can lean in a little bit
0:26:15 more.
0:26:16 We can’t solve all of the problems,
0:26:19 but we can actually help the customer if we lean in
0:26:20 and try to understand stuff.
0:26:21 And I’ve subsequently had discussions
0:26:24 with the large financials, including JPMC,
0:26:26 to understand what is the lean release process?
0:26:29 What can we do to improve it so we can simplify?
0:26:31 Because cars used to be homes where
0:26:33 the number one asset people had.
0:26:35 Nowadays, cars are the number one asset people have.
0:26:38 And so when you make that illiquid because a lean release
0:26:41 takes too long or we’re administratively slow,
0:26:43 whatever it might be, those are opportunities for us
0:26:44 to learn and grow and improve.
0:26:46 And the only way you do that is you
0:26:49 start seeing and feeling the pain that people have when
0:26:54 they’re stuck between immovable forces, government, large bank.
0:26:56 And we want to make sure that, in fact, we can improve things.
0:26:58 And the only way you get to see those things
0:27:00 is you just happen to be in the field office when somebody
0:27:01 brings in that issue.
0:27:03 So that’s what I did.
0:27:03 I went out and drove around.
0:27:05 COVID interrupted it.
0:27:07 Because you don’t want to go out and start driving around
0:27:08 during COVID when people are afraid.
0:27:10 But it was great.
0:27:11 It was great to get out.
0:27:13 And this is a beautiful state, just as a side note.
0:27:15 I love to travel.
0:27:17 I’ve had some good fortune traveling the globe.
0:27:19 And now, all of a sudden, I get to be in all 58 counties first.
0:27:22 I didn’t know there were 58 counties when I started this job.
0:27:23 But I do now.
0:27:24 And I’ve been to all of our offices.
0:27:25 I’ve been to all these places.
0:27:29 And there are some remarkable people all across the state
0:27:30 and some wonderful people.
0:27:32 The people we hire in these communities
0:27:33 are from those communities.
0:27:36 So you get a sense for what the ethic is there,
0:27:37 what the local customs are, our cultures.
0:27:39 And they’re just some wonderful people.
0:27:41 So it’s a win, win, win, win, win for me
0:27:42 to be able to be out in these communities.
0:27:43 It’s fun to have a road trip.
0:27:45 My wife loves to travel with me.
0:27:45 It’s fun stuff.
0:27:52 There should be a reality TV show about your life.
0:27:56 And I can just see this is like Ken Kiesinger, you know?
0:27:57 Oh, my god.
0:27:58 I’m a serious guy, guy.
0:28:00 I like to get out and have fun.
0:28:02 But look, these are people trying to do their jobs.
0:28:04 And I want to show that I respect what they’re doing.
0:28:07 But I want to show that I also care about improving the process,
0:28:08 care about them.
0:28:12 And there’s no reality show.
0:28:13 Well, when I first started, the team was like, OK,
0:28:15 we want to get this entourage.
0:28:17 I was like, no, I travel light.
0:28:18 I travel either by myself.
0:28:19 I travel with my wife.
0:28:21 That’s the extent.
0:28:22 I don’t need any coordination.
0:28:24 I don’t need anybody traveling with me.
0:28:26 I don’t need any advanced staff.
0:28:27 I just show up.
0:28:28 And when I first started, I was polite.
0:28:30 I asked for permission from my field staff.
0:28:31 Hey, I’d like to be over here.
0:28:33 Yeah, OK, that’d be a good time to show up.
0:28:35 Now I just tell people, I’m going out.
0:28:37 I’m going to be in the high desert next week.
0:28:40 Or I’m going to be around the Salton Sea the week after that.
0:28:42 Or I’m going to be in Alturas after that.
0:28:44 I just tell them generally where I’m going to go.
0:28:45 And then, not that I want to surprise anyone,
0:28:48 but I don’t want people to over engineer.
0:28:52 What is really going to be a 15, 20 minute meet and greet
0:28:54 and move on to the next site?
0:28:57 Because it shouldn’t be any more difficult.
0:28:58 Just like your neighbor stopping by, right?
0:29:00 And that’s how it should be.
0:29:03 So just to make this perfectly clear to people,
0:29:07 this wasn’t like a TV series where the CEO goes in
0:29:11 as a customer and disguises as a mystery DMV user.
0:29:13 You went in as a director.
0:29:14 Yeah.
0:29:17 One thing I found early on is that my photo is in every DMV.
0:29:18 I did not know that.
0:29:22 One of my cousins that lived in the Reading area–
0:29:24 I was like three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, whatever it was.
0:29:25 Whatever it takes to get photos out there.
0:29:27 She sends me a photo of my photo on the watch.
0:29:29 She goes, essentially, WTF.
0:29:31 And I was like, so what is that?
0:29:34 She goes, that’s your photo on the field office out in Reading.
0:29:37 I was like, I had no idea.
0:29:38 But so yeah, now I go in.
0:29:39 I go in the front door.
0:29:41 And I talk with the staff.
0:29:42 I talk with the customers.
0:29:43 I go behind the counter.
0:29:44 Of course, they know who I am.
0:29:47 I show them my badge, and she should authenticate everyone.
0:29:50 And yeah, I go in and try to see what’s happening.
0:29:51 And I meet everyone.
0:29:53 I try to say hello to everyone who’s there.
0:29:57 And yeah, no surprise customer, no mystery shop.
0:29:58 Now looking at that a different way,
0:30:00 I do use all of the different channels for our services.
0:30:02 And so I renew my registration.
0:30:04 We have this feature in our IVR.
0:30:05 And so I’ll give that a try.
0:30:07 And in some cases, I’ll record the session,
0:30:10 because I want to give feedback back to my staff about here’s
0:30:10 how it sounds.
0:30:12 Here’s where it’s maybe too fast.
0:30:13 Here’s where it’s too slow.
0:30:14 Here’s where I got in this loop.
0:30:16 It’s all process improvement stuff.
0:30:17 But I try to use every channel we have.
0:30:19 And I try to encourage my senior staff and all
0:30:22 of you, even our line staff, use these services.
0:30:24 Feel how they feel.
0:30:28 Give us feedback so we can actually improve them and so on.
0:30:30 But the only way you do that is you get out and you use them.
0:30:33 And the only way you get to see what’s happening,
0:30:34 if you will, in the wild with our customers,
0:30:36 is you stand in a field office.
0:30:38 You talk with people.
0:30:42 The next time you go to Watsonville or Capitola,
0:30:43 I want you to tell me.
0:30:44 I want to go in with you.
0:30:47 I want to see you do this.
0:30:48 That would be so fun.
0:30:50 Yeah, no, I’m happy to do it.
0:30:51 But it’s less exciting than you think.
0:30:52 I’m there and I’m in and out.
0:30:54 Well, it’s only 20 minutes.
0:30:55 Right, I’m in and out.
0:30:55 15, 20 minutes.
0:30:58 I make sure I make a point of saying hello to everyone,
0:31:00 including like there are examiners that are doing drive tests.
0:31:02 I try to catch them in between drive tests,
0:31:03 because they’re on the road.
0:31:05 They rarely get a chance to see anyone.
0:31:08 And I just want to make sure I don’t make a big deal out of it.
0:31:09 But at the same time, I want to make sure
0:31:11 I have a chance to meet everyone.
0:31:13 And that way, you know, encourage them.
0:31:14 If they see something and there are
0:31:17 a few that take me up on this offer, they’ll send me an email
0:31:19 and they’ll say, hey, I saw this or I saw that.
0:31:21 And then we’ll go through a discussion about how do you
0:31:22 collect data?
0:31:27 There was one in Reedley, which is this town outside of Fresno.
0:31:30 She was this manager, wonderful, very curious,
0:31:32 was writing me about, oh, we see a lot of this.
0:31:34 And I’m in and I hear a lot.
0:31:36 I say, well, quantify a lot.
0:31:38 And so I said, here’s how you might quantify it.
0:31:40 So I taught her how to quantify.
0:31:41 I grabbed some data on the back end
0:31:42 that maybe she wouldn’t have asked to.
0:31:43 I shared with her.
0:31:46 Here’s what I think is happening across the state.
0:31:48 And sure enough, she validated that her allot
0:31:50 was maybe two items a week.
0:31:52 I said, so instead of us focusing on those, important.
0:31:54 But let’s focus on something that’s bigger.
0:31:55 So I gave her some examples.
0:31:58 And but it’s how you teach people.
0:32:01 First, I taught her to reach out to me, taught her to engage,
0:32:02 taught her about how we’re thinking about data,
0:32:05 caused me to think about something I wasn’t thinking about.
0:32:07 And now she’s better at doing analysis.
0:32:08 And that’s up and down.
0:32:10 There’s a data entry clerk here.
0:32:12 Her name is Catherine.
0:32:14 Took me up on this offer months ago.
0:32:17 And she is in this repetitive job
0:32:20 where she sees all these same form over and over again.
0:32:22 Her job is to do error correction
0:32:24 and finish the data entry.
0:32:26 And so she wrote me and she had this long story
0:32:30 about this address and not populating correctly.
0:32:32 And I said, I’ll come right down.
0:32:34 I thought, OK, there’s no way she’s
0:32:36 going to have any data on the thing.
0:32:39 I show up and she’s like this serious woman.
0:32:41 And she’s seeing thousands of these things.
0:32:43 She pulls up her examples.
0:32:44 She walked me through a current.
0:32:46 She saved one of them for me.
0:32:49 She walked me through, this is where the problem is.
0:32:51 And when you do this and sure enough, she was spot on.
0:32:55 And she says, the management team would not fix this.
0:32:57 I said, I’ll get that fixed.
0:32:58 But she had evidence.
0:33:00 She was waiting for this moment.
0:33:01 It doesn’t get any better than that
0:33:03 because she was prepared.
0:33:07 She had data and she had a real problem and she was stuck.
0:33:09 So that was fantastic.
0:33:11 So when Catherine writes me now, I pop right down and say,
0:33:13 show me that again and we get it fixed.
0:33:15 And matter of fact, her team is now much more responsive
0:33:18 because Catherine brings facts.
0:33:20 Doesn’t get any better than that.
0:33:21 What office is this?
0:33:22 This is a headquarters.
0:33:24 This is a person who does data entry at headquarters.
0:33:27 We process a lot of mail and she’s
0:33:29 the choke point for certain forms.
0:33:33 And she is the expert because she sees thousands of them
0:33:35 and she’s attentive.
0:33:38 So coming from Cisco, now, I wouldn’t
0:33:41 put Cisco in that same class of companies
0:33:45 as like Facebook and Meta and PayPal, Mafia, et cetera,
0:33:45 et cetera.
0:33:51 But what’s the similarities and differences in management
0:33:54 in this kind of Silicon Valley tech company
0:33:59 and then going to a public service company, State
0:33:59 of California?
0:34:01 Like, what’s the differences?
0:34:03 What’s the transition like for you?
0:34:05 First, I was on the services side of Cisco.
0:34:07 So even though I’m trained as an accountant,
0:34:10 I was in technology support.
0:34:12 I learned TCP/IP protocol.
0:34:13 I learned how all that stuff works.
0:34:15 I was surrounded by a bunch of people
0:34:17 who are MSCEs and BSEs.
0:34:20 Our COO, a guy who’s our chief deputy at Swanson,
0:34:23 has got a couple degrees, a graduate degree
0:34:24 in electrical engineering from Stanford.
0:34:26 So these are people that actually
0:34:27 know what electricity does.
0:34:29 I know electricity does something.
0:34:30 I can’t tell you why it does it,
0:34:31 but I understood protocols and so on.
0:34:33 So anyway, most of my experience from Cisco
0:34:35 was on the services side.
0:34:37 And then I had this acquisition tuck-in role later
0:34:38 on in my career.
0:34:40 So it was kind of business-driven.
0:34:43 And in those roles, you became very focused on operations
0:34:45 and you had to figure out what’s the right order of things.
0:34:47 I developed some great relationships.
0:34:49 A guy named Mike Zill, who’s still a good friend of mine.
0:34:52 He’s a big thinker, but he’s also a manufacturing process guy.
0:34:54 So he taught me about the whole basics
0:34:57 of how do we make sure we get cost-quality cycle time
0:35:01 and get things into the hopper and through the system,
0:35:04 first-pass yields and first-time that sort of stuff.
0:35:07 And so I had a number of people that were helping me understand
0:35:09 the impact that a product could have on a customer.
0:35:11 A guy who wrote to me last week– he
0:35:14 was in one of our DMVs down in San Jose, Maliki Moynihan, who
0:35:16 was our chief of engineering at Linksys
0:35:20 when Cisco acquired Linksys, was stuck trying to register a car
0:35:22 when our field offices, our systems were having a glitch.
0:35:24 So he was tech to be like, what’s going on?
0:35:25 Should I wait? Should I go?
0:35:26 But he’s another guy who taught me
0:35:29 how to think about when a product had a defect,
0:35:32 the downstream impact, the impact on a customer,
0:35:34 the impact on the channel it was in.
0:35:36 And so all of those things played a role
0:35:38 in helping you think about the business you’re in,
0:35:41 thinking about the quality of the product you’re producing,
0:35:43 making sure people can get through that process
0:35:44 in the first pass.
0:35:46 So regardless of whether you’re at Facebook, you’re at Cisco,
0:35:49 wherever you are in that technology lifecycle,
0:35:51 there’s a lot of that that’s the same.
0:35:53 And you’re just using best practices.
0:35:56 I was fortunate to be surrounded by people with advanced
0:36:00 degrees, good universities, good colleges, good thinkers,
0:36:01 good experience.
0:36:03 And I pulled from all of those people.
0:36:04 And they’ve been very generous with their time
0:36:07 to help us improve my skills and help us now apply those
0:36:09 to the state of California.
0:36:11 Now, it seems to me that, yeah, you
0:36:13 can say there’s a lot of similarity,
0:36:16 but correct me if I’m wrong.
0:36:20 But it seems like your ability to motivate people
0:36:23 with raises and RSOs or stock options,
0:36:26 that’s not on the table at the California DMV, right?
0:36:29 So what do you do to motivate people?
0:36:30 Yeah.
0:36:33 Because the Silicon Valley way is always about stock options.
0:36:34 Yeah, it’s tricky.
0:36:36 I’m sure some of your other guests
0:36:37 might be better skilled here academically
0:36:39 about which buttons to push.
0:36:42 I’ve never been strictly a financially motivated guy.
0:36:45 Some of my peers were like, they were focused on the RSO,
0:36:48 or they’re focused on when their options were going to invest.
0:36:50 Never was my particular focus.
0:36:51 Obviously, you want to be well compensated.
0:36:54 At the same time, you want to make sure you’re on a mission.
0:36:55 That’s the highest level thing, right?
0:36:56 You’re on this mission.
0:36:57 You feel you can make an impact.
0:37:00 And by and large, I think the people that are on my staff
0:37:03 have the front line to the top line.
0:37:05 They think they’re making a difference.
0:37:06 And they are making a difference.
0:37:08 I was out in Palm Springs last week.
0:37:11 And there is a woman in Palm Springs named Tamika.
0:37:12 I forgot Tamika’s last name.
0:37:13 Sorry, Tamika.
0:37:15 But she had been a recent recipient
0:37:18 at this agency that were part of the Transportation Agency.
0:37:20 Within the state, we recognized her across the state
0:37:23 as someone who really was making a difference in people’s lives.
0:37:23 You meet her.
0:37:25 She just lights up the room.
0:37:29 And she’s doing the intake at the field office in Palm Springs.
0:37:31 She’s your first point of contact.
0:37:32 And she’s on that mission.
0:37:34 And she’s making people’s lives better.
0:37:37 One customer at a time, getting them the right feedback,
0:37:39 a smile on her face, a can-do attitude.
0:37:42 And that raises– that office performs better
0:37:44 than it’s adjacent office.
0:37:46 And I attribute some of that to Tamika
0:37:48 because that one person can make a difference.
0:37:51 So anyway, you talked about stock options and compensation.
0:37:53 We do not have those levers here in government.
0:37:54 But we are mission-driven.
0:37:57 And I think having people like a Tamika or even people
0:37:59 like some of my senior staff who are on this mission
0:38:01 are trying to remove roadblocks, things
0:38:03 that we’ve all been taught to do in Silicon Valley,
0:38:06 taking obstacles out of the way.
0:38:08 I think people see that, in fact, we understand that.
0:38:09 And we’re willing to do that.
0:38:11 We’re willing to invest political capital behind that.
0:38:13 And we’re making their job simpler.
0:38:16 We’re making the customer’s journey easier.
0:38:19 And that’s good for everyone, even if you’re not
0:38:22 doing it because of a direct financial motivation.
0:38:26 And if I were to see Tamika or call Tamika and say,
0:38:29 “Tamika, what is your mission at the DMV?
0:38:30 What would she say?
0:38:32 What’s the mission?”
0:38:32 That’s a great question.
0:38:34 I don’t know what Tamika would say.
0:38:35 But I certainly suspect she would say
0:38:39 that she’s there because she loves helping people.
0:38:41 And I think about when we think about the mission of the DMV,
0:38:43 that gets a little muddy.
0:38:45 We are a tax-collecting organization.
0:38:47 But we should be the best.
0:38:50 And I try to remind my staff that when
0:38:53 we’re buying an online service or even a retail service,
0:38:55 we should be thinking about the best of the best.
0:38:57 We should not be benchmarked within,
0:38:58 as they call it, the tallest pygmy.
0:39:01 We should not segment ourselves into a small little group
0:39:03 and be the best government agency
0:39:04 with a left-handed leader.
0:39:05 No, that’s crazy.
0:39:07 We should be looking at what does an Amazon do?
0:39:10 JPMC, when you have the highest credit card,
0:39:12 when you’re about to lose that credit business,
0:39:13 you should be thinking about what
0:39:15 do they do to lean in to make sure they don’t lose you
0:39:15 as customers?
0:39:17 We have to aspire to that level.
0:39:19 That means our services have to work.
0:39:20 They have to be easy.
0:39:22 They have to be intuitive.
0:39:23 And when people want to pay us money,
0:39:25 we should help them pay us money.
0:39:27 We should not make it hard for them.
0:39:28 And sometimes we do.
0:39:29 So we have a lot of room to grow there.
0:39:31 But I think that’s the mission we’re on.
0:39:34 It’s just making sure that participating in society
0:39:36 in California, getting your driver’s license,
0:39:38 registering your vehicle, trying to be compliant.
0:39:39 That should be easy.
0:39:42 We should assume that people are trying to help themselves
0:39:43 and trying to help us.
0:39:44 And we need to make it easy.
0:39:46 And we should just realize that the comparator
0:39:48 in the marketplace is Amazon.
0:39:49 So I talked to my staff and I asked
0:39:52 what anybody ordered anything from Amazon over the holidays.
0:39:54 And every hand goes up and says, so when you’re thinking
0:39:57 that the DMV or government should be different,
0:39:59 I said, no, we should be good as what we’re trying to do
0:39:59 as they are.
0:40:01 We should make the products are on the shelf.
0:40:02 We should know what they want to buy.
0:40:04 We should make it easy to put it in the car.
0:40:05 We should make it easy to pay.
0:40:08 And again, we have some room to go there.
0:40:09 But that’s the direction we’re headed.
0:40:11 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:40:14 These are federal roads that they allow California
0:40:18 and other states to give certain privileges to ATOVs.
0:40:20 So we have to go and have the federal administration,
0:40:22 I’m not sure if it’s federal highways
0:40:23 or I think it’s federal highways.
0:40:25 This is their program that they allow California
0:40:27 to allow people into the ATOV lane.
0:40:29 We give a sticker as a result of that
0:40:30 so we can identify those vehicles
0:40:34 and make sure they qualify for emissions and so on.
0:40:36 So the reason that it only is good to September,
0:40:38 that is the end of the federal fiscal year.
0:40:39 So we’re waiting right now to find out
0:40:42 if the federal government is going to continue to extend
0:40:45 that for the next year or the years past that.
0:40:48 But at this point, September 30th of this calendar year
0:40:50 is the last time you’ll be able to use an ATOV sticker
0:40:51 in California.
0:41:05 – Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners.
0:41:08 It’s our pleasure and honor to make the show for you.
0:41:10 If you find our show valuable,
0:41:12 please do us a favor and subscribe,
0:41:13 rate and review it.
0:41:16 Even better, forward it to a friend,
0:41:18 a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:41:22 – You’re listening to “Remarkable People”
0:41:23 with Guy Kawasaki.
0:41:26 – I gotta say,
0:41:29 I am just having the time of my life in this interview
0:41:31 and I don’t say that quite often.
0:41:33 Madison can attest to that.
0:41:37 The innovation that I discovered with the DMV
0:41:39 that when I first saw it,
0:41:42 I said, man, like what made them do this?
0:41:44 This is so interesting.
0:41:48 It’s this thing that you can get your number
0:41:52 for your appointment before you get to the DMV.
0:41:54 So you can get that number in advance.
0:41:56 So when you get to the DMV,
0:41:59 there’s already been progress in the queue.
0:42:03 So I wanna know, how did that idea come to be?
0:42:05 – It’s like calling up Baskin Robbins and say,
0:42:07 all right, give me your ticket now
0:42:09 and I’m gonna drive down there in 15 minutes
0:42:12 and I’ll be served 30 seconds later.
0:42:14 – I think some of us came from just our experiences
0:42:16 outside of the office.
0:42:18 Yelp allows you to do that like one of the local restaurants
0:42:21 where it’s a Thai place by my place in San Jose
0:42:23 and they would allow you to put yourself in line.
0:42:25 So part of what’s just that lived experience that I had,
0:42:27 but wasn’t my idea.
0:42:28 We went to our vendor,
0:42:29 this company called QMatic and I said,
0:42:31 hey, so how does this work?
0:42:32 They said, oh yeah, we have this feature.
0:42:34 You guys didn’t wanna use it.
0:42:35 I said, so how does it work?
0:42:37 I said, they told me yet, just give your email address,
0:42:39 put your phone in there, get your name
0:42:41 and we’ll drop you online.
0:42:43 So many of these companies have these features.
0:42:46 We just didn’t understand exactly how to use them
0:42:47 and the role they would play.
0:42:49 And that’s actually an underutilized feature today,
0:42:51 the get in line feature.
0:42:52 I love it too.
0:42:53 The first time I used it, by the time I got there,
0:42:56 I was late and I was just doing it from the office
0:42:58 and our nearest office is like a mile of the road.
0:43:00 But it’s a really great way to allow customers
0:43:03 to remove the long wait in the parking lot
0:43:05 and just know that they’ve got a place.
0:43:06 They can see the number being called,
0:43:08 as it tells you where you are in line.
0:43:09 I think it’s a great feature.
0:43:11 And it was already in the product,
0:43:14 but the idea I saw it being used was at Yelp.
0:43:16 We actually contacted Yelp
0:43:18 and the advantage of being the director of the DMV.
0:43:19 When you contact people, they’re saying,
0:43:21 oh my God, I did something wrong, my driver’s license.
0:43:22 People call you back.
0:43:24 You go through the investor relations door, right?
0:43:25 That’s that door.
0:43:26 People are responsive when you come in
0:43:27 through the investor relations.
0:43:30 And you get a lot of feedback from these other industries
0:43:31 about what they’re doing, how they’re doing it.
0:43:32 So we incorporated that.
0:43:33 It was in the product already,
0:43:36 so I don’t get any credit for inventing it.
0:43:38 But I just recognize I’ve been using that product
0:43:40 via Yelp for this local type place
0:43:41 because it was this easier to get in line
0:43:44 as I walked over there from my house in San Jose.
0:43:45 – And wait, I’m just curious,
0:43:47 not that I’ve never done this,
0:43:49 but what happens if you get there
0:43:50 and your number’s been called?
0:43:53 – The team will then put you at the top of the list.
0:43:55 – Okay.
0:43:56 So there’s no downside.
0:43:58 – There’s very little downside.
0:44:00 – Okay, it’s good to know.
0:44:01 I got a lot of questions.
0:44:04 I’m fascinated by your business, okay?
0:44:05 I’m sorry.
0:44:06 – You gotta come volunteer some time here.
0:44:09 We could use some guy in the business.
0:44:09 – Sign me up.
0:44:11 I’ll go get training from Tamika
0:44:15 and Madison and I will staff the Capitola office.
0:44:16 – We would probably just be happy
0:44:18 if you help us think about some of our bigger problems.
0:44:20 But if you wanna work at retail,
0:44:21 we’re happy to put you at a window.
0:44:25 – So I wanna know,
0:44:30 why does the DMV register every car every year?
0:44:32 Like I know there are 10 states
0:44:34 that do every two years.
0:44:37 I know Delaware is a permanent registration.
0:44:40 Like I have six people in my family.
0:44:43 That means at some point I own four cars or something.
0:44:45 And I’m always filling out forms.
0:44:48 I’m always worried that I missed the deadline,
0:44:49 that I’m get the penalty.
0:44:51 Can’t I register for a longer time?
0:44:53 – Yeah, so I think there’s two issues there.
0:44:57 One is that we’ve just launched a few months ago
0:44:58 the concept of a garage.
0:45:00 So you can put your vehicles in the garage.
0:45:02 Now we’ve launched, you can cash your credit card.
0:45:04 So again, these are just commercial services
0:45:06 that all of us see at Amazon
0:45:08 or wherever we might shop online.
0:45:10 And then the next thing would be is to set them up
0:45:11 for auto payment.
0:45:13 So you will never be late again.
0:45:16 But California’s law is that we do it on an annual basis.
0:45:18 I’m not sure if that’s a budgetary thing,
0:45:19 a cash flow thing,
0:45:21 but I agree with you that if you did them
0:45:22 two years at a time or whatever,
0:45:26 I think the concern I hear and this is anecdotal
0:45:27 that well, if you register for two years,
0:45:28 you should sell your car.
0:45:29 Now you have to deal with the,
0:45:31 I’ve got to unwind that transaction.
0:45:33 They didn’t drive it for the second year.
0:45:35 I’ve got to give refunds and give me money back refunds.
0:45:37 It’s just a convoluted process.
0:45:39 There’s a lot of controls around that.
0:45:41 So it’s fixed at one year.
0:45:42 But we want to make that one year
0:45:45 so that it’s easy so you can just put it on auto pay
0:45:46 and like everything else in life.
0:45:47 Got to remember to take things off auto pay
0:45:49 when you don’t want them anymore.
0:45:51 But that’s where we’re going.
0:45:53 I tried.
0:45:54 Sorry.
0:45:58 Okay, now another question I’m curious about is,
0:46:01 ’cause I can’t remember is donating your organs,
0:46:03 is it opt in or opt out?
0:46:05 It is opt in.
0:46:08 Why can’t you make it opt out?
0:46:09 Good question.
0:46:11 That’s a statutory issue.
0:46:13 I’m on the administration side of that.
0:46:16 If the legislature wants it to be opt out,
0:46:18 they can certainly write a bill
0:46:20 and we will then adhere to that bill.
0:46:23 We don’t make the rules, we just operate within them.
0:46:27 But I think social psychology has proven
0:46:32 that if it’s opt out, you’ll get like 90% opting
0:46:35 or not opting in because you can’t opt in.
0:46:38 But 90% of people would donate their organs
0:46:39 if it was opt out, right?
0:46:41 I’m sure donate life in California
0:46:43 would be happy to have that.
0:46:45 I’m sure they’re probably working on some legislation
0:46:47 in that area, but it’s not there today.
0:46:51 – Okay, what’s the relationship with business partners
0:46:54 like AAA and I understood the AAA business partner,
0:46:59 but then I saw that there’s insurance brokers and stuff.
0:47:00 Did AAA come to you and say,
0:47:03 please let us do some of this or did you go to AAA
0:47:06 and say, take some of the load off of us?
0:47:09 – No, it predates me, but what I’ve heard
0:47:13 and I believe this is true that AAA back in the day,
0:47:16 a hundred and some years ago, used to be the DMV.
0:47:19 And then the state said,
0:47:21 actually we wanna take over that responsibility,
0:47:24 but AAA is then because of that past relationship.
0:47:25 And again, you have to Google this,
0:47:28 but we’ve been in business for 115, 117 years.
0:47:30 And so before that AAA,
0:47:32 the automobile association was the place
0:47:33 you had vehicles registered.
0:47:35 Now, we should check this.
0:47:37 I’m sure your audience is gonna fact this,
0:47:38 but I believe that to be true.
0:47:41 And so they have a special relationship with us.
0:47:43 And so we extend our systems into AAA.
0:47:45 So they have a special relationship
0:47:48 that they are part of us and they can do transactions
0:47:52 in a unique way and there’s no uplift on what they charge.
0:47:54 At some point over the past number of years,
0:47:57 there’s this business partner program
0:47:59 that has grown inside of California.
0:48:00 And there’s a couple of levels,
0:48:02 but at the retail level,
0:48:05 which are talking about insurance companies, small shops,
0:48:06 you see them around every corner.
0:48:09 And there’s 6,000 plus retail sites.
0:48:13 There’s a belief that having those services in the community
0:48:14 is a good thing.
0:48:16 People are more likely to consume a service
0:48:17 if it’s within their community.
0:48:20 And there’s some evidence to say that’s true.
0:48:21 By and large though,
0:48:24 that the people that are probably doing the most with this
0:48:25 are some of the online retailers.
0:48:29 And that’s a bit tricky because they charge an uplift
0:48:31 for the service in this business partner program.
0:48:33 And if you’re not careful for the same service,
0:48:37 you can get at retail price, no uplift from us,
0:48:41 vehicle registration, you’re paying that same fee
0:48:44 and then you’re paying a $39 uplift.
0:48:45 And that infuriates some folks
0:48:48 ’cause they’re listed as a partner.
0:48:49 The people missed the point
0:48:51 that they didn’t need to go down that road to get that done.
0:48:54 But anyway, there’s 6,000 plus of those across the state.
0:48:56 There’s a few large online retailers.
0:48:57 And then on top of that,
0:48:59 there’s this first line service providers.
0:49:01 Think about it as a two tier distribution model.
0:49:03 The first line partners, there are five of them.
0:49:06 And those people actually then license all the people
0:49:07 that are underneath them.
0:49:09 And California is unique in the sense that
0:49:11 the people that are actually in that channel,
0:49:13 dealers are part of that channel.
0:49:15 If you’re a franchise new car dealer in California,
0:49:18 you are required to do an e-report of sale,
0:49:19 electronic report of sale.
0:49:20 And you’re required to use
0:49:23 one of those first line service providers to do it.
0:49:25 And ’cause we wanna make sure the forms come into us,
0:49:27 they come in right and so on.
0:49:30 And so you see those fees listed out when you buy a car.
0:49:33 And at the next level, if you’re a used car dealer,
0:49:36 but you’re also required to participate in those systems,
0:49:37 but in a different way.
0:49:40 We want all those documents coming to us electronically.
0:49:42 So that distribution model works
0:49:44 and it’s cut a lot of different facets to it.
0:49:46 But at the retail level, the insurance shop,
0:49:47 the smog shops and so on.
0:49:50 Yeah, that’s just brick and mortar additional services
0:49:53 that have been enabled across the state
0:49:54 and are used in local communities.
0:49:56 ‘Cause sometimes that’s where you can speak
0:49:59 a certain language, although we support 36 languages.
0:50:01 It’s a complicated world guy.
0:50:04 – Okay, Steve, now, if you thought I was being tactical
0:50:06 before, I’m gonna get a really tactical,
0:50:08 ’cause I am very curious.
0:50:09 – Look at the time.
0:50:10 No, no.
0:50:11 (laughs)
0:50:14 Okay, these are gonna be quick and easy questions, okay?
0:50:16 But stuff I’m wondering about.
0:50:18 And I bet a lot of people are, okay?
0:50:21 So I want to know if you understand
0:50:26 how the HOV FastPass pricing on Highway 101
0:50:29 in San Mateo County works.
0:50:32 Because I have been in that lane
0:50:36 and that lane says HOV two or more.
0:50:38 FastPass required.
0:50:42 FastPass is from three to six p.m.
0:50:45 Except if you have an HOV or something.
0:50:48 I am driving along at, of course, I’m going speed limit,
0:50:51 but I am driving along in my plug-in hybrid car.
0:50:54 And for the life of me, I cannot figure
0:50:57 if I’m gonna be pulled over or not.
0:50:58 Do you know how that works?
0:51:01 – No, I read those signs too and say, I have no idea.
0:51:02 So I look for the next signposts
0:51:03 and see if I can figure it out piece by piece.
0:51:07 But I’m like you, it’s unclear what’s categorized
0:51:08 in the three or plus, two plus,
0:51:10 spend of where you are in the state as well.
0:51:12 So unfortunately, I’ll kick that over to our friends
0:51:15 at Caltrans and to the State Transportation Commission.
0:51:17 – Okay, fair enough, fair enough.
0:51:18 All right, I can’t figure that out.
0:51:18 Sorry.
0:51:21 – Okay, see you are honest.
0:51:26 All right, so now I have a plug-in hybrid
0:51:28 and I found out to my surprise
0:51:30 that I can get an HOV sticker,
0:51:32 but it expires in September.
0:51:37 So why are there short-term HOV stickers for some models?
0:51:38 – Well, they’re not short-term.
0:51:40 They mirror the federal fiscal year.
0:51:42 That’s why they end at September 30th.
0:51:44 And it’s a federal law.
0:51:47 These are federal roads that they allow California
0:51:50 and other states to give certain privileges to HOVs.
0:51:53 So we have to go and have the federal administration,
0:51:54 I’m not sure if it’s federal highways or NITS,
0:51:56 I think it’s federal highways.
0:51:58 This is their program that they allow California
0:52:00 to allow people into the HOV lane.
0:52:01 We give a sticker as a result of that
0:52:02 so we can identify those vehicles
0:52:06 and make sure they qualify for emissions and so on.
0:52:08 So the reason that it only is good to September,
0:52:10 that is the end of the federal fiscal year.
0:52:12 So we’re waiting right now to find out
0:52:13 if the federal government is going to continue
0:52:17 to extend that for the next year or the years past that.
0:52:20 But at this point, September 30th of this calendar year
0:52:23 is the last time you’ll be able to use an HOV sticker
0:52:25 in California at all without–
0:52:25 – Any car.
0:52:28 – Without federal, without a change in federal rules.
0:52:29 Yes.
0:52:31 – Wow.
0:52:34 I’m sure there’s some 19-year-old undergraduate
0:52:35 who’s looking into that for us.
0:52:40 So next question is I have the app wallet MDL
0:52:45 and I don’t quite understand.
0:52:47 If I get pulled over by the CHEP
0:52:49 and I don’t have my physical license,
0:52:51 can I just show my phone?
0:52:52 Is it good enough for that?
0:52:55 – Yeah, law enforcement has not updated processes
0:52:58 to consume the MDL and a lot of places haven’t.
0:53:00 So I’ve been working with my counterpart,
0:53:01 the commissioner of the CHP,
0:53:03 and I think he’s looking to figure out
0:53:05 how do we make vehicle stops more efficient,
0:53:08 more effective, safer for the officer
0:53:10 and for the passengers and the vehicle.
0:53:12 And, but this sort of change takes time.
0:53:15 So we’re just getting TSA to be able to take
0:53:16 the MDL at the airport.
0:53:18 I was just at Sacramento Airport just last week.
0:53:20 They’re announcing the next tranche of airports
0:53:23 that will take a mobile driver’s license.
0:53:24 California is the only state
0:53:26 that also uses a different technology.
0:53:28 So we have the ISO standard,
0:53:30 which is what you’ll see in the MDL at the airports.
0:53:33 And there’s a verifyable credential W3C standard
0:53:35 that allows us to be able to have something
0:53:37 that could be used, not only on websites
0:53:39 for web purchases, but also in retail.
0:53:41 And so we’re working with a company called TrueAge,
0:53:44 which represents these convenience stores
0:53:46 and to be able to consume the mobile driver’s license
0:53:47 at convenience stores.
0:53:49 So it’s an emerging technology guy
0:53:51 and law enforcement is going to get there.
0:53:53 And we’re working with law enforcement.
0:53:54 I have a chance.
0:53:55 I get to know the commissioner
0:53:57 of the California Habitorial, Sean Dury,
0:54:00 marvelous guy and he wants to modernize this thing.
0:54:01 And we’re working with him to do that.
0:54:03 So you can actually have the engagement.
0:54:04 They can have a safe transaction.
0:54:07 They can pre-fill some forms if you’re going to get a citation.
0:54:09 So that day is coming, but it’s not coming today.
0:54:12 – Okay, so the bottom line is carry your physical license.
0:54:14 – You need to carry your physical license.
0:54:15 Yes. – Okay.
0:54:19 Now this question, I only have two more.
0:54:24 This question I’m asking for a friend, all right?
0:54:29 So I know that if you flunk the driving test twice,
0:54:30 and if you flunk it again,
0:54:33 you got to start all over with the permit process.
0:54:36 At least, I think that’s still true, right?
0:54:40 What happens if my friend takes his kid
0:54:45 and they go to the DMV and they watch the route
0:54:48 that the test goes on, they follow a test driver
0:54:50 and they say, okay, so now we know exactly
0:54:52 which route that person is taking.
0:54:55 So when you go for your driver’s test,
0:54:57 we’re going to practice on that route.
0:54:58 Is that legal?
0:55:02 – I’m sure this friend has been to one of the driving schools
0:55:04 so that’s one of the requirements for first-time drivers.
0:55:07 Those driving schools know the routes the DMV takes,
0:55:09 but that doesn’t mean you’re going to pass the test.
0:55:10 So I think it’s, yeah, it’s certainly legal to do that.
0:55:11 I wouldn’t encourage you to do that,
0:55:13 drive safely at the right distance.
0:55:15 But the net of it is you still have to drive.
0:55:18 My son, we were living in San Jose at the time,
0:55:21 he took his at the Las Gatos office
0:55:22 and he pulls out the parking lot
0:55:25 and there’s a truck that is unloading
0:55:27 in the middle of the street.
0:55:29 Even if he knew the route, which he did not,
0:55:30 you have to be able to handle this obstacle
0:55:32 that was in the middle of the road that,
0:55:35 do I go to the right, do I go to the left, do I wait?
0:55:37 So there are those things.
0:55:39 And that’s why people, I think, they’re challenged.
0:55:41 You have to be able to know how to stop, how to navigate.
0:55:43 Even if you know the route, it doesn’t really matter.
0:55:46 You still have to know how to get around the block
0:55:47 and down the street.
0:55:52 – All right, because this friend used this story in a book
0:55:57 to illustrate the concept that there’s always a way
0:55:59 to prepare for tests.
0:56:01 And if you can figure out a way to prepare for tests,
0:56:03 you can do better on the test.
0:56:07 And when this friend wrote this story in his book,
0:56:10 some people read that and said, in New York,
0:56:15 it’s illegal to follow an exam to learn the routes.
0:56:19 So I’m just asking for this friend who lives in California,
0:56:20 if it’s illegal here.
0:56:22 – Yeah, I don’t think it’s illegal.
0:56:23 I don’t know if it’s wise to do that.
0:56:24 Focus on the fundamentals.
0:56:25 That’s what I did with my son,
0:56:28 make sure he had enough reps and enough things.
0:56:29 That’s where you should spend your time.
0:56:32 – Okay, this is my last question.
0:56:35 My last question is,
0:56:38 I applied for personalized play three months ago.
0:56:40 Can you check if it’s done yet?
0:56:41 – Sure.
0:56:43 (laughing)
0:56:46 – I’m gonna call up Tamika and say,
0:56:48 “Tamika, can you please help me?”
0:56:51 – She would love that phone call, by the way.
0:56:53 Personalized Plates is a couple of things, right?
0:56:55 So we’ve changed the way we do personalized plates,
0:56:56 where we have an AI agent now
0:57:00 that helps us validate if the plate’s gonna be offensive.
0:57:02 And there’s no shortage of things that are offensive,
0:57:05 that are clear, edge cases.
0:57:06 And then from there, there’s a manufacturing process,
0:57:09 ’cause each one of these things requires a special stamping,
0:57:10 and that takes some time,
0:57:12 but it shouldn’t take any longer than that 90 days.
0:57:16 So off the air, you can outsource to Madison
0:57:18 and shoot me the VIN,
0:57:20 and then I’ll take a look at where it is.
0:57:21 – Wait, are you telling me
0:57:25 that it’s not somebody in Soledad who’s making my plates?
0:57:27 It’s not a prison thing, that’s a myth.
0:57:29 – No, no, no, no, it’s not Soledad, but it’s in Folsom,
0:57:30 and it is not a myth.
0:57:33 There are stamping machines, and there’s-
0:57:34 – In Folsom Prison.
0:57:35 – Yeah, I’ve been there.
0:57:36 It’s prisons, by the way,
0:57:37 if you’ve never been inside of a prison,
0:57:40 they’re pretty depressing, so let’s start there.
0:57:43 But there’s a team of folks that are part of the production
0:57:44 line that actually stamp plates,
0:57:46 and they do a great job,
0:57:47 and it just still takes a little while.
0:57:49 Plates are stamped in California,
0:57:52 and it’s a very sophisticated process,
0:57:54 but it’s also done inside the prison,
0:57:58 so if there’s a problem, your supply chain could be disrupted.
0:58:02 – I have visited San Quentin twice, and I gotta tell you,
0:58:04 I’ve been scared a few times in my life,
0:58:08 but man, just walking through the prison,
0:58:12 it’s truly a myth, just like the wire, man.
0:58:15 I was scared shitless the whole time.
0:58:17 – Yeah, yeah, I would encourage you to stay out of prison.
0:58:19 But again, off the air,
0:58:21 shoot me the vehicle identification number, the VIN,
0:58:23 and we’ll take a look, tell you where it is.
0:58:25 90 days is probably right in the window,
0:58:27 because it just takes time to get that into queue.
0:58:28 It’s a special one-off process.
0:58:30 We got our sequential plates that are cranking through,
0:58:32 so they gotta stop that line to do,
0:58:34 oh, this is Guy Kawasaki’s plate.
0:58:37 I mean, with reverence, there’s probably some incense,
0:58:38 or whatever we do.
0:58:39 No, I’m kidding.
0:58:40 There’s no incense.
0:58:43 – Well, Steve Gordon,
0:58:46 this has been a most enjoyable episode, and thank you.
0:58:47 Besides all the humor,
0:58:49 there’s some very important lessons
0:58:52 about the professionalism of your organization,
0:58:55 how you manage by driving around,
0:58:58 and how these people have a mission,
0:59:00 they are proud of what they do,
0:59:04 and like for the 15th time, just let me tell you,
0:59:06 I really love the California DMV.
0:59:07 – Great, Guy, thanks for having me on,
0:59:09 and thanks for helping promote our services,
0:59:11 we really appreciate it.
0:59:12 – All right, and I’m serious.
0:59:16 If you ever want evangelism advice, I’m here for you.
0:59:17 – I’m gonna take you up on it.
0:59:18 Next time I’m down in the Capitola era,
0:59:19 I’m gonna call you up as well.
0:59:21 We’re gonna see if you’ll show up.
0:59:22 – We’ll see.
0:59:26 – I’ll greet you at the DMV.
0:59:27 – That would be great, I look forward to that.
0:59:30 – So, this was Steve Gordon, California DMV,
0:59:33 and I hope you enjoyed this episode,
0:59:36 listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it
0:59:37 and doing it.
0:59:40 So this is Guy Kawasaki, it’s a remarkable people.
0:59:43 I hope we made you a little bit more remarkable today.
0:59:46 Thanks to Madison Nizmer, producer, co-author,
0:59:51 Tessa Nizmer, researcher, and Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez.
0:59:53 We are the Remarkable People team,
0:59:55 and we’re trying to make you remarkable
0:59:59 and get a remarkable car registration experience.
1:00:01 Thank you everybody.
1:00:08 – This is Remarkable People.