Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:00:00 · Alexa von Tobel, Penny Pritzker
[00:00:00] S0: You've cofounded more than seven companies solving some of the most complicated problems. You are on the board of Microsoft. You chair Harvard's board. And then at the same time, you are using your free time to try to help rebuild Ukraine. I remember getting an email from President Obama. Would you become an ambassador to the country on behalf of Penny Pritzker and U. S. Secretary of Commerce? And I truly was like, this is not real. And then quickly, was like, is this real? Oh my god. I'm wow. So we just closed Fund IV, our four fifty million fund. [00:00:27] S1: But we're also asking ourselves, how can we do better? How can we do more? Inspired is a culture of hustle. I mean, we'll outwork, we'll out muscle. We're gonna work harder than basically anybody. [00:00:40] S0: Welcome to Inspired. I'm so excited. We're so excited. Penny, this is the first time I'm formally interviewing you, which just feels like such a gift. [00:00:50] S1: I'm glad you think it's a gift. I feel it's intimidating. [00:00:54] S0: Oh, here we go. I'm like that was like, tables are turned. I'm so excited to talk about we became partners in our friends because we love building. But one of the things I've never shared broadly is your building story. And I wanna go back to your childhood, which many people may not know this, but your dad founded Hyatt, founder and CEO. You grew up in a family truly of ambitious breakout entrepreneurs. Tell that story. I wanna hear that.
00:01:28 · Penny Pritzker, Alexa von Tobel
[00:01:28] S1: Well, I grew up in a household where my dad was the CEO of a startup business, basically. Literally, when I was six months old, my parents left Chicago with me and moved... We moved to a motel by the Los Angeles Airport, and we lived there. My mother used to say she used to walk me in the stroller along the runway at LAX. But imagine this is a long, long time ago. And then we moved to Northern California because my dad with his brothers were were building a company, basically a chain of motels. The thesis was is that air travel was taking off and people needed places to stay near airports. Pretty good entrepreneurial strategy. Yeah. Absolutely. So they're building motels next to airports. And I grew up where the dinner table conversation was really about building a business and everything from how do you find people, how do you train people, how do you innovate, what would make us different. And my mom, interestingly enough, back then, my mother was not didn't have a corporate job. She was what was called a corporate wife. And her job was all the aesthetics as well as taking care of the assistants Yep. For all of the executives. And so... And my mother also ran all the openings for all of the hotels. So today, that's a job. But back then, it was a [00:03:00] S0: That would have been like CMO, [00:03:02] S1: basically. Exactly.
00:03:02 · Penny Pritzker, Alexa von Tobel
[00:03:02] S1: basically. Exactly. [00:03:03] S0: That's so interesting. I heard people like Henry Ford were stopping by your house as this business Hyatt was taking off. Give us a sense of just what the business leader... What does it look like for you? And if we think the first ten years of your life, what are some of the fond memories you have of just that sort of entrepreneurship spark that clearly was happening?
00:03:26 · Penny Pritzker
[00:03:26] S1: So as I said, it started as a chain of exterior corridor motels. And then the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, we had the opportunity, which is a long struggle into another time, the opportunity to... Basically, the family bought a half finished hotel in Atlanta that had this big atrium. Yep. So this would be like, if you think about some of our founders, a moment where they're pivoting into really travel, not just being, you know, lodges and motels, but into really spectacular hotels. And this became a sensation, the Atrium Hotel. And when that hotel opened... And my my dad moved to Atlanta for six months to basically get the hotel up and running. My mother was in charge of picking out all the uniforms and all of the... She planned all of the opening. And then... And the thing took off. It was a sensation. Wow. And every mayor and every city said, I want one of those in my downtown because it was attracting people back to downtown. And this is a time when downtowns were really more abundant. Everybody was moving to the suburbs. And so Hyatt took off with that trend. And the other part of it was is that my dad had been in the navy in Japan. Yep. And so he had fallen in love with Asia. And so they also... My mom and dad would go once or twice a year to Asia for three weeks because then you didn't travel for four days. You went for a long extended time. And they would... They were going from capital to capital in major Asian countries and making deals to build... To have new hotels built that bore the Hyatt brand. And that's really how Hyatt grew from a motel chain to a hotel chain, which was... Came from the atrium concept at Atlanta and then this international expansion. That all happened before my dad was 39.
00:05:36 · Alexa von Tobel, Penny Pritzker
[00:05:36] S0: Wow. [00:05:36] S1: And then my dad was at... A friend of his was having an opening of a hotel in Hawaii. And, unfortunately, my dad dropped dead of a heart attack on the tennis court. And that was the end of his leadership of the hotel company. But he really and my mom created what is the foundation in terms of excellence and service. The vision of what it was like to, you know, travel and have fun with your travel, and the idea that hotels were more than just bedrooms, but instead were... Could be these really interesting architectural places. [00:06:13] S0: You and I talk about resilience a lot, and I know we bonded, unfortunately, over the sad thing we have in common, which is you lost your dad when you were 13. I lost my dad when I was 14, both unexpectedly. How do you think having something and I'd love, you know, in so many ways, this shaped who we are pretty profoundly. How do you think going through something so tragic, so early, changed you? Well, I think
00:06:13 · Alexa von Tobel, Penny Pritzker
[00:06:13] S0: You and I talk about resilience a lot, and I know we bonded, unfortunately, over the sad thing we have in common, which is you lost your dad when you were 13. I lost my dad when I was 14, both unexpectedly. How do you think having something and I'd love, you know, in so many ways, this shaped who we are pretty profoundly. How do you think going through something so tragic, so early, changed you? Well, I think [00:06:41] S1: there's a couple of things that I think had big influence on me. I think the fact that my... Watched my parents building something and having so much fun and being energized every single day to get up and make a difference really made me think that every day is precious and that we need to take advantage of it and that you can have fun as you build things. And you can... And that really it's noble to be a business builder. In terms of the resilience aspect of coming from losing a parent like you and I both did early, is I think you treasure every day and you treasure moments. And there's a gratitude for all of the... How fortunate we are. I mean, we did have parents who cared about us. We were able to get a good education. We were taught, I know you were and I was, hey, as women, as young women, we can do this. We can be executives. We can be leaders. We can do whatever it is we set our mind on. And so I think it's... I've always tried to draw inspiration from the tragedy as opposed to allow it to, you know, bring me down.