Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:13:15 · Penny Pritzker
[00:13:15] S1: When I finished graduate school, you know, I went and and spent some time working with my family. And I was in a, quote, training program and for about eighteen months or twenty four months, and I was... Feel like I did one of everything, an acquisition, a disposition. I wrote a marketing report. I had to do something of... A little bit of everything. But I felt... And I said this to my uncle, who at the time was kinda chairman of everything that we... The family was doing. I said, you know, look, I love being here and I love working here, but I feel like I'm a fifth wheel. I don't think what I'm doing is making a difference. We have this idea to start a senior living company. It's kind of floating in the ether at the hotel company. I'd like to do that. And I was 27 years old. I had a ton of formal education, but I didn't have real... And I'd worked through school and during summers and everything like that, but I'd never built a business. Yep. But I had an idea. I thought I understood what it meant to build a senior living business because my mother also passed away at a very young age, and she was an only child. So I was responsible for taking care of my grandmother. And I realized a couple of things about that. One is my grandmother was lonely because many of her peers had passed away. She was bitter because of it, and she needed care. But back then, getting care, reliable care, was really difficult. And all of a sudden, I get a call in the middle of the night. Well, person taking care of her, because she was in a wheelchair, had left in the middle of the night. And so I'm getting up at, you know, 26 years old and driving over to her house to figure out what to do. And I thought, there's a business in this. There's something there. I didn't know what it was, but I said, I wanna go figure it out. I understood pretty well the hospitality business because I literally grew up in it. Yep. You know, from age five, was going with my dad to our motels and checking out, you know, what was going on. So for me, that was... It was a natural to try and start something. And also, frankly, Alexa, it was harder then as a woman to gain access to, let's say, fast growing opportunities. And certainly there wasn't a clear path to leadership.
00:15:52 · Penny Pritzker
And so I figured if I started something and built it, at least it would be harder to get rid of me because I was sort of theoretically essential to the business, if you will. So don't kid me, that was part of the motivation. So anyway, that's how I ended up becoming an entrepreneur. It was the way I felt that, you know, there weren't a lot of paths for me to grow in existing businesses. You know, the guys were kinda looking out for the guys. And so I was like, okay, then I'll build it. I'll do it from scratch. And once you've done that, once you have... And and you learn a lot. I made so many mistakes. Unbelievable the number of mistakes I made and unbelievable some of the bad decisions I made. But I learned from them, and what I learned is is if you recognize you made a... You hired the wrong person. Literally, I didn't know how to fire someone. I had to call my uncle, and I said, I hired the wrong marketing person, but I don't know how to fire them. Could you give me a tutorial on how do you tell someone it's not working out? And, of course, I was racked with guilt and everything. Of course. But he helped me understand that when someone's not in the right job, they usually know it too and that you need to help them understand that it's just not working. It's often portrayed as being very brutal, but this was really... It was clear that this person I'd hired, they didn't really... They weren't comfortable in the job either. So, anyway, I learned a lot by doing.
00:17:36 · Alexa von Tobel, Penny Pritzker
[00:17:36] S0: There's a natural value system in your history around the the love of the builds. And you've even said it a few times. There's something honorable about it. And I think you and I have not really ever had the conversation directly of we believe there's something noble about building a net new business from scratch, taking a white piece to paper. I believe it's incredible because there's a lot of innovation rooted in it. Right? When you're innovating, you're making something better. You're rarely building something that's worse than what exists out there. And so I always love that piece. Why do you think you like building things? Like, what what what part about it makes you feel so... That is noble? [00:18:19] S1: Well, I think there are two things that are important. First is to build a business that succeeds means you're filling some need that society has. Yep. Businesses don't endure if society doesn't need them. Doesn't matter how much effort you put into it. I think the other part that I learned, and I learned this as a young person, I watched my parents, you know, help the bellman become ultimately the general manager of a hotel, if you will, or I watched this... Them helping people grow. And I and I really felt the humanity of that. I felt the... Boy, if you can create a new entity that employs people and gives people purpose and they feel belonging and the culture is healthy, we've all been seeing unhealthy cultures, but you can create a healthy culture where people feel respected and trusted. What's wrong with that? That feels noble to me.
00:18:19 · Penny Pritzker, Alexa von Tobel
[00:18:19] S1: Well, I think there are two things that are important. First is to build a business that succeeds means you're filling some need that society has. Yep. Businesses don't endure if society doesn't need them. Doesn't matter how much effort you put into it. I think the other part that I learned, and I learned this as a young person, I watched my parents, you know, help the bellman become ultimately the general manager of a hotel, if you will, or I watched this... Them helping people grow. And I and I really felt the humanity of that. I felt the... Boy, if you can create a new entity that employs people and gives people purpose and they feel belonging and the culture is healthy, we've all been seeing unhealthy cultures, but you can create a healthy culture where people feel respected and trusted. What's wrong with that? That feels noble to me. [00:19:18] S0: You and I also bonded over the fact that the innovation economy, the innovation part sector startups, whatever you wanna call them, those are often the part of the economy where you go from zero jobs to 5,000, 10,000. When a company grows dramatically overnight and invents a lot of jobs, that's also pretty noble, right? [00:19:39] S1: That's what I mean. You're creating opportunity for
00:19:39 · Penny Pritzker, Alexa von Tobel
[00:19:39] S1: That's what I mean. You're creating opportunity for [00:19:42] S0: creating And you're absolutely right, it is the humanity of helping people get to the top, and pulling people along with the business. But then also just the fact that you're solving real problems for society, and creating net new jobs, all while creating a lot of value. It's... It it... There's a lot of alignment. [00:20:00] S1: It feels good.
00:20:00 · Penny Pritzker, Alexa von Tobel
[00:20:00] S1: It feels good. [00:20:00] S0: It feels good. It feels really good. So just to quickly name some of them, Penny. You've co founded more than seven companies. V Senior Living, which is basically your, like, an early breakout to the concept of senior living in general. The Parking Spot, which we've all seen those around the airports. Artemis, obviously an incredible real estate, inspired with me here. And and I won't name them all. And then you went in to become The US Secretary of Commerce for the country. And one thing I'm really proud of, and it's pretty corny, but when you were there, you're really known as the innovation leader and it's like bringing incredible innovation to the White House. And I mean, the way we met was because you... I remember getting an email from President Obama, which I thought like my husband was punking me. And it was like, would you become an ambassador to the country with... On behalf of Penny Pritzker and US 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. But you were just innovating. You were thinking outside the box. You guys were doing things, not following normal playbooks, and really trying to think about being in the White House and using the reach of the the incredible love of America differently. Say more about that.