00:51:49 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
[00:51:49] S1: I mean, it's never gonna be a movement. We understand, obviously, if you have a family, that will be number one. But if you start telling me, after my family, then there's, you know, being a great gamer at night plus one of bar. [00:52:01] S0: Gonna apply for a job and say that. So, like, how... What are what are the actual things that you're Yeah. [00:52:05] S1: So I think there's... First of all, you try to... I mean, I don't wanna give too much away, but let's say [00:52:10] S0: If it's
00:52:11 · Luca Ferrari
[00:52:11] S1: a No. But I I would say the... First of all, you wanna see if there's a capacity to to express extreme ownership. There's a bunch of people... Well, suppose every human being in theory has it. But I find there... A lot of people are... They don't seem to be at least not inclined to developing extreme ownership or or for almost anything, so they just struggle to care tremendously about things in life. And there's no moral judgment, but I'm just saying I want to be a part of a team that has a real chance of redefining what's possible and succeeding at a really high level. Of course, that type of profile is not going to be highly appealing. I don't think I'm saying anything shocking here. So you look for signs in someone's past of of that extreme ownership at work. Maybe they, you know, they they were fully focused on their studies. Okay. Did they do incredibly well, at least? You know? Maybe they they did a lot of work next to studying because maybe they didn't have the financial means or they wanted to learn a craft. Maybe they were into open source. Did they... Is is their contribution extremely, you know, this mall or is there something just in terms of it looks like they put in a lot of effort. Maybe they didn't have a breakthrough, but you can tell through the sheer volume of contributions that they really care. Did they launch a startup? Was it because it's cool for months, it didn't work out too bad? Or they ground at it for three years and it was incredibly unsuccessful, but you can tell they wouldn't let up. You know, something that shows they are capable of putting their passion into something.
00:53:44 · David Senra
[00:53:44] S0: So in your S1, I think you referenced Singleton, Henry Singleton and I Tom just read, I did another episode on my other podcast founders on Singleton. And what was remarkable, Singleton made a very early investment in Apple. Right? And then he went to joining the board. And he was asked by his partner, he's like, well, there's a million companies, not a million, but there's a bunch of companies trying to make the personal computer. Like, why'd you choose Apple? Like, you pick the best one of the bunch, and there's a bunch of them. And he said two things. One, he thought that people were gonna be intimidated because they never dealt with... There was no such thing as a personal computer. These things could be intimidated, less likely to be intimidated by a computer named... Computer called Apple. But more important than that, he's like, the founders of Apple had. He goes, there's a lot of these founders that I met of other computer companies that they wanted to start a computer company, but if it didn't work out, they'd be okay. He goes, the founders of Apple had to make it work. They had nothing else. There was no way that Steve Jobs was going give up. And the idea that Singleton, being the genius that he was, identified that in a 19 or 20 year old Steve Jobs incredible.
00:54:49 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
[00:54:49] S1: I think sometimes, course, one of the greatest entrepreneurs, right, to ever do it. And I think a lot of people focus on the eye for detail. Certainly had that. The perception of what consumers would want. Certainly good at it. I think maybe that wasn't even like his main thing, but I believe what we would call extreme ownership in his case just is we'll probably call it differently, but I think deep down it will be the same thing. Just he cared so badly about seeing Apple succeed the way he thought it should, like, by building those amazing products. And and when you want something so badly, you're not guaranteed to win, obviously, but it just sets you apart. Because there's million or a [00:55:34] S0: thousand different little decisions you're gonna have to make, and you're just going to pay attention and care more about every single little decision. I've I've mentioned this quote so many times on on these conversations we get to have with these founders on the show, but I think Josh Kushner just... It's one of my favorite quotes I've ever heard. Josh's point was just like, if you have to pick the person that is the smartest or the person that has the most experience or the person that wants it more, you always pick the person that wants it more. [00:55:56] S1: Oh, yeah. [00:55:56] S0: I think that's Totally. Kind of where you're getting with extreme ownership.
00:55:56 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:55:56] S0: I think that's Totally. Kind of where you're getting with extreme ownership. [00:55:58] S1: Completely. Look. We... What we found is that there is a level of, let's call it intelligence, broadly speaking, not just purely, let's say, logical, analytical, but that's necessary, at least in our endeavors. But after you pass a certain threshold, which is admittedly a fairly high threshold, but we're not talking about an ingenious level, then it's almost all how badly you want Like, you... Do you really wanna be amazing? I was talking about this with, again, some new joiners yesterday or or the day before. I brought up brought up the example of Rafael Nadal in tennis. I think I've said this before. Most experts I've talked to believe he wasn't even probably a top 50 talent in his generation, but went down as one of the three best for sure. Some say the best or second best to ever do it. And where he really stood out was that extreme. Ownership. He just woke up in the morning, and he was like, I'm gonna be the best tennis player I can possibly be. I'll give it my all. 100%. And Did [00:56:55] S0: you read his autobiography? It's called Rafa. I haven't. You should. I think you'd be interested because, like, a lot of people don't know the amount of injuries that he had when he was younger. [00:57:03] S1: He shouldn't have even been able to play [00:57:05] S0: at all, much less be one of
00:57:06 · Luca Ferrari
[00:57:06] S1: the best ever do it. Unbelievable. Absolutely. Like, what I said to those new joiners, I told them, I don't believe there is almost any chance you will fail to have an amazing career, at least at Bending Spoons, probably almost anywhere, certainly at Bending Spoons where we try to be extremely meritocratic, if you really bring it, like if you're an extreme owner. I would bet there's less than a 1% chance you fail to have an amazing career because we know you're smart, We tested that. We're unlikely unless you cheated somehow. I'm unlikely to be wrong. You have the... You know, you studied what you needed to study, so you have some of the foundations. It's almost all about do you come to work to be amazing, to be better today than you were yesterday, to see your team be better, to see the company take a step in the right direction, or do you come to work basically waiting for the day to be to be over? You know, like, of course, you're gonna try to be okay at it, but you don't really care too much as long as you're you have a job and you're in your mind. And if you're part of the former group, you'll you'll do extremely well for sure. So that's, you know, really a a key cultural tenet for us. We we we select for it. We try to to foster it. We will much rather have a smaller team of people who feel that way than vice versa. And by the way, it's contagious. So if have a high density of people who feel like they're highly accountable, proactive... Because if you're an extreme owner, so you care tremendously, you're can be entrepreneurial, because you'll be paranoid about things that could go wrong and enthusiastic about new ideas and how you can improve things. If I ask you to do something, you will not forget, you get it done. More so, you'll even come back and do more things than I expected you to, and that will be incredibly exciting for me. And I don't want to show you that I can be just as good. So it's just there is an escalation of positive reinforcement that you accomplish if there is a high density of that feeling within the team. As soon as you dilute that, the people who feel that either leave or lose it. You can't have an extreme owner. Like, Steve Jobs famously was was looking for a players, and I I think he was looking for people who who had that desire, that drive to be...