as a lemonade stand.’ If you are already doing complex things in tech you don’t need to reinvent the wheel on everything else at the same time.
The business model is really straightforward: We make a thing; we sell a thing.
X: If you got stranded on a desert island, what’s the one thing you would have to have with you?
PK: A really good AeroPress coffee maker. Let’s assume I can get the beans. The day doesn’t actually start until I’ve sat down to a cup of coffee.
X: Tell me about your early influences.
PK: When I was in my early 20s and just out of college, there were the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. That was the first big a-ha for me that there was a fundamental difference between entrepreneurs and professionals. I grew up in a family full of professionals. There’s this whole other class of people that make and build businesses. That was such a key that sort of unlocked for me: That’s what I love to do; that’s what I want to do; that’s where I thrive. When you go back and read those they’re kind of goofy books but for me that was a big, big a-ha.
I went to the Acton School of Business and got a BA in entrepreneurship. We were taught by actual practicing entrepreneurs. For me, the big thing that Acton teaches is what they called “principled entrepreneurship.” It’s beyond how do you make money. There are three promises: learn to learn, learn to make money, and learn to live a life of meaning. That was that school and the lessons I learned and the teachers I learned from informs what I do every single day of my life.
X: Who do you admire and why?
PK: I’ve got two really distinct entrepreneurial role models that I come back to over and over again. John D. Rockefeller built Standard Oil, which still to this day is the most valuable business that anybody’s built in human history. There’s a huge amount of story that he did right or did wrong but he did it at a time when he had to write letters, travel for weeks and weeks to go to meetings. He built this incredible, complex, and powerful business at a time when life was much slower. I’m just infinitely impressed by what he managed to do. The other thing over time is that he became a better and better human being. He continued to grow and change and evolve as a person, way after he had become the richest man on the planet. Most people get worse the richer they get. He seems like one of the very few people who got better.
Elon Musk continues to impress the hell out of me. He is willpower personified. He’s in the process of building both SpaceX and Tesla at the same time. What he’s managing to do on two fronts is truly pushing the envelope on what people believe is possible. I’m super impressed by his unwillingness to say, ‘Oh that can’t be done’ and he just figures out ways. My hat’s off to the guy, and he’s another guy, who from a distance, seems to be getting more and more humble. … That said, I think he’s, like, on his fifth marriage, so people can’t be perfect in all directions. [Editor’s note: Musk has been married twice, but divorced and remarried his second wife.]
X: How do you define success?
PK: It feels really good to host some of my friends over for dinner and not worry about what the grocery bill is. It feels pretty damn successful to me. Everything else is basically bonus.
