>> From Sand Hill Road in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Presenting, the People First Network; insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders. >> Hello everyone, we are here for CUBE conversation in San Francisco. I'm John Furrier with siliconANGLE media theCUBE. We are in San Francisco with John Zimmer, who is the co-founder of president of Lyft, the famous ride sharing company that's dominating the world and changing the game in transportation. We all use Lyft, we love it. John, great to see you here for this People First Network special conversation. Thanks for spending the time. >> Thanks for having me. >> I know you're super busy, you guys are growing, billions of dollars in raised capital. You guys are growing like a weed on a rocket ship. A lot of things happening. But, you know, it's interesting, you guys are not that old of a company and the growth has just been fantastic. So, as you continue to ride the wave here, there's a lot of lessons that you've learned. So, tell the story about how you guys got started. You and your co-founder have a great relationship, and this has been a part of the culture at Lyft. How did it all get started? >> Yeah, so I'll start with Logan, my co-founder. He grew up in L.A. surrounded by traffic and he hated that. And he wanted to find a better way to get around. So when he went to college, he went to UC Santa Barbara, he did not take his car. He rode the bus, he car pooled, he had friends with cars. And then he went to start a car sharing program before Zipcar was around on college campuses. He got the attention of the local transit board, he got elected as the youngest member ever on the transit board. And he fell in love with the promise of public transportation. Affortable, accessible transportation for everyone. But frustrated by the reality that it was dependent on tax money. So, he wanted to create a better solution and he started coding his own website, named Zimride, named after a trip he took to Zimbabwe, for long distance car pooling. My own journey was I was on the east coast. I did not know Logan, was in love with hospitality, making people happy through great service. So I went to Cornell Hotel School, I took a city planning course, and I saw that the most important hospitality experience we have in society today is the city itself, and yet unfortunately we've designed cities for cars, and not people. What I mean by that is most of our cities are paved over. There's roads, there's parking lots, and if you design a city instead for people, pedestrians, safe places to bike, and don't need people to own cars in order to get around, then you could have a much more durable place to live. So we came together in 2007 to work on Zimride. And then a few years later, in 2012, we launched Lyft. >> So this is a transportation problem, ultimately, to solve. But the itch you guys were scratching was just the need for transportation. You saw it as more of a convenience thing as well. The hospitality thing kind of comes together, boom, Lyft is born. Then you guys enter the market, and the transportation problems are still there, and then you have the growth of mobile, so sort of a perfect storm coming together. What is the biggest challenge and exciting things that you guys see in this transportation scheme? Is it it's antiquated and inadequate? Is it a technical thing? What are some of the challenges that you guys are exited about? >> Well I think the biggest thing is this fact that the American dream has almost become, or been, historically, synonymous with a car in every garage. And that everyone should own a car. And that was your sense of freedom. But the reality is not quite that. American families spend more on their car than they do on food. It's the second highest household expense. A new car costs, on average, an American family $9,000 per year to own and operate. And so, there's a lot of ingrained behaviors, and designs of cities so that it does cater to needing to own a car. So we're trying to break that down piece by piece and making progress. But we're about 1% of the way there. >> Yeah, it's a cultural change too. But I also want to get to that in a second about culture, both with Lyft and and into your audience, which is the cities and the environments you guys deploy in, but also the users. But the founding and the story of you guys growing is interesting, because startups are all about execution and culture. You've had an interesting relationship with your co-founder. And this is the secret sauce of startups. It's documented somewhat, but it's a people first mindset, where you get a good team early on, you kind of feel your way through those first couple of years. Talk about that relationship with the founders, because this is something that's important. It's not just a number on a cap table, it's a little more than that. Talk about the relationship. >> I mean Logan has become my best friend. We actually carpool to work, still. Almost every day. And we weren't friends prior. So, a lot of times you have friends that start a company together. We were two people that were incredibly passionate about our mission, which is to improve people's lives with the best transportation. So we shared this passion, we share this vision, and we're two completely different people. So our approaches were different. His approach is often product-oriented and my approach is often hospitality-oriented. And the fact is, for transportation, you need to combine those two pieces. So it worked out really well for us. So I think having a co-founder is a massive advantage, because you can have two different people and then you want to find the thing in common, which is the thing you're fighting for, within our case the mission. >> How did you guys work together to play off each other, to get that innovation spark. Because when you get into the ride sharing, certainly it's a brand new category, huge demand, and there's a lot of build up, a lot of things you've got to stand up for the business. At the same time, you also want to differentiate and be innovative. You're kind of a first mover, with Uber, these guys are out there too. You guys are building a business, and growing really fast. So, how do you guys nurture that innovation? How do you put a twist on it? How do you keep it alive, versus the blocking and tackling and standing up the basic business activities? >> Well I think because we, you know at the beginning, we created a new category. We're the first to do peer-to-peer ride sharing. Uber existed, but they were doing cabs and limos. And we said, that may work for 1% of the population, but we wanted to use this under-utilized asset, which is the car that's sitting in everyone's parking spot or garage. And so that DNA of innovation, that DNA of being the underdog, the challenger, has always been true to us, but also the people that we we've brought on and hired. People and the hiring is something that, over the last ten years, is probably the one activity we've spent the most time on. Because that's the best way to keep those values, keep that focus on vision. >> And certainly these days, people want to work for a company that has a purpose. And that has a mission. When you hear the word people first, what pops into your head? >> Obvious. It just feels, in everything I've tried to do as a person, whether that was studying- like hospitality is the business of people first. How do you give people a great service and a great experience. And so I think often times, when people think about technology, they think about the what, which is I made this phone, I made this device, or I made this app, when way more important to that, is the why. Why did you do that? Who are you doing that for? And so we try to start everything we do with the person we're trying to- you know our mission is to improve people's lives with the world's best transportation. It's not to build the worlds best transportation. >> So that's your why. I was talking about how you guys scaled to a world-class organization. You guys have build a world-class team, certainly got great investors, Floodgate, Mayfield and then the rest is all on the web. You guys raised a lot of money, but you can't just throw money at the problem, you have to have that foundation and culture. How do you scale up a world-class organization? What's the learnings, can you share your perspective? >> Yeah, so first having clarity on the mission, which we've talked about, but also having clarity on core values. So we have three core values that have been true for a very long time. So, one is to be yourself. It also sounds very simple, like people first, but a lot of corporate environments have made spaces where people aren't comfortable being themselves, where there's group think, where people don't feel comfortable bringing their full self, and therefore their most productive self, to work. So be yourself, respecting the diversity of our team, has been critical from the beginning. The second is uplift others. So we use that both internally and externally. Life's short, we spend a lot of our time working. We might as well enjoy what we're doing. Again, all these values are both the right thing to do, make for a better place to work, and lead to better productivity and business success. And the last is make it happen. That's pretty self explanatory. Be an owner, go out and take action and get stuff done. And so with those three simple core values, looking for amazing, talented people, who also care about our mision. People are mission oriented, people want to care about what they're working on. And if you're fortunate to have a choice where you work, what we've seen is that people will follow a mission. >> Yeah, it's totally true. I can see that in culture here. And I've also seen you guys got kind of a cool factor too in the way I've seen some of your activations out in the marketplace. You kind of got a cool factor going on as well. But I think what's interesting, and I want to get your reaction to this, I think this points to some of the cultural discussions, just recently during the elections I saw you guys really wanted to make an effort to help people to get to the polls. Here in California, the disasters of wildfires are really tragic. You guys are doing some work there. This speaks to the culture. You say, hey, Lyft's available, and you're helping people out. Talk about what that means to you and the team here, and the culture at Lyft. >> Yeah, at the end of the day, when we look back on the work we've done, we want to make sure it has improved people's lives. And when we see opportunities to take our ability to provide transportation that will benefit people in a meaningful way, whether it was, you know, in the last- not this most recent election, but in the last election, in the last presidential election, I believe it was about 15 million people listed transportation as a reason why they couldn't vote. >> They've got a way, hey! >> Yeah, let's solve that. We can. When you think about unfortunate natural disasters, if we can help people get to safety, or help a horrible situation, then we should do that. I think that's just a moral and civic responsibility. It allows us to be aware and proud of the solution we've created, and I think it keeps our team extremely motivated. >> And I think it's one of those intangibles in terms of the mission, changing the transportation industry sounds academic and corporate. But here, you're changing lives by one, the voting, and two, saving lives potentially, with the disasters. So, great job. Okay, so what I thought, let's talk about the growth okay. I had a great conversation with the CEO of Amazon Web Services, Andy Jassy, a few years ago, talking about the early days of AWS. You have to be misunderstood for a while, and get through that early on, if you're going to be successful, because most big things are misunderstood. He also made a point about the key learnings during the early days. When you're trying to do stuff, things going so fast, that there's learnings that come out of it. And if you can persevere through it, that sets the culture. Share a story around something that you guys have been through at Lyft, where you persevered through it. It might have been some scar tissue. It might have been you got a little bloody, a little dirty. But you got through it and you learned from it. You applied it, and changed the culture. >> Well I think there's two main ones that come to mind. So, you know, people may think Lyft, in the last five years, has really come out of nowhere, but Logan and I have been working together for eleven years. And the first idea was Zimride, was long distance car pooling. And we built a team of 20, 25 people, we got this to break even. That's actually the company that Mayfield invested in, or the product. But it didn't have product-market fit in a massive way. It wasn't a massive success. And then so we tried to reinvent ourselves five years later, and that was Lyft. And at this point, that was a crazy idea. To have people riding in what everyone thought of as a stranger's other vehicle. And so that was a reinvention, an acknowledgement that the first solution we created did not fully work in the way that we wanted it to. The second was about four to five years ago, we wake up and Uber raises three billion dollars. And we have a hundred million dollars in the bank and about five months left. And everyone said Lyft is done. There is no way that they can survive this, it's a winner take all market, Uber is way more aggressive. And we proved that wrong. By focusing and staying true to our values and to our mission. By having an incredible team. An amazing community of drivers providing great service to our customers, we've gone from the early days of single digit market share to nearly 40% market share, amidst that pressure and belief that we couldn't survive. >> Game's on. Either rally or fold, right? It's a cultural test really. What's your mindset around the capital market. I know, I've done a lot of startups myself, I know a lot of fellow entrepreneurs, and when you raise that money, and you guys had that product-market fit, post the first venture, where you got through that. Then you get lightning in a bottle, whoa, let's double down on this. I want to go back to the early stages when you were thinking about investment. Was there any cautions around VC, cause a lot of startups have that conversation. What was the narrative for you guys at that time? Hey, let's go to Mayfield, should we raise money, should we bootstrap and make it cashflow positive. What was your mindset as founders, at that time when you were doing the venture round? >> Well, I think we knew that we needed a certain amount of capital to get to a scale that was interesting to us. So, not every business needs as much capital. But for they type of transportation infrastructure that we wanted to change, the type of scale we wanted to get to, we knew that it was important to raise VC money. So, money that was substantial and also understood the level of risk we were taking. So, at that point, we were fortunate to have a firm like Mayfield believe in us. And what we were looking for was people that care about who we were, cared about our mission, and understood what it was like to be an entrepreneur and an operator, not just an investor. >> What's the rallying call now for the team as you guys look out a6nd continue to have this growth? Obviously you guys cleared the runway in a big way. And there's still a lot more work to do, the market's still early. You know, you think about transportation and the regulatory environment and how technology and policy are coming together. A lot of forces out there, you got some tailwinds and some headwinds. How do you guys look at the future? What's the next mountain you're going to climb? >> Yeah, so, we've now done a billion rides. Since inception. And we're focused on providing a full alternative to car ownership. So I don't think people grasp that. The idea is not to provide an alternative to a taxi, or a late ride home. It's to completely replace car ownership. And so, we are 1% of the way there. Those that are joining our team and our mission get to be there for the 99% rest of that. And at the same time, as we go towards the next billion rides, we want to stay focused and rally around the individual stories behind each ride. So, every single week, we have over ten million rides happening, where two people are coming together. They could be two people that helped each other have a better day. They could be a Democrat and a Republican sitting next to each other and finding common ground. And so to us, yes we have big milestones and big opportunities ahead, but also care about each ride that's happening on the platform. >> And the other thing I love about your background in hospitality is you're bringing an experience as well. Not just math, in terms of the bottom line numbers. There's a lot of people doing the math and saying hmm, should I have a car? But I got to ask you a question. So what you learned at school, Cornell great school, great Lacrosse team, great Ivy League school, they teach you the textbook, the old hospitality. This is a new era we're living in. What is happening in your world that they don't teach you in the textbook from a hospitality standpoint? As you look at the experience of ride sharing and transportation for users, what is different, what's the twist in hospitality that has not yet been written in the textbooks, that you're exploring or thinking about? >> I actually think the old basics are more important than ever. There's all this flashy technology and opportunity to do it at larger scale, and to use data, that's new. To use data in ways that help inform providing great service. But, the basics of human interaction, communication, and treating people with respect, can get you pretty far. >> And happy customers, right? Final question, I know you got to go, I appreciate your time. Share a story or something about Lyft that people might not know about. First of all, everyone knows about your brass, you guys are doing a great job out there with the market share. But tell a story about Lyft, or something a datapoint, anecdotal piece of information, that they might not know about, that they should know about. Share an inside story or factoid about Lyft, that people should know about that they might not know about. >> I think it's really deep, deep in the mission. That people may not understand what gets us out of bed in the morning. You know, every time I have a new hire orientation, I try to talk to every new hire that comes to the company and really emphasize the importance of every driver, every passenger. And I read a story about a driver and passenger that really helped each other. And don't really want to provide the details because they're private to those individuals, but it's incredibly powerful to hear about. And so, I would just, we may look like a big company or brand at this point, but we care deeply about each individual that's on the platform. >> The fabric of society is being changed by you guys, really appreciate the work you've done, and congratulations, and a lot more work to do. Thanks for the conversation. >> Yeah, thanks. >> I'm John Furrier, here in San Francisco at Lyft's headquarters, talking with John Zimmer, who's the co-founder and President of Lyft, sharing his stories and successes, and a lot more work to do here at the People First conversations. With theCUBE, and Mayfield, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (outro music)

>> From Sand Hill Road in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE, presenting the People First Network, insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders. (techno music) >> Hello everyone, I'm John Furrier, the co-host of theCUBE, founder of SiliconANGLE Media. We are here at Sand Hill Road at Mayfield for the 50th anniversary celebration and content series called the People First Network. This is a co-developed program where we're going to bring thought leaders, inspirational entrepreneurs, and tech executives to talk about their experiences and their journey around a people first society. This is the focus of entrepreneurship these days. I'm here with Navin Chaddha who's the managing director of Mayfield. Navin, we're kicking off the program. Tell us why the program, why People First Network, is this a cultural thing, is this part of a program, what's the rationale, what's the message? >> First of all I want to thank John, you and your team and theCUBE for co-hosting the People First Network with us. It's been a real delight working with you. Shifting to People First, Mayfield had had a long-standing philosophy that people build companies and it's not the other way around. We believe in betting on great people because even if their initial idea doesn't pan out, they'll quickly pivot to find the right market opportunity. Similarly, we believe when the times get tough, it's our responsibility to stand behind people. And the purpose of this People First Network is people like me were extremely lucky to have mentors along the way when I was an entrepreneur and now as a venture capitalist, who are helping me achieve my dreams, and Mayfield and me want to give back to other entrepreneurs by bringing in people who are luminaries in their own fields to share their learnings with other entrepreneurs. >> This is a really great opportunity and I want to thank you guys for helping us put this together with you guys. It's great co-creation. The observation I was seeing in Silicon Valley and certainly in talking with some of the guests we've already interviewed, and that'll be coming up on the program, is the spirit of community and the culture of innovation is around the ecosystem of Silicon Valley. This has been the bedrock of Silicon Valley, Mayfield, one of the earliest, if not the first, handful of venture firms hanging around Stanford, doing entrepreneurship, this is a people culture in Silicon Valley and this is now going global. So, great opportunity. What can we expect to see from some of the interviews, what are you looking for, and what's the hope? >> Yeah, so I think what you're going to see from the interviews is, we are trying to bring around 20 plus people and they'll be many Johns on the interview besides you. So there'll be John Chambers, ex-chairman and CEO of Cisco, there'll be John Zimmer, president and co-founder of Lyft, and there also will be John Hennessy, who'll be our first interview with him, from Stanford University. And jokes apart, there'll be like 20 plus other people who'll be part of this network. So I think what you're going to see is goings always don't go great. There's a lot of learnings that happen when things don't work out. And our hope is when these luminaries from their professions share their learnings, the entrepreneurs will benefit from it. As we all know, being an entrepreneur is hard, but sometimes, and many times actually, it's also a lonely road. And our belief is, and I strongly personally also believe in it, that great entrepreneurs believe in continuous learning and are continuously adapting themselves to succeed. So our hope is this People First Network serves as a learning opportunity from entrepreneurs to learn from great leaders. >> You said a few things I really admire about Mayfield and I want to get your reactions. I think this is fundamental for society. Building durable companies is about the long game and people fail and people succeed, but they always move on. They move on to another opportunity, they move on to another pursuit, and this pay-it-forward culture has been a key thing for Silicon Valley. >> It absolutely has been. >> What's the inspiration behind it from your perspective? You mentioned your experiences. Tell us a story of an experience you've had. >> Yeah, so I would say first of all right since we strongly believe people make products and products don't make people, we believe venture capital and entrepreneurship is about like running a marathon. It's not a sprint. So if you take a long-term view, have a strong vision and mission, which is supported with great beliefs and values, you can do wonders. And our whole aim, not only as Mayfield, but other venture capitalists, is to build iconic companies which are built to last, which beyond creating jobs and economic wealth, can give back to the society and make the world a better place to work, live, and play. >> You know, one of the things that we are passionate about at theCUBE and on SiliconANGLE Media is standing by our community, because people do move around. And I think one of the things that is key in venture capital now than ever before is not looking for the quick hit. It's standing by your companies in good times and in bad. Because this is about people, and you don't know how things might turn out, how a company might end up in a different place. We've heard so many entrepreneurs talk about that that the outcome was not how they envisioned it when they started. This is a key mindset for-- >> It absolutely is, right? Like, let's look at a few examples. One of out most successful companies is Lyft. When we backed it at Series A, it was called Zimride. They weren't doing what they were doing, but the company had a strong vision and mission of changing the way people transport and given that they were A+ people, as I mentioned earlier, the initial idea wasn't going to be a massive opportunity, they quickly pivoted to go after the right market opportunity. And hence again and again, right to me, it's all about the people. >> Navigating those boards is sometimes challenging and we hope that this content will help people, inspire people, help them discover their passion, discover people that they might want to work with. Really appreciate your support. And thank you for contributing your network and your brand and your team in supporting our mission. >> It's been an absolute pleasure, and we hope the viewers and especially entrepreneurs can learn from the journeys of many iconic people who have built great things in their careers. >> Navin, thank you so much, great vision. >> Pleasure. >> Yeah, it's a pleasure working with you, John. >> Okay, I'm John Furrier, stay tuned for more People First Network content as part of our ongoing open collaboration with Mayfield. Trying to get the brightest minds to share their stories, their experiences, with you. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (techno music)

(upbeat techno music) >> From Sand Hill Road, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Presenting the People First Network, insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders. >> Hello, everyone, I'm John Furrier the co-host on theCUBE, founder of SiliconANGLE Media. We are here at Sand Hill Road, at Mayfield for the 50th anniversary celebration and content series called The People First Network. This is a co-developed program. We're going to bring thought leaders, inspirational entrepreneurs and tech executives to talk about their experience and their journey around a people first society. This is the focus of entrepreneurship these days. I'm here with Navin Chaddha who's the managing director of Mayfield. Navin, you're kicking off the program. Tell us, why the program? Why People First Network? Is this a cultural thing? Is this part of a program? What's the rationale? What's the message? >> Yeah, first of all I want to thank, John, you and your team and theCUBE for co-hosting the People First Network with us. It's been a real delight working with you. Shifting to people first, Mayfield has had a long standing philosophy that people build companies and it's not the other way around. We believe in betting on great people because even if their initial idea doesn't pan out, they'll quickly pivot to find the right market opportunity. Similarly we believe when the times get tough it's our responsibility to stand behind people and the purpose of this People First Network is people like me were extremely lucky to have mentors along the way, when I was an entrepreneur and now as a venture capitalist, who are helping me achieve my dreams. Mayfield and me want to give back to other entrepreneurs, by bringing in people who are luminaries in their own fields to share their learnings with other entrepreneurs. >> This is a really great opportunity and I want to thank you guys for helping us put this together with you guys. It's a great co-creation. The observation that we're seeing in Silicon Valley and certainly in talking to some of the guests we've already interviewed and that will be coming up on the program, is the spirit of community and the culture of innovation is around the ecosystem of Silicon Valley. This has been the bedrock. >> Mm-hmm. >> Of Silicon Valley, Mayfield, one of the earliest if not the first handful of venture firms. >> Mm-hmm. >> Hanging around Stanford, doing entrepreneurship, this is a people culture in Silicon Valley and this is now going global. >> Mm-hmm. >> So great opportunity. What can we expect to see from some of the interviews? What are you looking for and what's the hope? >> Yeah, so I think what you're going to see from the interviews is, we are trying to bring around 20 plus people, and they'll be many John on the interview besides you. So there will be John Chambers, ex-chairman and CEO of Cisco. There'll be John Zimmer, president and co founder of Lyft. And there also will be John Hennessy who will be our first interview, with him, from Stanford University. And jokes apart, there'll be like 20 plus other people who will be part of this network. So I think what you're going to see is, goings always don't go great. There's a lot of learnings that happen when things don't work out. And our hope is, when these luminaries from their professions, share their learnings the entrepreneurs will benefit from it. As we all know, being an entrepreneur is hard. But sometimes, and many times, actually it's also a lonely road and our belief is, and I strongly personally also believe in it, that great entrepreneurs believe in continuous learning and are continuously adapting themselves to succeed. So our hope is, this People First Network serves as a learning opportunity from entrepreneurs to learn from great leaders. >> You said a few things I really admire about Mayfield and I want to get your reaction because I think is a fundamental for society. Building durable companies is about the long game because people fail and people succeed but they always move on. >> Mm-hmm. >> They move on to another opportunity. They move on to another pursuit. >> Mm-hmm. >> And this pay it forward culture has been a key thing for Silicon Valley. >> It absolutely has been. >> What's the inspiration behind it, from your perspective? You mentioned your experiences. Tell us a story and experience you've had? >> Yeah, so I would say, first of all, right, since we strongly believe people make products and products don't make people, we believe venture capital and entrepreneurship is about like running a marathon, it's not a sprint. So if you take a longterm view, have a strong vision and mission which is supported with great beliefs and values? You can do wonders. And our whole aim, not only as Mayfield but other venture capitalists, is to build iconic companies which are built to last which beyond creating jobs and economic wealth, can give back to the society and make the world a better place to work, live and play. >> You know one of the things that we are passionate about at theCUBE, and on SiliconANGLE Media is standing by our community. >> Mm-hmm. >> Because people do move around and I think one of the things that is key in venture capital now, than ever before is not looking for the quick hit. >> Mm-hmm. >> It's standing by your companies in good times and in bad. >> Mm-hmm. >> Because this is about people and you don't know how things might turn out, how a company might end up in a different place. We've heard some of your entrepreneurs talk about that, that the outcome was not how they envisioned it when they started. >> Mm-hmm. >> This is a key mindset for a business. >> It absolutely is, right? Let's look at a few examples. One of our most successful companies is Lyft. When we backed it at Series A, it was called Zimride. They weren't doing what they were doing, but the company had a strong vision and mission of changing the way people transport and given that, they were A plus people, as I mentioned earlier. The initial idea wasn't going to be a massive opportunity. They quickly pivoted to go after the right market opportunity. And hence, again and again, right? Like to me, it's all about the people. >> Navigating those boards is sometimes challenging and we hope that this content will help people, inspire people, help them discover their passion, discover people that they might want to work with. We really appreciate your support and thank you for contributing your network and your brand and your team in supporting our mission. >> Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure and we hope the viewers and especially entrepreneurs can learn from the journeys of many iconic people who have built great things in their careers. >> Were here at Sand Hill Road, at Mayfield's venture capital headquarters in sunny Silicon Valley, California, Stanford, California, Palo Alto California, all one big melting pot of innovation. I'm here with John Hennessy, who's the Stanford President Emeritus, also the director of the Knight Hennessy Scholarship. Thanks for joining me today for this conversation. >> Delighted to be here, John. >> So I wanted to get your thoughts on the history of the valley. Obviously, Mayfield, celebrating their 50th anniversary and Mayfield was one of those early venture capital firms that kind of hung around the barbershop, looking for a haircut. Stanford University was that place. Early on this was the innovation spark that created the valley. A lot of other early VCs as well, but not that many in the early days and now 50 years later, so much has changed. What's your thoughts on the arc of entrepreneurship around Stanford, around Silicon Valley? >> Well, you're right, it's been an explosive force. I mean, I think there were a few companies out here on Sand Hill Road at that time. Now nearly the number of venture firms there are today. But I think the biggest change has been the kinds of technologies we build. You know, in those days, we built technologies that were primarily for other engineers or perhaps they were tandem computers being built for business interest. Now we build technologies that change people's lives, every single day and the impact on the world is so much larger than it was and these companies have grown incredibly fast. I mean, you look at the growth rate? We had the stars of the earlier compared to the Googles and Facebooks of today, it's small growth rates, so those are big changes. >> I'm excited to talk with you, because you're one of the only people that I can think of that has seen so many different waves of innovation. You've been involved in many of them yourself, one of the co-founders of MIPS, chairman of the board of Alphabet, which is Google, Google's holding company, the large holdings they have and just Stanford in general has been, you know, now with CAL, kind of the catalyst for a lot of the change. What's interesting is, you know, the Hewlett-Packards, the birthplace of Silicon Valley, that durable company view. >> Mm-hmm. >> Of how to build a company and the people that are involved is really a, still, essential part of it. Certainly happening faster, differently. When you look at the waves of innovation, is there anything that you could look at and say, hey, this is the consistent pattern that we see emerging of these waves? Is it a classic formula of engineers getting together trying to solve problems? Is it the Stanford drop out PH.d program? Is there a playbook? Is there a pattern that you see in the entrepreneurship over the years? >> You know, I think there are these waves that are often induced by big technology changes, right? The beginning of the personal computer. The beginning of the internet. The world wide web, social media. The other observation is that it's very hard to predict what the next one will be. (laughing) If it was easier to predict, there would be one big company, rather than lots of companies riding each one of these waves. The other thing I think that's fascinating about them is these waves don't create just one company. They create a whole new microcosm of companies around that technology which exploit it and bring it to the people and change people's lives with it. >> And another thing is interesting about that point is that even the failures have DNA. You see people, big venture backed company, I think Go is a great example, you think about those kinds of companies. The early work on mobile computing, the early work on processors that you were involved in MIPS. >> Mm-hmm. >> They become successful and/or may/may not have the outcomes but the people move on to other companies to either start companies. This is a nice flywheel, this is one of the things that Silicon Valley has enjoyed over the years. >> Yeah, and just look at the history of RISC technology that I was involved in. We initially thought it would take over the general purpose computing industry and I think Intel responded in an incredible way and eventually reduced the advantage. Now here we are 30 years later and 95%/98% of the processors in the world are RISC because of the rise of mobile, internet of things, dramatically changing where the processors were. >> Yeah. >> They're not on the desktop anymore, they're scattered around in very different ways. >> It's interesting, I was having a conversation with Andy Kessler, who used to be an analyst back at the time for Morgan Stanley. He then became an investor. And he was talking about, with me, the DRAM days when the Japanese were dumping DRAMs and then that was low margin business, and then Intel said, "Hey, no problem. "We'll let go of the DRAM business." but they created Pentium and then the micro processor. >> Right. >> That spawned a whole nother wave, so you see the global economy today, you see China, you see people manufacturing things at very low cost, Apple does work out there. What's your view and reaction to the global landscape? Because certainly things are changed a bit but it seems to be some of the same? What's your thoughts on the global landscape and the impact of entrepreneurs? >> It certainly is global. I mean, I think in two ways. First of all, supply chains have become completely global. Look at how many companies in the valley rely on TSMC as their primary source of silicon? It's a giant engine for the valley. But we also see, increasingly, even in young companies a kind of global, distributed engineering scheme where they'll have a group in Taiwan, or in China or in India that'll be doing part of the engineering work and they're basically outsourcing some of that and balancing their costs and bringing in other talent that might be very hard to hire right now in the valley or very expensive in the valley. And I think that's exciting to see. >> The future of Silicon Valley is interesting because you have a lot of the fast pace, it seems like ventures have shrink down in terms of the acceleration of the classic building blocks of how to get a company started. You get some funding, engineers build a product, they get a prototype, they get it out. Now it seems to be condensed. You'll see valuations of a billion dollars. Can Silicon Valley survive the current pace given the real estate prices and some of the transportation challenges? What's your view on the future of Silicon Valley? >> Well my view is there is no place like the valley. The interaction between great universities, Stanford and Cal, UCSF if you're interested in biomedical innovation and the companies makes it just a microcosm of innovation and excellence. It's challenges, if it doesn't solve it's problems on housing and transportation, it will eventually cause a second Silicon Valley to rise and challenge it and I think that's really up to us to solve and I think we're going to have to, the great leaders, the great companies in the valley are going to have to take a leadership role working with the local governments to solve that problem. >> On the Silicon Valley vision of replicating it, I've seen many people try, other regions try over the years and over the 20 years, my observation is, they kind of get it right on paper but kind of fail in the execution. It's complicated but it's nuanced in a lot of ways but now we're seeing with remote working and the future of work changing a little bit differently and all kinds of new tech from block chain to, you name it, remote working. >> Right. >> That it might be a perfect storm now to actually have a formula to replicate Silicon Valley. If you were advising folks to say, hey, if you want to replicate Silicon Valley, what would be your advice to people? >> Well you got to start with the weather. (laughing) Always a challenge to replicate that. But then the other pieces, right? Some great universities, an ecosystem that supports risk taking and smart failure. One of the great things about the valley is, you're a young engineer/computer scientist graduating, you come here. You go to a start up company, so what it fails? There's 10 other companies you can get a job with. So there's a sense of this is a really exciting place to be, that kind of innovation. Creating that, replicating that ecosystem, I think and getting all the pieces together is going to be the challenge and I think the area that does that will have a chance at building something that could eventually be a real contestant for the second Silicon Valley. >> And I think the ecosystem and community is the key word. >> And community, absolutely. >> So I'll get your thoughts on your journey. Take us through your journey. MIPS co-founder, life at Stanford, now with the Knights Scholarship Program that you're involved in, the Knight Hennessy Scholarship. What lessons have you learned from each kind of big sequence of your life? Obviously in the start up days. Take us through some of the learnings. >> Yeah. >> Whether it's the scar tissue or the success, you know? >> Well, no, the time I spent starting MIPS and I took a leave for about 18 months full-time from the university, but I stayed involved after that on a part time basis but that 18 months was an intensive learning experience because I was an engineer. I knew a lot about the technology we're building, I didn't know anything about starting a company. And I had to go through all kinds of things, you know? Determining who to hire for CEO. Whether or not the CEO would be able to scale with the company. We had to do a layoff when we almost ran out of cash and that was a grueling experience but I learned how to get through that and that was a lesson when I came back to return to the university, to really use those lessons from the valley, they were invaluable. I also became a much better teacher, because here I had actually built something in industry and after all, most of our students are going to build things, they're not going to become future academics. So I went back and reengaged with the university and started taking on a variety of leadership roles there. Which was a wonderful experience. I never thought I'd be university president, not in a million years would I have told you that was, and it wasn't my goal. It was sort of the proverbial frog in the pot of water and the temperature keeps going up and then you're cooking before you know it. >> Well one of the things you did I thought was interesting during your time in the 90's as the head of the computer science department is a lot of that Stanford innovation started to come out with the internet and you had Yahoo, you had Google, you had PH.ds and you guys were okay with people dropping out, coming back in. >> Yeah. >> So you had this culture of building? >> Yup. >> Tell us some of the stories there, I mean Yahoo was a server under the desk and the web exploded. >> Yeah, it was a server under the desk. In fact, Dave and Jerry's office was in a trailer and you go into their room and they'd have pizza boxes and Coke cans stacked around because Yahoo use was exploding and they were trying to build this portal out to serve this growing community of users. Their machine was called Akebono because they were both big sumo wrestling fans. Then eventually, the university had to say, "You guys need to move this off campus "because it's generating 3/4 of the internet traffic "at the university and we can't afford it." (laughing) So they moved off campus and of course figured out how to use advertising as a monetization model. And that changed a lot of things on the internet because that made it possible for Google to come along years later. Redo search in a way that lots of us thought, there's nothing left to do in search, there's just not a lot there. But Larry and Sergey came up with a much better search algorithm. >> Talk about the culture that you guys fostered there because this, I think, is notable, in my mind, as well as some of the things I want to get into about the interdisciplinary. But at that time, you guys fostered a culture of creating and taking things out and there was an investment group of folks around Stanford. Was it a policy? Was it more laid back? >> No, I think-- >> Take us through some of the cultural issues. >> It was a notion of what really matters in the world. How do you get impact? Because in the end that's what the university really wants to do. Some people will do impact by publishing a paper or a book but some technologies, the real impact will occur when you take it out into the real world. And that was a vision that a lot of us had, dating back to Hewlett-Packard, of course but Jim Clark at Silicon Graphics, the Cisco work, MIPS and then, of course, Yahoo and Google years later. That was something that was supported by both the leadership of the university and that made it much easier for people to go out and take their work and take it out to the world. >> Well thank you for doing that, because I think the impact has been amazing and had transcended a lot of society today. You're seeing some challenges now with society. Now we have our own problems. (laughing) The impact has been massive but now lives are being changed. You're seeing technology better lives so it's changing the educational system. It's also changing how people are doing work. Talk about your current role right now with the Knight Hennessy Scholarship. What is that structured like and how are you shaping that? What's the vision? >> Well our vision, I became concerned as I was getting ready to leave the president's office that we, as a human society, were failing to develop the kinds of leaders that we needed. It seemed to me it was true in government. It was true in the corporate world. It was even true in some parts of the nonprofit world. And we needed to step back and say, how do we generate a new community of young leaders who are going to go out, determined to do the right thing, who see their role as service to society? And their success aligned with the success of others? We put together a small program. We put together a vision of this. I got support from the trustees. I went to ask my good friend Phil Knight, talked to him about it, and I said, "Phil I have this great idea," and I explained it to him and he said, "That's terrific." So I said, "Phil I need 400 million dollars." (laughing) A month later he said, "Yes," and we were off and running. Now we've got 50 truly extraordinary scholars from around the world, 21 different birth countries. Really, some of them have already started nonprofits that are making a big difference in their home communities. Others will do it in the future. >> What are some of the things they're working on? And how did you guys roll this out? Because, obviously, getting the funding's key but now you got to execute. What are some of the things that you went through? How did you recruit? How did you deploy? How did you get it up and running? >> We recruited by going out to universities around the world, and meeting with them and, of course, using social media as well. If you want get 21 year and 22 year olds to apply? Go to social media. So that gave us a feed on some students and then we thought a lot, our goal is to educate people who will be leaders in all walks of life. So we have MBAs, we have MDs, we have PH.ds, we have JDs. >> Yeah. >> A broad cohort of people, build a community. Build a community that will last far beyond their time at Stanford so they have a connection to a community of like minded individuals long after they graduate and then try to build their leadership skills. Bringing in people who they can meet with and hear from. George Schultz is coming in on Thursday night to talk about his journey through government service in four different cabinet positions and how did he address some of the challenges that he encountered. Build up their speaking skills and their ability to collaborate with others. And hopefully, these are great people. >> Yeah. >> We just hope to push their trajectory a little higher. >> One of the things I want you is that when Steve Jobs gave his commencement speech at Stanford, which is up on YouTube, it's got zillions and zillions of views, before he passed away, that has become kind of a famous call to arms for a lot of young people. A lot of parents, I have four kids and the question always comes up, how do I get into Stanford? But the question I want to ask you is more of, as you have the program, and you look for these future leaders, what advice would you give? Because we're seeing a lot of people saying, hey you know people build their resume, they say what they think people want to hear to get into a school, you know Steve Job's point said, "Follow your passion, don't live other people's dogma" these are some of the themes that he shared during that famous commencement speech in Stanford. Your advice for the next generation of leaders? How should they develop their skills? What are some of the things that they can acquire? Steve Jobs was famous to say in interviews, "What have you built?" >> Yeah. >> "Tell me something that you've built." It's kind of a qualifying question. So this brings up the question of, how should young people develop? How should they think about, not just applying and getting in but being a candidate for some of these programs? >> Well I think the first thing is you really want to challenge yourself. You really want to engage your intellectual passions. Find something you really like to do. Find something that you're also good at because that's the thing that'll get you out of bed on weekends early, and you'll go do it. I mean, if you asked me about my career? And asked me about my number one hobby for most of my career? It was my career. I loved being a professor. I loved research, I love teaching. That made it very easy to do it with energy and excitement and passion. You know there's a great quote in Steve Job's commencement speech where he says, "I look in the mirror every morning "and if too many days in a row I find out "I don't like what I'm going to do that day, "it's time for a change." Well I think it's that commitment to something. It's that belief in something that's bigger than yourself, that's about a journey that you're going to go on with others in that leadership role. >> I want to get your thoughts on the future for young people and society and business. It's very people centric now. You're seeing a lot of the younger generation look for mission driven ventures, they want to make a difference. But there's a lot of skills out there that are not yet born, yet. There's jobs that haven't been invented yet. Who handles autonomous vehicles? What's the policy? These are societal and technology questions. What are some of things that you see that are important to focus on for some of these new skills? There's a zillion new cyber security jobs open, for instance. >> Right. I mean there's thousands and thousands of openings for people that don't have those skills. >> Well I think we're going to need two different types of people. The traditional techno experts that we've always had but we're also going to need people that have a deep understanding of technology but are deeply committed to understanding it's impact on people. One of the problems we're going to have with the rise of artificial intelligence is we're going to have job displacements. In the longterm, I'm a believer that the number of opportunities created will exceed those that get destroyed but there'll be a lot of jobs that are deskilled or actually eliminated. How are we going to help educate that cohort of people and minimize the disruption of this technology? Because that disruption is really people's live that you're playing with. >> It's interesting, the old expression of ATMs will kill the bank branch but yet, now there's more bank branches than ever before. >> Than ever before, right? >> So, I think you're right on that, I think there'll be new opportunities. Entrepreneurship certainly is changing and I want to get your thoughts. This is the number one question I get from young entrepreneurs is, how should I raise money? How should I leverage money investors and my board? As you build your early foundational successes whether you're an engineer or a team, putting that E team together, entrepreneurial team is critical and that's just not people around the table of the venture. >> Correct. >> It's the support service providers and advisors and board of directors. How should they leverage their investors and board? How should they leverage that resource and not make it contentious, make it positive? >> Make is positive, right? So the best boards are collaborative with the management team, they work together to try to move the company forward. With so many angels now investing in these young companies there's an opportunity to bring in experience from somebody who's already had a successful entrepreneurial venture and looking for really deciding who do you want your investor to be? And it's not just about who gives you the highest valuation. It's also about who'll be there when things get tough? When the cash squeeze occurs and you're about to run out of money and you're really in a difficult situation? Who will help you build out the rest of your management team? Lots of young entrepreneurs, they're excited about their technology. >> Yeah. >> They don't have any management experience. (laughing) They need help. >> Yeah. >> They need help building that team and finding the right people for the company to be successful. >> I want to get thoughts on Mayfield. The 50th anniversary, obviously, they've been around longer than me, I'm going to be 53 this year. I remember when I first pitched Yogan DeGaulle in 1990, my first venture, he passed, but, Mayfield's been around for a while. I mean, Mayfield was the name of the town around here? >> Right. >> And has a lot of history. How do you see the relationship with the ventures and Stanford evolving? Are they still solid? They're doing well? Is it evolved? There's a new program going on? I see much more integration. What's the future of venture? >> Well I think the university's still a source of many ideas, obviously the notion of entrepreneurship has spread much more broadly than the university. And lots of creative start ups are spun out of existing companies or a group of young entrepreneurs that were in Google or Facebook early and now decide they want to go do their own thing. That's certainly happens but I think that ongoing innovation cycle is still alive. It's still dependent on the venture community and their experience having built companies. Particularly when you're talking about first time entrepreneurs. >> Yeah. >> Who really don't have a lot of depth. >> My final question I want to ask you is obviously one relating, pure to my heart, is computer science. I got my degree in the 80's during the systems revolution. Fun time, a lots changed. Women in computer science, the surface area of what computer science is. >> Mm-hmm. >> It was interesting, there was a story in Bloomberg that was debunked but people were debating if the super micros was being hacked by a chip in the system. >> Right. >> And more people don't even know what computer architecture is, I was like, hey now, the drivers might able to inject malware. So you need computer architecture, a book you've written. >> Mm-hmm. >> Academically, to programming so the range of computer science has changed. The diversity has changed. What's your thoughts on the current computer science curriculums? The global programs? Where's it going and what's your perspective on that? >> So I think computer science has changed dramatically. When I was a graduate student, you could arguably take a full set of breadth courses across the discipline. Maybe only one course in AI or one course in data base if you were a hardware or systems person but you could do everything. I could go to basically any Ph.d defense and understand what was going on. No more, the field has just exploded. And the impact? I mean you have people who do bio computation, for example, and you have to understand a lot of biology in order to understand how computer science applies to that. So that's the excitement. The excitement of having computer science have this broad impact. The other thing that's exciting is to see more women, more people of color, coming into the field, really injecting new energy and new perspective into the field and I think that will stand the discipline well in the future. >> And open source has been growing. I mean if you think about what it's like now to write software, all this goodness coming in with open source, it just adds over the top. >> Yeah. >> More goodness. >> I think today a, even a young undergraduate, writing in Python, using all these open libraries, could write more code in two weeks than I could have written in a year when I was graduate student. >> If we were 21 together, sitting here you and I, today, we're 21 years old, what would we do? What would you do? >> Well I think the opportunity created by the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence is just unrivaled. This is a technology which we have invested in for 50 or 60 years, that was disappointing us for 50 or 60 years, in terms of not meeting it's projections and then, all of a sudden, turning point. It was a radical breakthrough and we're still at the very beginning of that radical breakthrough so I think it's going to be a really exciting time. >> Diane Green had a great quote at her last Google Cloud conference. She said, "It's like butter, everything's great with it." (laughing) AI is the-- >> Yeah, it's great with it. And of course, it can be overstated but I think there really is a fundamental breakthrough in terms of how we use the technology. Driven, of course, by the amount of data available for training these neural networks and far more computational resources than we ever thought we'd have. >> John it's been a great pleasure. Thanks for spending the time with us here for our People First interview, appreciate it. >> My pleasure, John. >> I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, we are here in Sand Hill Road for the People First program, thanks for watching. (upbeat techno music)