Bill Gurley: Running Down a Dream | Episode 23

Aaron Lazar (0:08)

Welcome to Impossible Dreams, Bill Gurley. Thanks for being here.

Bill Gurley (0:10)

Thanks for having me on.

Aaron Lazar (0:12)

I sort of appreciated, in watching your talk that you gave it, it was out of Texas a couple of years ago?

Bill Gurley (0:18)

Yes, it was at the grad school MBA program in Texas about eight years ago.

Aaron Lazar (0:23)

And that's where you did your MBA?

Bill Gurley (0:25)

Yes, yeah.

Aaron Lazar (0:27)

In watching that talk, which, you know, did you know at the time it was gonna be a book?

Bill Gurley (0:34)

No.

Aaron Lazar (0:35)

Because it was, it's clearly like, wow, you know, that's a blueprint for a book.

Bill Gurley (0:40)

Yeah, I didn't. I mean, my day job was a venture capitalist. So it's not something that I, the topic wasn't, you know, core to what I did. In fact, one of the reasons, during my venture capital career, I blogged quite a bit. And so it was very common for me to scratch down ideas, trying to figure out where the world was going from a technology company perspective. And then I would build these theses and write them down. And I had done that in this case when I was reading these biographies, but it didn't really have a place in the venture world. And so when I had a chance to give the talk, I did. And then they put it on YouTube oddly and a few people noticed, including James Clear.

And a few, after it had kind of been out there for a while, people like James started poking me with the idea of a book. But at the time I gave the talk, it wasn't on my mind.

Aaron Lazar (1:38)

That's so interesting. I mean, the idea that you, at that point, had spent your career from, and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, from being an engineer, then a top research analyst, to one of the world's most successful venture capitalists. Those MBA students get to hear from one of the best, right? And within that becomes the seed for something that you're super passionate about now, which is like, all right, well, what is life after venture capitalism? And how do you give back in the way that so many of the people that you talk about in the book, the Bobby Knights and, you know, Danny Myers and that's sort of part of this, how you thrive is sharing, right? And, you know, nobody's impossible dream when they're a kid seems to be what they end up. Like, there's very few people are like, oh, I knew at six, seven years old, like, did six year old Bill Gurley know he wanted to be a venture capitalist?

Bill Gurley (2:50)

No, no. And in fact, but when I worked with a co-writer and researcher and it probably took us five years to turn the presentation into a book because we went and did a lot more work and we probably combed through hundreds of biographies and there are a few, there's this great anecdote that I don't know if you've ever heard of a Steve Harvey, the comedian who's on Family Feud now. So Steve Harvey in his chat with Oprah, a master class, tells a story about when he was seven years old, his teacher had an exercise and asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. And he went last and all the other kids had gone and he had written on a sheet of paper, I want to be on TV and the teacher thought he was making fun, like that he wasn't taking the assignment seriously and yelled at him and sent him home.

And when he got home, his mom yelled at him and sent him to his room. And he's sitting there in his room, you know, wondering what all these adults, you know, they told me to say, and his dad comes home and his dad asks what happens, listens to the whole story and says, do you have the sheet of paper? And he pulls it out and he goes, let's put this in the drawer by your bedside and I want you to look at it every day. And so his dad gave him that permission. And I, your question was, you know, do most people end up there? And I don't think they do. I think that our society has decided that, and I think it's very well-intentioned, and I always want to say that because I don't think, I don't think anyone's out to stifle creativity per se, but they worry. They worry about the kids' economic well-being. They worry about, you know, their ability to have a family and put food on the table. And they push people towards safer jobs, and they tend to steer away from the incredible life that you've had and those kind of things, you know? I was going to ask you on your Wikipedia page, it says you took the MCAT. I wanted to understand why, because it relates to this question, I suspect. Yeah, it totally does.