Ivanka Trump on Building an Authentic Life

David Senra (0:02)

Right now in your life today, what is the most exciting part of your work life?

Ivanka Trump (0:08)

My work life specifically.

I think I have gotten to a place where I know myself, I know what I love, I know what I'm good at, I know what excites me and where I can sustain excitement over a long period of time, which is critical because I've really lived so many different lives. So now everything I apply myself to, I can do it with a lot of vigor, but also a lot of confidence that this is something I'm passionate about. So the things I'm doing right now that I really love and that I spring out of bed each morning to do are super mission driven. So whether it's incubating companies from for-profit to non-for-profit businesses, investing in companies and founders that are really right at the edge of transformation, whether that be AI, biotech, neurotech, robotics, even space. Really things that I think satisfy huge curiosity for me and enable me to learn and grow and expand and founders that are taking on meaningful problems. What inspires me is people really swinging for things. I love individuals with huge imaginations and huge ideas. The ability to learn from them, to spend time with them, to be expanded by them is, I think, super interesting. Then I've also gotten back to my real estate routes, which has been a lot of fun and I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale.

David Senra (1:55)

I think that's an understatement. Can you explain?

Ivanka Trump (1:57)

Yes, it is.

David Senra (1:58)

There's no power on this island.

You're building everything from scratch. Correct.

Ivanka Trump (2:02)

It's an unbelievable, beautiful 1400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands, we went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated and it stayed with us. Ever since and over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care because the land is so beautiful, that really the architecture has to be fully integrated into it, almost rise from it.

It's not even a business for me despite the scale of it. Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront, directly across from the island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, beautiful white sand beaches. For me, it feels more like a challenge than anything else.

The culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting to live, and trying to really build something that's a tangible manifestation of that. That requires a lot of vision, the collaboration of some of the greatest masters that exist. So I was just there walking the lands, really just trying to be with it and experience it alongside some of the greatest living architects of our time, like true masters of their craft, people with integrity so absolute, like there will be no compromise. And that's something we want to create there. So we're very excited.

David Senra (3:55)

What does that mean? People with integrity so complete, there's no compromise in their vision? Is that what you mean?

Ivanka Trump (4:01)

When you work with real artists, regardless of their medium, whether it's a canvas or real estate, home music, they don't compromise. Their integrity is precise and absolute, and they'll push themselves, they'll push everyone around them. Are you guys hearing this?

David Senra (4:22)

There's like six people off camera that I badger every day.

Ivanka Trump (4:26)

That you drive absolutely crazy. But actually, that's where you get to something. And part of it, there's a push and pull. When you're working with an architect, unless they're building a monument, right, it's they're building a space that people have to interact with. Not just observe, like a canvas, they have to live in it. They have to get married in it. If it's a hotel, it's their home. So there's certain functional elements. Like there's nothing uglier than a beautiful non-functional space. Like that's, to me, that's not a masterpiece because it wasn't fully thought through. So when you can combine something that is architecturally incredibly meaningful and beautiful and intentional with a highly functional space.

And one of the things I love about real estate is it's, well, first, it's tangible. In a world where increasingly everything is not, you see the result of years of work. And really, to bring a project to life, it's years, sometimes a decade plus.