Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Gopi Kallayil

Soren: In corporate America, there is a great amount of competition, both to beat competitors and increase profits, but also often between employees of the company. From a spiritual perspective, there is no separation between companies or people – we are all the same. Do you find any conflict working in a corporation that, like all corporations, is focused on profit and beating competitors?

Gopi: I don’t see it as a conflict. There is a story in the Bhagavad-Gita where the warrior Arjuna looks across the battlefield and refuses to fight. He says, to the effect, “My friends and cousins are in the opposite side. I can’t battle them. I’m not going to fight.” And Krishna tells him, “You must. It is your duty in your role as a warrior. You need to go to battle and do so with honor.” His message is that this world is not to be avoided but engaged. Work is one area where we do that.

The challenge, of course, is to engage in the world without getting entangled in life — always seeking more money, power, or influence or spending much of your day in anger and frustration. We can of easily get lost in our work and lose perspective. Another metaphor that I grew up with in India is that of the beautiful lotus flower. It always floats on the top of the water, even through the roots are mired in the mud below. When water falls on a lotus leaf, it gently flows off like dewdrops. The message in the metaphor is that we can be involved in life and work without getting mired in it, always floating to the top, letting our problems roll off our self, without forgetting the spiritual realm as well.

What are some ways you try to engage work from this perspective?

For me, it is a function of my attitude. I don’t need to change the world. I only need to change the attitude with which I look at it. Change comes from within. For example, if I am managing a team that is having a great deal of challenges, where team members keep coming to me with problems, I can easily fall into the trap of thinking, “Why don’t these people solve their problems and stop coming to me? They are draining me; they should take care of their problems.” I can view it as an irritation.

Or I can have a different perspective and remind myself that I am their manager and coach. I have the opportunity to help them solve the problem and grow as professionals. With this changed outlook, when team members come to me, I am uplifted and energized by the opportunity to work with them. I see it as a privilege. In these two approaches, the conditions are the same, but I can have two very different responses. All I did was make that inner shift.

So, you are saying that whatever your particular position, play it fully. See it as your unique role in the theater of life.

Yes. Play your role fully. Bring one hundred percent of yourself to the role. It also helps to realize that your self worth, your identity, need not come from your work. That is not who you are. There are these other parts of your self that are equally important – your family, your role in the community, , your personal passions, your inner work. Your life is larger than just your job.

However, this is often the first question people ask at parties. They want to know where you work and what position you hold.

The question I dislike the most at social gatherings is: “What do you do?” I often challenge the person with my response by saying, “I live joyously and consciously. That is what I do.” Of course, I know they are really asking about my job, and if I am at a business conference where that is relevant, I will engage at that level. However, I am usually more interested in the whole person and their passions rather than the narrow aspect of their self defined by their job title.

Many people who have lost their jobs recently are struggling with this. They are accustomed to going to parties and introducing themselves as someone who has a certain position at a company. Now that they no longer have that as an answer, they often feel less than they were, as if who they are has been decreased. It is very hard for them.

Twice in recent years I have been in between jobs. The last time it happened, I decided to take time off to reflect on the next phase of my professionals passions as I call it. I spent five months traveling to nine countries from Iceland to India to Bahrain to Zambia and climbing Kilimanjaro. During this time I asked myself questions like, “What does the next step of my career look like? What do I truly value?” I clarified and wrote down my values. Using this list, I asked myself, “What companies most reflect these values?” I came up with three names, and Google was on top of that list. When I came back to Silicon Valley, I was very focused on where I wanted to work — and had absolute clarity. I received offers from two of the companies and was in discussions with the third.

I think it is important to realize that during these transitions, we cannot always see the final destination. During the last transition in my life, I could not then imagine my current role. However, I could see the next step. I call this the “next ridge” process. It is a climbing metaphor. You can often only see the next ridge you need to get to. Then once you get to that ridge, you can see the ridge beyond it. Then when you get there, you can see the one after, and so forth till you finally get to the summit.

In your process, it seems like you took the time to both ask, “Where do I want to work,” but also did some inner work and asked, “What do I most value?”

Yes. A part of this I think is to see that whatever happens in your life, even the difficult circumstances also hold the gift of opportunities. Curiously, it was through the process of leaving my last job and traveling around the world that this next stage of my life developed. It wouldn’t have, had I stayed in that job. Often when adverse change is thrust on you, though it can be very disappointing and challenging at first, it can also be an opportunity to look inside, reflect, and to align with what matters to you and to then move forward from there.

Of course, depending on your situation, you may need to accept a job where there is not complete alignment. No matter what one’s situation is, I believe it helps to cultivate a sense of appreciation.

I also try to bring this sense of appreciation to other daily events. For example, there is a tendency in our busy lives to eat meals while looking at a computer screen or talking on the phone. Instead, I often leave my laptop at my desk, find a comfortable place to eat, and take time to enjoy my meal. I reflect on all the people it took to for the meal to appear in front of me– the farmers who grew it, the truckers who transported it, and the chefs who prepared it. Then I enjoy the food with a heightened sense of appreciation. In this way, I try to use daily events to help establish a greater sense of gratitude in my life. I think this is important no matter whether one is here at Google, some other company, or in between jobs. It helps to create a positive energy in one’s life. It does not mean that you will be assured of a perfect job, but I believe that the more grateful and happier you are, the more life will flow in positive ways.

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Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Tony Hsieh

Paul: We know that when people are engaging and enthusiastic, people tend to want to do business with them. You are very skillful in sharing yourself in a way that feels authentic. Do you have anything to say to someone who is in a small business and wondering, “Can I do this? Can I really bring myself to the table in an authentic way and expect to succeed in our society?”

I think that is the only way you are going to succeed. Transparency is going to happen whether you embrace it or not, so you might as well embrace it. I think that is one way to develop a personal and emotional connection.

When someone does this, the person may not be liked by everyone, but the goal is not necessarily to have as many people like you as possible. One of the things about happiness is that you want to form meaningful connections with people. Those people who do resonate with your personality, those are the people you want to develop relationships with. I think people worry too much about bringing their personal selves into business, when I think the way to succeed in today’s world is to make your business more personal. Twitter is also a great way of doing that.

“I think people worry too much about bringing their personal selves into business, when I think the way to succeed in today’s world is to make your business more personal.”

Paul: You have said in the past that “your values are your brand.” Could you say more about that? How does that work in your daily life such that customers feel it?

Brand building today is so different than what it was 50 years ago. 50 years ago you could get a few marketing people in a small room and decide, “this is what our brand will be,” and then spend a lot of money on TV advertising — and that was your brand. If you as a consumer only had your neighbors to talk to, you had to believe what the TV was telling you. Today anyone, whether it is an employee or a customer, if they have a good or bad experience with your company they can blog about it or Twitter about it and it can be seen by millions of people. It’s what they say now that is your brand.

Soren: How do you support diversity here? In many places in the tech community, if you show up with a suite and tie, people often look at you like you are old school or past-tense. So, how do you support diversity in your culture such that a new norm is not created and if people want to dress in a suit and tie or with a bow tie, they feel free to do so?

Well, specifically, one of our core values is to “create fun and a little weirdness,” and that is one of our interview questions: we ask, “From a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?” If you are a 1, you may be a little straight-laced for us; if you are a 10, you may be a little psychotic for us. But we really do not care what your answer is. Our fundamental belief is that everyone is a little weird, so it is really just a fun way of saying that we celebrate every one’s uniqueness and we want their true personalities to come out, whatever that is.

This comes across in our call center as well. One person may call two different times and get two different reps with very different personalities. One rep may be chatty and like to tell jokes and the other may connect in a completely different way, and that is fine too. We don’t dictate one way or another.

We also do not have scripts and call times. We really encourage our reps to develop personal and emotional relationship with our customers, one phone call at a time.

“We really encourage our reps to develop personal and emotional relationship with our customers, one phone call at a time.”

Soren: A lot of people have lost their jobs today, and are somewhat mixed. A part of them is disappointed they lost their job, but another part did not like their job in the first place. People are wondering, “where do I move from here?”

I had plenty of friends who lost jobs in the last tech crash in the 90s and if you ask to them today, most of them will say it was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it forced them to do what they should have been doing anyway. It goes back to that idea that we are often really bad at predicting what makes us happy, but I think the majority of the people who are losing their jobs now will look back a few years from now and view it as a good thing as it gave them the opportunity to find something that they were passionate about.

Soren: I know it may be shifting, but what would you say is your purpose right now?

For me it is researching this the science of happiness field, which is a relatively new field since most of psychology has focused on how to fix people who are not functioning properly rather than on how to get normal people, happier. Then figuring how best to spread that to the world.

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Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Tony Hsieh

What are some of the teachings or writings that have influenced you, things that have framed how you approach Zappos and your life?

One of our core values here is “to pursue growth and learning,” and in the lobby is something called The Zappos library, where I have put books that have impacted me. Some of them are even required reading here. For me personally, for the past year or so I have been really influenced by this field called the “science of happiness.” One great book in this field is The Happiness Hypothesis; Peak is another great book.

When Zappos first started the main idea was, “Let’s sell a lot of shoes and be number one in that market.” We did that for the first few years, and then we all sat around one day and asked ourselves, “What do we want to be when we grow up? Do we just want to be about shoes or do we want to be about something more meaningful?”

We decided that we wanted the Zappos brand to be about the best customer service. The initial motivation for that was that we could sell more items beyond shoes, but a funny thing happened. We learned that having a higher purpose, which is not just about making the most profit, is actually good for business. Employees were happier and vendors came to visit more.

We also went through a process of asking our employees what our core ten committable values should be, and we developed them through a year-long process. We actually hire and fire people based on these core values. As an example, one of our core values is to be humble, so if someone applies who is really smart, talented and experienced, even if they could make an immediate impact to our bottom line, if the person is egotistical, we will not hire him or her; it’s not even a question.

“we learned that having a higher purpose, which is not just about making the most profit, is actually good for business.”

From a business perspective, if you have a greater vision beyond just profits or money — and that you can get employees to be happy about and believe in — and you combine that with a culture with committable core values, I think that is what will help grow businesses and brands in the long-term.

Pretty much all the research shows that people are pretty bad at predicting what will actually make them happy. They tend to think, “when I get x” or “when I achieve x” then I will be happy. The research shows that the most enduring happiness comes when you are a part of something bigger than yourself.

What ties everything together and really helps us achieve our greater purpose is that Zappos is about delivering happiness, whether it is to customers, employees, or spreading the gospel of the science of happiness.

And that can exist within a large corporate, growing organization?

Yeah, and I would say that is our greater purpose. It is not just about Zappos or our employees being happy; it is really about spreading happiness throughout the world.

And was there something in your life that initiated this interest or was it a gradual process of coming to this?

I think that it was a combination of a gradual process, and after selling LinkExchange, I didn’t have to work anymore, which forced me to think, “What do I really want to do?” Because it seemed kind of pointless to start another company just to make money.

“What ties everything together and really helps us achieve our greater purpose is that Zappos is about delivering happiness, whether it is to customers, employees, or spreading the gospel of the science of happiness.”

You got that experience fairly early in your life. A lot of people are still thinking that if I get to a certain place in life that is where real enjoyment comes.

Though it is not like my lifestyle changed a lot after the sale. All the stuff I bought, I could have bought prior to the sale just as easily. I think it is easy to get trapped in thinking, “Once I win the lottery,” then I can do all the things I want to do. But if you really sat down and make a list of all the things that you want to do, it’s actually not that expensive. At least it was not for me.

A lot of people are looking for greater purpose. People do not want to be miserable and they do not want to create more misery in the world, yet they find themselves in jobs and situations where they are not happy. They do not feel like they are making a contribution to themselves or the world. What do you think is the shift that can help?

I think the shift – and this comes from the research – is about being less “me” focused. When people are unhappy, they are generally focused on “This is what’s wrong with my life? Why is this happening to me?” How do I become happier?” It is kind of ironic, but if you actually focus on how to make other people happy, whether it is employees or friends, it actually ends up making yourself happier. If you are trying to chase happiness to benefit yourself, it may be harder to get to than if you go about it in what may seem counter-intuitive by focusing on others.

“It is kind of ironic, but if you actually focus on making other people happy, whether it is employees or friends, it ends up making yourself happier.”

With all the gadgets in our lives, we can easily be connected all the time, but often there is little purpose or focus in the emails we send or phone calls we make. How do you manage all the information in you life and make it purposeful?

I do not have a great answer: I am still challenged with managing my inbox. I try to take a step back, and ask, “How much time am spending on things that I am not really enjoying?” For example, if 20% of my inbox are emails that I do not enjoy dealing with, I try to find how can I delegate that to someone who may enjoy that. Others times, I may spend three hours on something, whether it is Twitter, text messaging, or email, but it does not feel like it because I am so into it.

So, do you have set times you do email? Do you have a schedule you follow or is it more organic?

It is more just what I am feeling. If I do not feel like dealing with Twitter or email for a day, then I won’t. I know if I try to force myself to deal with these when I do not feel like it, I usually get through half as much than if I wait for a time when I have the energy for it.

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Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Gopi Kallayil (pt. 2)

At any company, there are decisions that need to be made – some projects get funded and others do not, one person gets promoted and another does not. These can easily create ego clashes and some level of conflict. As great is Google is, this no doubt happens here. How do address those issues when they come up?

Those things absolutely happen here, but comparatively speaking this is a very conscious company and people are generally much more collaborative. Having said that, there are often situations when you feel should something should have happened differently. You may think, “I was passed over for a promotion that I should have got.”

Some people think that they can escape such issues by going to live in a monastery or ashram, but I have been to many ashrams and seen that these issues follow you — you get upset when the director of the ashram did not promote you to be senior teacher! This is because these things do not exist outside of you; they exist inside you. You take them with you wherever you go, whether you are working at a corporation or living in an ashram.

“Some people think that they can escape such issues by going to live in a monastery or ashram, but I have been to many ashrams and seen that these issues follow you.”

For me, usually there is a period where I am upset or disappointed, but I know the one thing that I can control is how I respond. Increasingly, how I am choosing to respond by asking three questions: 1) What is the greater good that may come from this? 2) What is this trying to teach me?” and 3) How I can respond with grace, wisdom, and maturity so that six months later I can look back on it and know that I did the best thing possible?

Using the promotion example, this happened to me some time back. The promotion was not occurring in the timeframe I thought it should. I realized, however, that what I wanted more than the promotion was the opportunity to operate at the next level. So I said to myself, “No one is stopping me from working at that level. Assume that level and act that way.” I went ahead gave myself the promotion. I even took myself out for ice cream to celebrate. By doing this, I gave myself permission to move to that next level. Then a few months later, the actual promotion came through.

You went ahead and internally made the shift?

Yes. I acted internally as if I had been given permission to work at that level.

Are there ways that Google supports collaboration and teamwork so clashes are less likely?

Absolutely. It all starts with who we hire. One of the qualities we look for, which is very hard to define, is something we call Googliness. Often at the end of an interview, someone will say, “I really think we should bring her on because she is Googlee.”

One aspect of this is a very collaborative and non-hierarchical mode of operation. For example, I do not sit in a closed office. I sit in an open office with my team and there are beanbags and big stuffed toys around us. It is a fun and creative workspace. This way it promotes collaboration and open access. Even the CEO of the company has a small modest office. There is a sense of egalitarianism rather than the hierarchical structures you see in other institutions.

“One of the qualities we look for, which is very hard to define, is something we call Googliness. Often at the end of an interview, someone will say, ‘I really think we should bring her on because she is Googlee.’”

Sounds like the group wisdom is seen as more important than any wisdom of one individual.

Yes. We also share information freely, so everything is very, very transparent. Anyone in the company can see what I am working on and I can see the goals and projects of other teams. The senior leadership is also very accessible. There is no one “corridor of power” here like you have at other corporations. It is spread out. In some ways, it mirrors the Internet, which has no central place of power or hierarchy.

Anything else you would like to add about how to live what I call consciously connected or Wisdom 2.0 — to live with purpose in our day and age?

Yes, it is that this life, what you call Wisdom 2.0, is a very joyous life. Ultimately, people are seeking happiness, and going towards it is worth pursuing. It seems to be the one solution to all of our problems. It definitely changes your life.

I think it helps to integrate one’s life. For example, we tend to think, “I have my work life, then I have my family life, then I have my spiritual life,” but the same person with the same body shows up everywhere, so you cannot really separate them. So you might as well accept it and integrate all of this into your practice.

To not think, “Oh, I am at work, so I do not need to be conscious now. I can do that later,” but instead to say “Yes” to whatever life presents?

Exactly. I am a marketing guy, so if I had to put it in a few words it would be, “Say Yes to a conscious life.”

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Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Gopi Kallayil

Soren: What are some ways you try to live consciously amidst your busy, constantly connected life? I’m guessing you get hundreds of emails a day working at Google.

Gopi: Yes. Google is an email-oriented culture, a meeting-oriented culture, and a collaboration-oriented culture. It is not easy to disconnect while working here, yet some times you need to do so in order to have some focused time and solve a big problem.

One thing I do is practice doing one thing at a time. There is a tendency to do too much at the same time and get very distracted, a tendency called continuous partial attention.  When I walk into a meeting, for example, I am often tempted to check and respond to email. However, when I look back I see that my time was actually not that productive. Therefore, I try not to answer emails in the middle of a meeting, unless there is a fire that cannot wait for an hour before it is put out.

The other thing I do is make appointments with myself. I block chunks of time in my calendar that read, “work block to finish project A.” For example, instead of responding to emails as they come, I will block out two hours for them and process hundreds of emails in one sitting.

“When I walk into a meeting, for example, I am often tempted to check and respond to email. However, when I look back I see that my time was actually not that productive.”

Do you have set inner practices you do on a daily basis or is it more of an intuitive process for you? Do you schedule time for a practice like yoga and meditation?

Yoga to me can be practiced all the time. In that sense, it is my inner practice from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. Every single moment of everyday, I try to be mindful, whether I am engaging with a janitor, a chef, an engineer, or a marketing colleague.

Having said that, I do set aside time. Every Thursday nothing comes in between me and an intense yoga practice I do. Every Monday at 5:30, I teach yoga here at Google. I also do a gratitude practice on my drive to work counting ten things that I am grateful for.

It is a little bit of both. I do set aside time, but every moment of every day is my inner work. To me, this is all a part of living with greater peace and happiness. I think this is the true path of life – what we might call self-realization or nirvana. And I want to channel all of my energy, including my work at Google, in that direction.

“Yoga to me can be practiced all the time. In that sense, it is my inner practice from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.”

What are some of the challenges you hear from your colleagues who are attempting to live more consciously in this technology-rich time?

There are three challenges. First is the volume. I get around 500 emails a day. Each of these emails is an information fragment asking for my attention. My grandfather, who was a rice farmer in a small village called Chittilencheri in India, probably received between three to five information fragments in a day.  The postman would bring a single piece of mail once in two weeks and I remember that it was a day of excitement.  So volume is the first challenge.

The second challenge is that in this global environment, work is around the clock. There is no turning it off. For my grandfather, once the sun went down, the cattle were back in the shed and there was no plowing to be done, the rhythm of life changed. The rhythm here in Silicon Valley pulses and throbs 24/7.

The third challenge is that once you decide to work in the technology industry in Silicon Valley, there is no dial that you can turn and decide, “I want a little bit less of it.” If you sign up as I did to be a product marketing manager at Google, there is certain volume of responsibilities you are taking on and a certain pace at which you are expected to respond. You cannot regulate that very much. In other professions for example, a dentist could decide she will see fewer patients every Thursday or a pilot’s jobs ends when he  lands the plane and files his report. His work does not follow him around.  I think this is why some people I know have left a career in the tech industry and chosen to be schoolteachers or life coaches.

“If you sign up as I did to be a product marketing manager at Google, there is certain volume of responsibilities you are taking on and a certain pace at which you are expected to respond. You cannot regulate that very much.”

These are three challenges and I have to accept that “these are the conditions I am choosing to have,” and still ask, “In the midst of this, how can I be peaceful, happy, and content?”

It is understandable that people drop out, but it seems you have found that you can live this busy lifestyle and not have it take away from your spirit, enthusiasm, and life energy?

I would not say that I have mastered it. But here is how I choose to approach it. Rather than retract from it, I go towards it. I do this by saying, “I am so grateful to have so many meetings to go to and so many emails because it means I have an opportunity to have an impact.”

I have made peace with this in part because I derive great meaning from my work at Google. It is not just a job to me; I do not just do it for a paycheck. Our primary focus is making information freely available to all of humanity so anyone with a computer and Internet connection has full access to the same information.

“I have made peace with this in part because I derive great meaning from my work at Google. It is not just a job to me; I do not just do it for a paycheck.”

For example, my parents grew up without electricity or running water. When I visit Chittilencheri, my home village, it looks mostly the same. But there are a few computers with Internet connections. Now the kids in that village have almost the same access to information as kids do at Stanford or the Philips Academy. That leveling of the playing field is what Google is all about and that is what energizes me.

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Loic was named “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He also advises the World Economic Forum and participates in their conference each year in Davos. Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. He lives in San Francisco, California with his wife and three boys. This interview was conducted at the Seesmic offices in San Francisco.

Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Loic Le Meur (Pt. 2)

Soren: You have to be one of the most active online users I know. You have posted something like 14,000 updates on Twitter and are of course very active on Seesmic. You are also a blogger and very present on Facebook and Youtube. How do you find a balance in your life without getting smothered in information overload?

Loic: I am struggling with it. I do not know the answer. This is a very important subject. It’s strange because I have recently been thinking a lot about just this issue.

I tend to get distracted a lot. For example, I start to read a book then get to page 4 and want to go online and talk to people about what I have read so far. This sharing is very important, but too much back and forth makes me lose focus. It is hard for me sometimes to just focus on one thing.

“If you are not careful, you can spend all day tending to other people’s priorities instead of your own.”

One way I try to manage everything is to not live from my inbox. I like the quote I heard from Chris Sacca that goes “Your inbox is a to-do list with which anyone else can add an item.” I use a site called Remember the Milk which helps me stay focused on my top priorities, rather than get lost responding to emails and posts all day. If you are not careful, you can spend all day tending to other people’s priorities instead of your own.

Another activity I do that really helps is that I jog almost everyday. This helps clear my mind. I think it is important to step away from the computer sometimes. For many of us, there is rarely a time that we are not connected. The problem is that I am in the business of creating companies, like Twhirl, that keep you constantly connected with information coming at you non-stop (laugh). But I think we need to find a balance and I am trying to do that.

I know that you recently stopped auto-following everyone on Twitter. You followed about 20,000 people. It seems almost impossible to follow that many people.

It is not almost impossible, it is impossible. There is no way to do it. Robert Scoble took issue with me about this, arguing that if someone follows you, you should follow that person. But I do not want to pretend to follow people that I actually do not. I am slowly adding more people, and hope to find a good balance with it. I want to really get to know the people I follow rather than pretend to follow 20,000 people.

In a recent tweet, you said that you have decided to focus on quality over quantity.

Yes, that is what I am trying to do. Quality is often missed in our world today. For example, if I was here talking to you, and at the same time, I was typing and sending messages on a Blackberry, it would change the quality of our interaction. I am not always successful at it, but I try to be present for people both on and offline.

We are also trying to do this with Twhirl and Seesmic: we are releasing fewer new products, but making sure that the ones we do are really needed and helpful.

“if I was here talking to you, and at the same time, I was also trying to take care of other tasks by typing and sending messages on a Blackberry, it would change the quality of our interaction.”

You got in a debate with Michael Arrington some time back because he had gone to the Le Web event you organize in Paris and said that Europeans do not work hard enough. You argued that you do not need to work like crazy to succeed. Do you really think that you can be more effective with balance rather than constant effort?

Actually, Michael called us lazy! He said it right there on stage. He said we were lazy and that is the reason we never create the great Internet companies. However, I do not agree with him. Europe, by comparison, has had many successful Internet companies.

“ I am not always successful at it, but I try to be present for people both on and offline.”

It’s funny because I took Michael out to a five-hour dinner in Paris with one of the world’s best chefs. Michael is probably the hardest working blogger in the world, a guy you cannot get on the phone for more than two minutes, and for this dinner he had to sit down in one place for five hours and just enjoy food. It was torturous for him! I mean, five hours sitting there with no Internet connection and slowly eating each course…. For Michael to take a five-hour dinner is unheard of. He did not know what to do at first. I think later in the evening he relaxed a bit and actually enjoyed it.

I like the value Europeans place on non-work activities, such as taking time for friends and meals. It’s not the same here, where going out for lunch with someone just to get to know him or her is often seen as a waste of time. However, I appreciate the innovation of those in Silicon Valley. We are in a tough recession now, and it is felt strongly by those of us here in Silicon Valley.

In France, people would spend most of their time complaining and blaming the government, but here people are staying very positive, and are even asking, “What are the opportunities in a recession?” They take a very creative approach.
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Loic was named “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He also advises the World Economic Forum and participates in their conference each year in Davos. Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. He lives in San Francisco, California with his wife and three boys. This interview was conducted at the Seesmic offices in San Francisco.

Wisdom 2.0 Interview with Loic Le Meur (pt. 1)

Soren: As someone is very active on Twitter and Seesmic, how do you think these kind of social networking sites are changing the world?

Loic: One very dramatic way is that the old way of advertising — trying to convince people to buy something — just does not work anymore. People now share more directly with one another what products or services they like and dislike. For example, this shirt I am wearing is called Icebreaker, and I bought it after 3 different people told me how much they liked the brand. I now own 5 pair. I saw a friend at TED recently and he saw my shirt and remarked, “Cool shirt. I own several by that same brand.” Now, I did not buy the shirt because I saw an ad by the company; instead, it was through hearing about it from my community.

The new trend is about people connecting with one another and sharing information directly. Sites like Twitter really support this. Therefore, the best way to make a successful product today is to worry less about advertising and focus more on making it high quality. If you do, people will talk about it and it will spread.

What do you think makes a good user of social sites, like Twitter and Seesmic?

Very little marketing is the first. Don’t continually put up posts trying to get people to buy something. It does not add to the community. Of course, I post about Seesmic and Twhirl, but as a percentage, these are quite small. Most of my posts are about my life or interesting articles I find online.

“The new trend is on people connecting with one another and sharing information directly. Sites like Twitter really support this.”

The second is to give to the community and share about yourself. Recently a Harvard professor joined Seesmic and for his first post, he submitted a question to the community, but almost no one responded. He asked, “Why did no one respond?” and it was because he had not taken the time to introduce himself to the community, to share something about himself so users could get a sense of his personality and interests.

Many people have lost their jobs and are thinking of starting their own business. As someone who has started many companies, what have you learned that is important as an entrepreneur?

I think it is important to start whatever you want to do. Don’t worry if it sucks. Put it up, get feedback, and slowly it will suck less.

Seesmic is still not what I would like it to be, but I think we have received the support we have from people like Pierre Omidyar, who invested $3 million in Seesmic, because he could see it and meet the community.

“I think it is important to start whatever you want to do. Don’t worry if it sucks. Put it up, get feedback, and slowly it will suck less.”

The second is to share your idea. So many people in Silicon Valley say, “I can’t tell you what I am working on,” or “you have to sign an NDA before I tell you,” but this makes no sense to me. If you have an idea, you can be sure that at least 100 other people have that same idea. So instead of keeping that a secret, share it, collaborate, work together. We are all so connected and I think those that work in the open and collaborate are more likely to succeed.

The third is to receive and respond to user feedback. I know many CEOs want to delegate this task, but to me this is the most important task of any company, and I spend much of my day doing it. I want to hear what people are saying about our company’s products, and I want to hear to directly – not through a report or filtered through someone else. This is key.

“If you have a great idea, you can be sure that at least 100 other people have that same idea.”

If I remember right, I think Michael Arrington said at one point that Seesmic was sucking less, and you have taken that as your tag line.

Yes, I guess his way of saying that we are improving was to say that we are “sucking less,” so I decided to make that my personal tag line: “I suck less everyday.” I think that is part of being an entrepreneur: you give it your all, knowing that you have to begin somewhere, but that if you work hard and are open to feedback, slowly your product or service will improve.

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