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The following is a conversation with Kimball Musk, a longtime entrepreneur and chef, and author of a new cookbook called The Kitchen Cookbook, Cooking for Your Community.
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You should check it out.
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It is, in fact, the first cookbook I ve ever owned.
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I ve already made stuff from it, and it s delicious.
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And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just wanna get in touch with me for a bunch of different reasons,
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please go to lexfriedman.com slash contact.
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Like the movie.
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Except I m not an alien.
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Allegedly.
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And now, onto the full ad reads.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors.
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Maybe you will too.
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This episode is brought to you by...
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Power naps, the act of napping, the act of sleep, but the act of napping fundamentally is where all of life s joys come from.
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No, there s a lot of people disagreeing on this point.
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Anyway, it s eight sleep, and they have a pod three cover that cools the bed down or heats it up.
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If you re an insane person, I love you too.
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Insane people are beautiful people, so we may disagree.
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Emacs versus Vim, Messi versus Ronaldo,
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What else is there?
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I don t know.
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Those are the two big disagreements in my life.
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Although at this point, do you honestly disagree that Messi is the greatest of all time?
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Is there even a competition?
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I mean, you can appreciate the human, the genius of different players throughout the history of soccer, but Lionel Messi is just on another level.
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Anyway, at this very moment, I m drifting downwards in terms of energy, and I just know that after this, I ll take a nap for maybe even 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes on the said eight-sleeve bed.
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It ll be cool with a warm blanket, and when I get up, the birds will be chirping, there ll be butterflies,
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In my mind, it ll just be all perfect.
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I ll sit down, maybe a little bit caffeine, and just get back to work.
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Anyway, check it out and get special savings when you go to asleep.com slash flex.
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This episode is also brought to you by ExpressVPN, a thing I ve used for many years to bring me joy.
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Speaking of said butterflies, it just brings me joy.
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What is life about, really?
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Surround yourself with cool people, surround yourself with products that make your life easier, and products that fill your life with joy.
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I spend so much time behind the computer, it s just,
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a reliable thing I have across all operating systems.
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I have it on Linux, I have it on Windows, I have it on Android, and I don t use other operating systems often, but I do have an iPhone and I have it on that as well.
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Anyway, you can go to ExpressVPN.com slash LexPod for an extra three months free to check them out.
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to bring a little bit of joy into your life, but actually more importantly, to have that basic layer of protection when you need it on the internet.
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And friends, you shall need it.
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This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system.
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The kids these days, the cool ones, call it an ERP system.
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ERP is the brain at the center of the machine.
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A company is a machine that runs the machine, and at the meta level, the capitalist system is a machine of machines, so there s a lot of machines in there.
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Anytime I say the word machine, I think about Burt Kreischer, but I think...
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He is probably not the kind of machine that would be efficient at running a large-scale company.
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So, he s a different kind of machine.
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He is indeed a machine, but a different kind.
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If you want a machine that s running your company,
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creating a sort of common language where the different modules of the company can communicate, and just taking care of the messy stuff, the HR stuff, the managing financials, inventory, supply, e-commerce, all that kind of stuff.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here s Kimball Musk.
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Growing up in South Africa, you said it was a violent place.
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What are some formative moments that you remember from that time?
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South Africa was, so I grew up in apartheid South Africa, but more specifically, the fall of apartheid.
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So it was the 80, I was a teenager in the 80s.
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And our community would,
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Part of our social life, frankly, was the anti-apartheid protests and to go be with white people, black people, kind of mixing it all together.
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The most formative experience is, frankly, how much I appreciate a place like America where we have value for human life.
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There was a country where human life was not valued.
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It s a weird thing to come from that to here where we take it so seriously.
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If someone dies in a war or something like that, and we just didn t take it seriously in South Africa, people died.
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where people were killed.
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I saw someone killed in front of me.
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I was getting off a train and it s a very violent train known for violence.
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We were stupid kids, we didn t really listen to our parents.
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We went on this train and the doors opened and I had people trying to get off the train.
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And in front of me, two black people, one black guy just stabbed this knife in the side of this other black guy s head.
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And you re like, what the fuck?
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And you just, I gotta get off the train.
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How old were you at this time?
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Probably 16 or 17, and I gotta get off the train, and everyone is trying to get me to get off, because they re all behind me.
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So I step off and I step into the pool of blood, one foot, and then I just walk for about 100 paces while the stickiness of the blood, just kind of from my sneakers, just on one foot, just like leaves a footprint behind me.
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And you just walk on.
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You just walk on.
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Did the others walk on as well?
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Everyone walked on.
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That s an interesting point you make.
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Underlying the violence is a kind of
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philosophy that human life is disposable, that individual life is disposable.
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I mean, that underlies many ideologies.
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I grew up in the Soviet Union.
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The value of human life was lower there than in the United States.
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The value of the individual in the United States is really high.
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There s probably an index you can put together.
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Yeah, right, exactly.
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Per nation.
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That s a really interesting way to put it because violence is much easier on a mass scale.
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Suffering, causing suffering on a mass scale is much easier when you don t value the human life.
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I ve heard this before, which I think I agree with, is when someone is killed, someone is taken from our lives, the vacuum that it creates, the social vacuum, is extraordinarily painful.
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And it truly is true.
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I mean, if someone in my community passes away, it s very, very sad for me.
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And when you go to a place where, grow up in a place where that human life is not valued, there s something about the, there s a little bit less of the social vacuum created because everyone is kind of expecting everyone to potentially be taken out at any moment.
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But then there s also a beauty to it because there s a much more of a celebratory element.
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When my cousin Russ and I, again, we were stupid kids, we shouldn t be doing this, but we d go into the townships where a lot of the violence would be happening.
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We really didn t see most of the violence there.
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It was in these more protests and so forth.
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But there s a joy that also comes from lower value of human life.
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There s a real joy, like everyone was like, well, I mean, it s beautiful.
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We d have dinner with black friends, you know, friends with their family, and we were still pretty young.
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And there was just a real joy to it.
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When you accept mortality, you can really enjoy life.
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You can really enjoy, I mean, I think there s actually, that s quite a nice insight.
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I ve never really put it that way, but I think that s right, actually.
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I think you just chill out a bit, take things a little less seriously.
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Because life does end for everybody.
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It does, right?
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And if you just head on, accept that fact, you can just enjoy every single moment and let go of this attachment and just enjoy the moment.
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I do love that we all live longer and so forth, but we should live longer with the goal of joy and the goal of happiness and peace, not some form of misery that you choose to attach yourself to.
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Maximize joy.
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Maximize joy, that s right.
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There s a story that Walter Isaacson writes about where Elon got beat up pretty bad and you were there.
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And then you also had to watch your dad yell at Elon for an hour, calling him worthless, all those kinds of things.
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You said it was the worst memory of your life.
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What do you make of such cruelty?
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What do you remember from that time?
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I mean, it was horrible.
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I think, you know, coming back to the point of low value of human life, they tried to kill him.
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It wasn t, it was no holding back.
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I just watched someone,
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It wasn t just one, but there was a main person, and then there was a few others that piled in.
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They just, they tried to kill him in front of me.
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We were eating sandwiches on a staircase at the school, an outdoor staircase, and I just had to, they were not coming after me, and I just had to watch, and I couldn t help.
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It was one of the saddest, most difficult,
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experiences, it just was, it s just awful.
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Just like that, life can end.
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Yeah.
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Could have been you.
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Yeah, I think, so I ve had a near-death experience where I almost died.
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I was in 2010, and I think that, and I broke my neck, and I can go to that story in a moment, but this was different.
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This was, this comes back to the low-value-of-human-life part, where if someone had killed my brother, if that person had beat him to death, which he was trying to do,
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Life would have gone on.
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That s like an insane thought in an American, maybe in some tough neighborhoods, but for the most part, it s another thing.
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Yeah, the brutality of that, the mundaneness of that brutality.
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It makes you think of all the places in the world that that s happening.
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Exactly.
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And all the beautiful people that just disappear.
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I always say to people who have an opinion about America that this is a really bad country or whatever, and I say, look, please go try another country before you say that.
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Not to say that America can t get better, but please go try another country because not having that perspective, or having a perspective that, I don t know, they ll catch up on their shoulder about the country that they re in,
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okay, go try another country, and then come back and tell me.
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Pick any country, it doesn t have to be, it doesn t have to be some very violent country, go pick any country.
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And you just realize that actually the world doesn t think the same way that America thinks.
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And you re gonna just learn a perspective that I think gives you a better way to critique where we live in America.
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Yeah, it s humbling.
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You said that your dad was a roller coaster of affection and then verbal abuse.
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Walter Isaacson quotes Barack Obama who said, someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father s expectations or make up for his father s mistakes and I suppose that may explain my particular malady.
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Is part of that ring true for you?
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What I thought you were gonna say was, we thought you were gonna end the sentence with, live up to my father s expectations.
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This is what most people say.
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But then you said the second part, which is make up for his mistakes.
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And I think that s actually, that one rings true for me.
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He was really, he s still alive but I m not connected to him, but he taught me, the phrase I used to have was he taught me what not to do.
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So I still actually learned a lot, what kind of human not to be, what kind of actions not to take.
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And so that kind of closer to living up to his mistakes, but my father was such a train wreck that it s not really mistakes, it s like intentional actions of what not to do.
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Okay, don t do that.
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But there s still the trauma of that,
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You know, it has an effect on the human psychology and can permeate through time.
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So it has probably complex indirect effects on who you are.
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the good and the bad.
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There s a critique that my friends give me, which is when they re talking to me, I kind of just drift away.
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I m still looking at them, I m still nodding, might even respond to them in their conversation, but I m actually not there.
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And I ve realized that actually I grew up, because my father would just verbal, abuse is one way to say it, it is abuse, but it s more just verbal diarrhea for hours and constantly saying, do you understand?
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He wants to make sure that I m paying attention.
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So I trained myself to look like
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I m paying attention, but I m not.
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To disappear to some place.
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Disappear to some place.
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Wherever that is.
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Yeah, and I do that less and less over time, but I. But that path has been paved somewhere in your mind at childhood, so it could be easy to walk down it.
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You and Elon were close growing up, you re still close.
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What did you learn from each other?
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How did you complement each other?
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Yeah, I think we are a good complement.
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I ll talk for myself first.
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My strength is definitely on the social side.
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I love the gathering place, and I love putting people together in person, and I love to have vibrant debates and conversations.
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I ve been doing that
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forever, including throwing fun parties and stuff where I bring people together and I really kind of want people to have fun and be, but be vulnerable in a, not just like silly partying, but actually like let s all connect.
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The definition for me of a good party is people laugh and cry.
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I wanna have people have an emotional connection.
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I go to Burning Man every year, and that is, there s no question, you will cry at some point during Burning Man.
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No small talk.
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No small talk, oh yeah, exactly, no small talk.
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You re totally right on, like most parties, not parties, but most events you go to are like clubs, these sort of nightclubs, and I never go to those, and my joke is, why would I wanna go to a place where I pay to shout small talk in the dark?
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That s what it feels like.
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The only reason I enjoy those places is the full absurdity of exactly that.
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Right, it s totally absurd.
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What are we doing?
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What is this?
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What is this life?
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But I have, so my compliment for my brother was just bringing joy and social connection.
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And he s truly, he s an engineering genius.
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I ve worked with him forever and we do compliment each other.
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He just came out with a cookbook.
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By the way, thank you for giving me my first cookbook.
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I feel legit.
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I love that it s your first cookbook.
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I m gonna keep it on the counter and it s gonna give me legitimacy when anyone comes over.
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Hey listen, I m basically a chef now.
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That s right, exactly.
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When did you first fall in love with cooking?
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I started cooking when I was 11 years old.
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My mom is just, she s wonderful, but she s self-admittedly a bad cook.
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But at the time it was, and I think anyone with kids goes through this, your kids just want like something that, spaghetti bolognese or a burger or something.
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And my mom would do,
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brown bread, plain yogurt, and boiled squash, you know, like the absolute most disgusting things that a child could imagine eating.
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And so I said, can I cook?
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And she said, yeah, if you wanna cook, no problem.
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So I went to the grocery store and I, back in those days, a butcher, separate to the grocery store, and I went to the butcher and I said, what can I cook?
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And he pulled out a chicken and he said, this is the easiest recipe for you, just put it on a pan in an oven, a hot oven, because back then the ovens weren t necessarily like 400 degrees or 450 or whatever.
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and put it in a hot oven for one hour and enjoy, that was it.
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And so I went home and actually I also brought some French fries, I ll tell you that as well.
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I m a kid, of course I want French fries.
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So the roast chicken was French fries.
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And the chicken came out and it was just fantastic.
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It was.
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Absolutely fantastic.
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That s incredible, by the way.
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You didn t screw it up the first time.
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First of all, I think that also kicks off the magic.
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If you screw it up and you re like, oh, maybe this is not for me.
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So for me, it really did kick it off.
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You started out on a high note.
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Yeah, right, exactly.
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But I could tell the French fry part, which was a disaster.
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So I cooked the French fries, but I didn t heat the oil first.
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So I just put the potatoes in the oil and I waited for it to heat up.
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And I just was throwing up later that night.
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Your body can t ingest that much because it sucks the oil in.
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And so that was a disaster, but at the time it tasted good.
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The real magic, which I also found was wonderful, was when I cooked, my brother, my sister, my mom, all very, very busy, very intense people would sit down and we would have a meal together.
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And I was like, wow, this is a powerful,
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It s a very powerful thing that I ve now got, where in no other way could I have that connection with my family.
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I mean, obviously we stay connected, we re very close to Sector, but in no other way could we sit down and just talk about things.
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or talk about whatever s on our mind, or just to just, not even talk, just to be at the table together.
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And I ve done that now through my whole life, my kids, still for my family, and we ll do gratitudes at the beginning of our meal, and it s just, I think what kept me cooking, what made my love of cooking so great,
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was actually the fact that we would sit down and be present with each other.
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And I m also just also hard with that too, so I also get to be present.
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What is that about food that brings people together, and not just together, but really together, where you re like,
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paying attention.
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Like, what is that?
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Why is it food?
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What else does that?
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Sometimes maybe alcohol can do that, which is a kind of food, I guess.
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Yeah, but I think alcohol is different because you use the standing when you re doing alcohol, so you re like, you re socializing, but it s kind of, you re just gonna stay more in the small talk zone, right?
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Whereas if you sit down, and I see this in my restaurant in the kitchen in Boulder,
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where we have every viewpoint, or we go to Denver, every viewpoint.
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We went to one in Chicago, every viewpoint.
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And the physical presence of someone being right there is, people are just, they re just very different, absolutely different to what they are online.
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I think we all know the difference between, you know, you send an email to someone and they misunderstand the email, right?
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, if I just had talked to the person, it would have been fine.
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SPEAKER_03
Well, this is now happening at scale, you know, with all of these, what do you call it, trolling or whatever.
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And I have, I ve sat at the bar and I ve had,
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hardcore Trump supporter, and I m just curious.
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I m not a Trump supporter, but tell me more.
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And it actually draws the conversation out because you re there for an hour or longer.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s no rush to get the answer.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I think that s a big difference.
1
SPEAKER_03
I ve had one time where, just a couple months ago, I had someone, I was sitting at the community table, we have a community table in the restaurant, and I didn t know him too well, but he asked me, did I know that 9-11 was a conspiracy and it didn t really happen?
1
SPEAKER_03
It didn t happen, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I was like, huh.
1
SPEAKER_03
So actually, I was at 9-11.
1
SPEAKER_03
I mean, I was there, physically there.
1
SPEAKER_03
Allegedly.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s no doubt in my mind.
1
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_03
But I didn t wanna interrupt what he had to say.
1
SPEAKER_03
So I let him talk for five minutes, six minutes, seven minutes.
1
SPEAKER_03
And again, you re there for a while, so you re not in a rush to jump in and argue.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then I shared that I was there.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I think because I had been willing to listen to him, he was willing to listen to me, and I don t know if he changed his mind, certainly he doesn t change my mind, but it was actually a pretty cool conversation to kind of get into each other s mind.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I think you connect on a different level, not on the level of like,
1
SPEAKER_00
the conspiracy, but on the level of basic humanity.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what you really connect on.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it almost becomes interesting and fun that you can exchange ideas, even crazy ideas, out there ideas, and kind of play with them.
1
SPEAKER_00
We humans are good at that.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, exactly, I like the term play with them because what you re not trying to do is shut the conversation down.
1
SPEAKER_03
You re also not trying to- Calm down, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, exactly, like, let me just be nice while I totally disagree with this person.
1
SPEAKER_03
You can do that for a few minutes, you can t do that for two hours.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there s something about food,
1
SPEAKER_00
that completely, I don t know, it must be evolutionary.
1
SPEAKER_00
It makes us vulnerable in a way that even just standing there for a prolonged period of time doesn t.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s something about, you know like when the animals gather to the water or whatever?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like this kind of experience where you re just like, all right, let s,
1
SPEAKER_00
let s just acknowledge together that we need sustenance.
1
SPEAKER_00
And somehow that kind of grounds us to like, we re just a bunch of descendants of apes here, just kind of like grateful to be alive, frankly, and grateful to be consuming this thing, which keeps us alive.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in that context, you can talk about all kinds of stuff.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can discuss flat earth and enjoy it.
1
SPEAKER_03
Absolutely, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_03
In fact,
1
SPEAKER_03
One of my favorite things to do is you do like a Jeffersonian style dinner.
1
SPEAKER_03
Let s say five or six people.
1
SPEAKER_03
Sometimes people will break off into individual conversations.
1
SPEAKER_03
That s actually when things break down.
1
SPEAKER_03
So that s when you kind of go back to small talk.
1
SPEAKER_03
Like, oh, I m stuck next to this guy.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m just gonna do a little small talk.
1
SPEAKER_03
What you need to do to really create a great conversation is one conversation at the table.
1
SPEAKER_03
And that s where, you know, there ll be some simple questions that I ll say.
1
SPEAKER_03
I ll say, you know, what s your middle name?
1
SPEAKER_03
And you ll be amazed at the stories you get from that.
1
SPEAKER_03
But it s about creating vulnerability.
1
SPEAKER_03
So they re like, oh, no one s ever asked me that before.
1
SPEAKER_03
So then they become vulnerable.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then something as simple as what s the most fun thing you ve done recently and what is the most fun thing you re looking forward to?
1
SPEAKER_03
And I have gotten into, with those prompts, I ve gotten into hours-long discussions on God.
1
SPEAKER_03
I ve gotten into hours-long discussions on love.
1
SPEAKER_03
I ve gotten into hours-long discussions on anger.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s actually amazing when people are just asked a question like, what s the most fun thing you ve done lately?
1
SPEAKER_03
Well, why would anger come up?
1
SPEAKER_03
Well, actually,
1
SPEAKER_03
They re in a vulnerable place, so it ll just kind of come out of them.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you get to see this.
1
SPEAKER_00
You get to see this at the kitchen, and you said Boulder, Denver, Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and we re gonna open in Austin.
1
SPEAKER_00
In Austin, that s what I saw.
1
SPEAKER_00
When?
1
SPEAKER_00
In October is the goal.
1
SPEAKER_00
In October is the goal.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, speaking of characters and human beings, Austin is fascinating.
1
SPEAKER_00
I forget how long ago, a couple months ago, I was just sitting at a bar, and the two people were talking, and they were talking about Marxism, and it turns out that they re anarcho-communists, which is a thing, and I got into this conversation.
1
SPEAKER_03
Communists that likes drugs?
1
SPEAKER_03
That s a good question to ask.
1
SPEAKER_03
I think I know some of those.
1
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, they were beautiful people.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think they re local from Austin.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know the depth of their personal experience of the different kinds of communist-like systems, but it was fascinating to listen to them and get to know them and the humanity, the weirdness, like the characters.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s just, I mean, I love it.
1
SPEAKER_00
One of the reasons I really love Austin, I decided to be here is just the,
1
SPEAKER_00
the cliche thing of keep Austin weird.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s a lot of weird characters.
1
SPEAKER_03
I love it.
1
SPEAKER_03
I think that I ve talked to a lot of Austinites that have been here forever and I m like, man, you gotta hold us accountable.
1
SPEAKER_03
We gotta keep this place weird.
1
100%.
1
SPEAKER_00
Which makes the restaurant seem great because you have all these characters come in.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s great.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I look forward to that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But you were saying like, you get to see humans in real life interact.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s one of the beautiful things over food.
1
SPEAKER_00
In the book you write, Picasso once said, the meaning of life is to find your gift.
1
SPEAKER_00
The purpose of life is to give it away.
1
SPEAKER_00
Then you wrote that you believe food is a gift we give ourselves three times a day.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you explain that, the gift nature of it?
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I think it s one of my most powerful life lessons, is we have to eat.
1
SPEAKER_03
So it s not like you have a choice, you have to eat.
1
SPEAKER_03
And so what I choose to do is I choose to make it a gift to myself for each meal.
1
SPEAKER_03
And most of the time, the best gift is with friends, with family.
1
SPEAKER_03
So we ll have to cook some scrambled eggs in the morning with my daughter, or we ll have dinner with our family.
1
SPEAKER_03
To me, it s a gift we give ourselves three times a day, at least, but for the most part, three times a day.
1
SPEAKER_03
Let s make it a good one.
1
SPEAKER_03
What makes it a good one to you?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like what aspect makes it a good one?
1
SPEAKER_03
Well, first, definitely eating with people.
1
SPEAKER_03
So that makes it a good one.
1
SPEAKER_03
So eating in a restaurant, or it doesn t have to be my restaurant, where you have the energy of people around you, energy of the town, people you don t know, creates a little bit of a vibe.
1
SPEAKER_03
You mentioned the watering hole analogy, that animals like sipping at the water.
1
SPEAKER_03
But there s an energy to that, because they re also looking around going, am I just about to be eaten?
1
SPEAKER_03
So they re all in it together, but we need to have water, but there s also a little bit of tension as well in the background.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I think that s what restaurants do, a very, very subtle version of that.
1
SPEAKER_03
You re in a room with strangers,
1
SPEAKER_03
And yeah, you re a little cluster.
1
SPEAKER_03
Okay, fine.
1
SPEAKER_03
You guys are connected, isn t it?
1
SPEAKER_03
But you re in a room of strangers, and it s just something that adds that energy to the meal.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re a little bit wondering, like, what does everyone else think about our little cluster?
1
SPEAKER_03
Right, like, are we too loud?
1
SPEAKER_03
Or just, you also just, people are random, so something random could happen.
1
SPEAKER_00
And also, depending on your personality, if you re an extrovert, maybe you want to show off to the other clusters.
1
SPEAKER_03
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_03
Totally right.
1
SPEAKER_03
I mean, you know, look at the cowboy hat.
1
SPEAKER_03
I mean, actually, I ll take my hat off when I want to have a quiet meal, and I can leave my hat on when I m... So you re aware of the law.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m aware of the effect it has.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
Everyone turns.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it s back to the watering hole, because when you wear a cowboy hat, you just might actually... Yeah, I m like, they re going to get me first.
1
SPEAKER_02
At noon, I love it.
1
SPEAKER_02
I gotta tell the story.
1
SPEAKER_03
So just to talk to the craziness of being in the restaurant world where you re sitting at a table and anything can happen in a restaurant.
1
SPEAKER_03
So there s one time, it was like 15 years ago, this guy comes up to us and says he d like to propose to his wife, his girlfriend.
1
SPEAKER_03
And so we said, okay, cool, we ve done this before.
1
SPEAKER_03
make sure it s all set up, 6 p.m.
1
SPEAKER_03
kind of reservation.
1
SPEAKER_03
So she shows up and we give her a glass of champagne.
1
SPEAKER_03
We obviously didn t want to spoil the surprise, so we re just doing everything we can.
1
SPEAKER_03
But then he doesn t arrive.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then we re like, oh man.
1
SPEAKER_03
Now we re like, don t leave, can we get you another glass of champagne?
1
SPEAKER_03
We re doing everything we can.
1
SPEAKER_03
The guy was obviously earnest earlier, but just because he was stuck in traffic or whatever.
1
SPEAKER_03
And coming through the back door of the restaurant, which is, you re not allowed to come through the back door of the restaurant, a marching band from the school, the university, like comes through the restaurant, you know, full on brass band and the whole thing.
1
SPEAKER_03
And he gets down and he proposes.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s beautiful, sure, but it s also like, man, this is chaos, this is insane.
1
SPEAKER_02
And we would never have said yes to this if he d actually told us what he was gonna do.
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, sometimes in life you have to do it and apologize.
1
SPEAKER_03
You do it and apologize.
1
SPEAKER_03
But that toast to that kind of, what s the crazy thing that could happen?
1
SPEAKER_03
It s subtle, but it s still there.
1
SPEAKER_00
So in 2004, you opened The Kitchen.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s an American bistro restaurant.
1
SPEAKER_00
What was it like, what s it like running a restaurant?
1
SPEAKER_00
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
1
SPEAKER_00
What s the easy, what s the fun, and what s the hard?
1
SPEAKER_03
I think the thing that I absolutely love about running the restaurant, not eating it, but running the restaurant, is the tangible reaction from people.
1
SPEAKER_03
And you also kinda know when you screwed it up.
1
SPEAKER_03
and you also know when you got it right.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s kind of a weird way to say this, but even if the customer s unhappy, you know whether you got it right or wrong.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s not just about the food you re making, but it s about the person s psychological state, and you ll
2
SPEAKER_01
you ll do something that you know that was not well.
2
SPEAKER_01
And their psychological state, they re just in a very happy place, and they love it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, huh, interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s not how I would have reacted to that dish.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then the other way around, you re like, no, I got that right, and that person s just really unhappy today.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it s so hard to read humans, because you have to, if you got it right,
2
SPEAKER_00
that can look a million different ways depending on the emotional rollercoaster that human is living through.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I ve been some very low points and I ve gone to like a restaurant alone and just sitting there and be truly happy was just the Zen aspect of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was just a great steak or something like this.
2
SPEAKER_00
And maybe to other people around me would look like I m very unhappy just because I m
2
SPEAKER_01
Struggling with your day.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, within myself, but I m truly happy within that struggle.
2
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, it s interesting, but you can kind of tell.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you can tell.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you mentioned being at the bar, one of the most, the most gifted bartenders really understand that.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it goes beyond, but what s also great about a restaurant, it goes beyond the one-time experience that you walk in and have that experience, is the good bartenders, they remember you.
2
SPEAKER_01
You were in a few months ago, and this is kind of your thing, you might need a little time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And other people will come in, they want a conversation.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or other people come in and they re going through a divorce and they just wanna be sad for a moment, have a scotch.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s amazing what you learn in the restaurant world to just be...
2
SPEAKER_01
connected to humanity.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
What is that about bars?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a different experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
You said the table, the communal.
2
SPEAKER_01
The table is when you connect with people, learn about each other.
2
SPEAKER_01
Bars, you can sometimes do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can talk left and right, but you have the freedom to always break free.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can say, okay, I m gonna go back to my meal.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like a friend you can turn on and off at any time because the bartender knows that.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re trained.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you want attention, I m gonna give it to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you don t, I m gonna stay away.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you wanna be chatty, I m gonna be chatty.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you wanna be completely in your head, I ll leave you in your head.
2
SPEAKER_00
But there s also strangers kind of next to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a feeling with a bar that you re kind of alone together.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you can reach out, you can add some conversation, or you can choose not to.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you can exit quickly.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can exit, exactly, it s a really good exit.
2
SPEAKER_01
So bars are wonderful, and I love going to a bar by myself after work.
2
SPEAKER_01
I might have a scotch, might not even have alcohol, just have something, and maybe have a snack or something before dinner, because I m gonna go home and have dinner with the family.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that 20 minutes,
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just an amazing state change from daytime to nighttime.
2
SPEAKER_01
If I went straight home, I m like still in my head and I m just trying to get grounded and I m not as pleasant of a person.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s another powerful use of a bar.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just like a transition time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, it would be remiss not to mention the other use of the bar, which is like when you go on through some shit in life and you just go.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s sort of the, it s the cliche thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been, some of my lowest.
2
SPEAKER_00
But like the bar makes the melancholy somehow like,
2
SPEAKER_00
rich and beautiful and you feel heard in the silence.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, you feel heard.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like I said earlier, people going through a divorce,
2
SPEAKER_01
they don t know where else to go.
2
SPEAKER_01
These are mostly men, sometimes women will do it, but mostly men will do this, and women have other ways of processing it, but they just, they want a place to be said, they want a place where they could feel comfortable talking about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re certainly not gonna go into too much detail, but they just wanna say something, and the bartender is there for them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you don t know where to go.
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t know where to go, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
The bar, yeah, you re right.
2
SPEAKER_00
For men especially, it s a place to just go and just, I don t know, what is that?
2
SPEAKER_00
What is that?
2
SPEAKER_01
I ll be honest, I still do it myself where if I m at home and I don t have a work thing that I gotta deal with and I don t have kids and I don t have my wife or a family around,
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t often cook for myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
I actually love going to a bar by myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have a glass of red wine, and I usually don t have a starter, appetizer, just like a main meal.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I just take in the energy of the space.
2
SPEAKER_01
If it s my restaurant or someone else s restaurant, I just take in the energy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s so much better than being home and, what, turn the TV on?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanna be out in the restaurant.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanna feel the energy of the town.
2
SPEAKER_01
The other thing that restaurants teach me is they re the front lines of,
2
SPEAKER_01
the economy, or what s a better word for it, just like the front lines of the energy of how things are going.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like of a people s in general, like it doesn t necessarily mean this part of town, but it could be the entire society.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you can go into a restaurant, and I ll use a simple example, and why is the restaurant empty?
2
SPEAKER_01
ah, there s a football game going on, and there s such a large number of people who wanna watch that game that the restaurant is quiet, or it might be like another World Series or something.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, wow, that s so interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can actually watch, in America, of course, American humanity, you can watch them move in their patterns
2
SPEAKER_01
just by being in the restaurant.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then another time you might be in a restaurant and it s just jamming and it s a Monday night and you re like, what is the energy that created this on a Monday night and maybe even on a cold February Monday night, what is it?
2
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes you can t find out but you can feel it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s my front lines of humanity that I also just really love about the restaurants.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it could be empty, it could be full.
2
SPEAKER_00
Empty bars, there s a magic to those too.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
You could still feel that energy, I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
I actually prefer empty bars than full ones.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just you and the bartender.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, some of my greatest experience is just the quiet bar.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just me and the bartender and they re doing their thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they ve seen so many, I ve almost like through osmosis somehow feel the stories that that bartender has seen, has felt, has heard.
2
SPEAKER_00
And all that kind of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that it s not to be sort of,
2
SPEAKER_00
like spiritual about it, but it seems like it s in the walls or something.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like there s the history s felt.
2
SPEAKER_01
And some of these bars are actually very old, and it s wonderful.
2
SPEAKER_01
There are many in Europe like this, but there s a couple in New York City, a few hundred years old, and they re still operating nonstop for that long.
2
SPEAKER_01
Man, you feel it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let me ask you some questions about ingredients.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s your favorite ingredient to cook with?
2
SPEAKER_01
For me, cooking is an art, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
So it d be like asking me what s my favorite paint color to use.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not that there isn t one.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s more like when there is one, it really is one.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s peaches on the cover of this cookbook.
2
SPEAKER_01
Those peaches, those were in August, Colorado peaches.
2
SPEAKER_01
It just doesn t get any better than that.
2
SPEAKER_00
On that day, at that moment, that was the best.
2
SPEAKER_01
But that only lasts for a week.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then they don t taste so great.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But damn are they so good in that moment and you just can t stop wanting to use that ingredient.
2
SPEAKER_00
They look really good.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re so good.
2
SPEAKER_01
What s your favorite fruit?
2
SPEAKER_00
I love veggies and fruit.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s your favorite fruit?
2
SPEAKER_01
I love a smoothie bowl, so I do sort of berries, raspberries, but I use fruit more in the form of a smoothie bowl than I eat fruit that often.
2
SPEAKER_01
I like an apple or a banana, but for the most part, I prefer the blended.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love the way you casually said it, like an apple.
2
SPEAKER_01
A good apple is pretty great.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me, it s a problem, I think.
2
SPEAKER_00
Probably cherries, number one.
2
SPEAKER_00
probably, what are they called?
2
SPEAKER_00
Granny Smith apples, number two.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, those are great.
2
SPEAKER_01
But try it when, sometime, come to Colorado in August, when you try those peaches, it is like heaven has arrived in your mouth.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is so ridiculously good.
2
SPEAKER_00
But just for a week in August.
2
SPEAKER_01
Just for a week, if you can t have it all year long.
2
SPEAKER_00
What about veggies?
2
SPEAKER_00
You wrote that Chef Hugo, that you worked with the co-founder of the kitchen with, taught you the power of a good vegetable.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s the power of a good vegetable?
2
SPEAKER_01
So I ve trained in New York as a French chef, but it wasn t very much ingredients focused, it wasn t very much sourcing focused.
2
SPEAKER_01
He came from the River Cafe in London, which was one of the OGs of the Farm to Table, and still going strong today.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he taught me the value of getting to know farmers and getting to know vegetables from that farm versus vegetables from that farm.
2
SPEAKER_01
and they re actually different.
2
SPEAKER_01
Soil s a little different, the way they grow it, a little different.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s the opposite of the industrial machine where everything needs to look exactly the same.
2
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes you ll get carrots that are kinda ugly and deformed, but they re much sweeter than the carrots you d get for other purposes.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you d make a carrot puree out of that, and then you d take carrots that are more,
2
SPEAKER_01
typical in shape and size, you might roast them for dinner.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s the appreciation for vegetables in general.
2
SPEAKER_01
I probably would say carrots is my favorite just because that was an example of one where I really had to learn how to use the different types of carrots that come from all of our farms.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s a fun ingredient.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you just went to the Whole Foods or just went to a grocery store and you just got exactly the same carrot every time, less fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
But go to a farmer s market and see what you get.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you ll see they re quite different.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, carrot for me is probably number one.
2
SPEAKER_00
I have rigorous detailed rankings for fruit and veggies.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_00
We ll get into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I am the kind of person that would have like a spreadsheet for that.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I m mostly just making fun of myself.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I do love carrots.
2
SPEAKER_00
I wish they weren t.
2
SPEAKER_00
so full of carbs, but.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m just not anti-carbs.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, I think the.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anti-carb, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think they play a role.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have a great friend who s an amazing doctor, and he did some tests for me and everything, and it turns out I have a gluten allergy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, okay, so what that means is I shouldn t eat gluten?
2
SPEAKER_01
He s like, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, okay, but I also have hay fever.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that means I should not go out into nature.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s like, nah, I think I m gonna go out into nature.
2
SPEAKER_01
And maybe what I ll do on bread and pastas, or like the true carbs, I ll just have it when it s really good.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because when it s really good, it s really good.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you don t wanna miss that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Most of the time, okay, find some crummy bread, whatever, like I can skip that part.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I find all of these diets are like, no, none of this, or super this, super that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wonder if they re just like, people are just looking for something to hang on to.
2
SPEAKER_01
But these diets have been around forever, and if they worked, then we would know that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems with diets is it adds stress when you do have that perfect bowl of pasta.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you have categorized yourself as a low-carb eating person,
2
SPEAKER_00
you might be very stressed about enjoying this thing when you should just let go.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let go, this is your cheat day or whatever.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I ve heard that, and actually I have friends who do that, their cheat day, and I say to them, I m only gonna hang out with you on your cheat day because that s when you re actually fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, I would say like for me, there s things that make me feel really good, but they re not rules, they re not rules.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re like go-to favorites in terms of diet and so on.
2
SPEAKER_00
For example, I ve mostly been eating once a day.
2
SPEAKER_00
For the longest time.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that s not a rule.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s completely flexible.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ve mostly been eating very low carb.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but you must be eating a lot of food in that one meal.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s not, you know, because it s usually a very sort of meat heavy, it s not like portions are that big.
2
SPEAKER_00
Your body needs food.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, body needs food.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re talking about like 2000 calories.
2
SPEAKER_00
What you find out is like that dinner.
2
SPEAKER_00
is like the most social time of the day.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I have kids in the morning, so if you have kids, it s for sure a morning experience, but if you don t, then you re right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but like you said, I deviate.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m more afraid of missing the perfect dessert, the perfect breakfast, the perfect bowl of pasta, pizza, all that kind of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t think of it as a cheat day.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think it s... Well, if you re eating one meal a day, you can eat whatever you like.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I wanna make clear that it s not one meal a day always, and I m like this very strict thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
You always have to be open to the experience, to the new experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
Otherwise, you do miss out.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just like you said, hay fever.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think if you wanna be really safe, you should never leave
2
SPEAKER_00
your home.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, we learned during COVID, if you wrap yourself in cotton wool in your basement, you re not going to die from COVID.
2
SPEAKER_01
You might die from a lot of other things, pure misery.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, you might live forever.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, we don t know.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it certainly doesn t maximize the joy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Whatever makes life worth living, it doesn t maximize that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
You wrote in the book that Anthony Bourdain was one of your heroes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can you speak to what inspired you about him?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he wrote a book called Kitchen Confidential in the 90s.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was in cooking school at the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was so, he romanticized the cooking in the restaurant so well.
2
SPEAKER_01
His writing is great.
2
SPEAKER_01
He kinda got me into like, oh, that s cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanna do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I got into cooking school, got more engaged in it, and I had this FOMO feeling of I wanted to experience what it s like to be in the back of the house.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you re in cooking school, you are in the back of the house.
2
SPEAKER_01
If they had a restaurant, we would serve people, but it s not the same thing as actually being in a real restaurant.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like you re in a submarine with your teammates, and you gotta win tonight.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a real energy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so that was a big inspiration.
2
SPEAKER_01
I followed him over there so sad that he chose to end his life.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I also had met with him a few times, not like one-on-one over dinner or anything, but just like met with him and I just felt his love for food and truly just love for food.
2
SPEAKER_00
He gave the advice of don t be afraid, get excited and cook with love.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I ve used that phrase, especially the cook with love one.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, one of the things about, which we talked about this earlier, where you get quick, tangible feedback from a customer when you re in the restaurant.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know when I didn t put love into that dish.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know when one of my line cooks did not put love into that part of the dish.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know when that expert person did not put love into double-checking the dish before putting it on the table.
2
SPEAKER_01
You just know.
2
SPEAKER_01
And cook with love is,
2
SPEAKER_01
when you do it for your family, oh, actually, especially when you do it for your family, the food doesn t have to be perfect, but you re cooking with love.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s why you love scrambled eggs.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do that, it s- That s in the book, Kimball s Scrambled Eggs.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
You promised to make me scrambled eggs, I m gonna hold you to it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s great.
2
SPEAKER_00
A cooking school you mentioned, the French Culinary Institute, I heard it was a,
2
SPEAKER_00
a bit of a rough experience in parts.
2
SPEAKER_01
I would call it, it s not a rough experience in that.
2
SPEAKER_01
In a beautiful way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s exactly, it s not like I m a victim of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s rough in that they intentionally make it rough.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the school costs the same price as Harvard to go to.
2
SPEAKER_01
You show up, you have to, it s an 18 month program.
2
SPEAKER_01
You are allowed to drop out at any time, you don t get your money back.
2
SPEAKER_01
25 people started, six people graduated.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the people who graduated, I graduated, but man, there were times where I m like, I can t handle this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I would literally say to my friends, oh, I gotta go to cooking school, I m gonna go get screamed at for the next six or seven hours.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I had this little French chef who was my nemesis.
3
SPEAKER_01
Does he still live in your head somewhere?
3
SPEAKER_00
in my head.
3
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
He totally does.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like 5 foot 2 or something.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember him screaming so much at me that this, he s like the short guy, I m 6 5 , the spittle would land on my face.
3
SPEAKER_01
Nice.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I would just have to sit there, or stand there, and take it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a very humbling experience.
3
SPEAKER_01
I did learn, though, that it s intentionally rough, so it took a little bit of the edge off it.
3
SPEAKER_01
One day, when that same chef had come over to me and said, move over a little bit, and I moved over, and he took my carrots, whatever, and started just chopping everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
It worked perfectly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then he said, again, you can come back.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then he went over to someone else and started screaming at them, saying that, look, even Kimball can do this, and you can t do this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, this whole thing s like a psycho game.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it did take the edge off when I realized there was, like the guy was intentionally trying to break you down.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they do this apparently in the army.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve not been in the army, but they need you to, they need to break you down.
3
SPEAKER_01
Everything you know is worthless so that then we can teach you and you can come out of it with what actually we want you to know.
3
SPEAKER_00
Are there specific technical lessons you remember you learned from that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Sort of how to cut carrots or,
3
SPEAKER_00
how to approach food, how to prepare food, how to think about food, how to carry yourself in the kitchen.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know?
3
SPEAKER_01
All of those things.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that one of the most beautiful lessons was actually scrambled eggs.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there s different layers of chefs.
3
SPEAKER_01
So they re all master chefs, they re all very well-known people and everything, but Alain Saltner was one of the chief, like main, main guys.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he just passed away, master chef.
3
SPEAKER_01
And everything kind of stopped when he would show up in the kitchen.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he would teach very few things.
3
SPEAKER_01
And all of the other chefs, the same ones that were screaming at us, it was like the Red Sea partying.
3
SPEAKER_01
They have total respect for this human and he can do whatever he wants.
3
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things he wanted to teach was how do you make an omelet, a French omelet.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s really fundamentally the same thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s the soft scrambled eggs that you fold.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the love that he put into the time with us, and of course he s a legend, there were moments like that where I m like, wow, okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
He also, just like the other chefs, didn t have any concern berating anyone.
3
SPEAKER_01
So he berated our master chefs, saying, I don t trust these people to teach you how to make scrambled eggs.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m gonna do it instead.
3
SPEAKER_00
What, I mean, can you speak to that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because, you know, a lot of people hearing this would be like, scrambled eggs?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, why do you need to be a master chef to really make scrambled eggs?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a, well, first of all, for me, it s a learning journey forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I make scrambled eggs, I mean, I must have made it 10,000 times or more, whatever.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like Jiro dreams of sushi, Kimball dreams of scrambled eggs?
3
SPEAKER_01
Pretty much.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I will wake up
3
SPEAKER_01
and be held accountable by my kids to make scrambled eggs, so this happens every morning.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know all the steps.
3
SPEAKER_01
muscle memory level kind of steps.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how much, well I don t.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I ll cook it and it s very meditative for me because you have to focus.
3
SPEAKER_01
So most soft scrambled egg recipes are 10, 15 minutes to get them to that perfect softness.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the recipe that I got from Chef Alan was something that you do in 90 seconds.
3
SPEAKER_01
but it requires total focus.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you look up for a second, you re going to miss the perfect moment where you have to stop and get those eggs out of the pan, because the eggs will keep cooking.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it s this meditation, and sometimes you hit it perfectly, but most times,
3
SPEAKER_01
could have been a little softer, could have been a little firmer, could have been a little bit more salt, could have been a little bit more pepper.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so what s really fun about the morning is my kids are kind of into it, so they re sort of like, we critique the eggs every morning.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do they have a rating system?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s more like,
3
SPEAKER_01
And again, it also comes back to how do people feel, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
So my kids can be in a bad mood and they can be grumpy.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or it s like a Michelin star system, like wait.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, no, it s more like, oh yeah, I like my eggs a little more gooey-er, or yesterday it was this way, but a little bit more salt, a little less salt.
3
SPEAKER_01
Salt is usually the one.
3
SPEAKER_01
that is because not all salts are equal.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if you are used to working with a certain kind of salt and then you just are forced, for some reason you ran out of salt, you use some other salt, you actually don t know how to use it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You really want to have the same salt all the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you have a page on salt in the book, which is fascinating.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, totally.
3
SPEAKER_01
Salt is,
3
SPEAKER_01
You gotta get to know your salt, you gotta love your salt, and you gotta use it over and over and over again.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it will teach you how to use that salt.
3
SPEAKER_01
Your own palate will tell you how salty you like things.
3
SPEAKER_01
But if you change it up and you mix up a whole bunch of salts, you ve now multiplied your learning path.
3
SPEAKER_01
So for me, my favorite salt is kosher salt.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I like to use that all the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if I ever change it, I might sprinkle a little bit of molten salt, just a crunchy, sort of a flaky salt.
3
SPEAKER_01
But it s more for that, when you re actually eating.
3
SPEAKER_01
For the texture.
3
SPEAKER_01
It gives you texture as well as salt, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
You wouldn t use it on scrambled eggs.
3
SPEAKER_01
But if you switch out your salts,
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a different weapon.
3
SPEAKER_01
You need to learn it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like how usually there s wine connoisseurs.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re saying, going back to sort of farm to table, when you re talking about carrots, in that same rigor and nuance, you have to consider the different farms involved for the carrots.
3
SPEAKER_00
In that same way, you have to consider the different salts.
3
SPEAKER_01
with like... And also not even all kosher salts are the same.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s the particular salt that you like, get to know it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Get in a relationship with it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like great.
3
SPEAKER_01
You will learn so much.
3
SPEAKER_00
In terms of the measurement, the proportion, the amount of salt you put in, are you doing that like exactly or are you doing it by feel?
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s by feel, and that s where you get the relationship.
3
SPEAKER_01
So in fact, in the cookbook, I have QR codes that people can scan, because what I struggle with recipes is they don t teach technique, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
They can describe the technique, but they don t teach the technique, because it s a technique, it s not a recipe.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so one of the lessons is how do you salt?
3
SPEAKER_01
a steak, and the answer is not here s a teaspoon and you do it this way.
3
SPEAKER_01
The answer is use kosher salt so you can see with your eyes, because they re little flakes, how much salt is on your steak, and then taste it, cook it, and then taste it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you think you need more or do you need less?
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, now next time, put a little more on because you can see it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s about learning the fact that you want to be able to see how much salt is on the steak so that you can then train yourself for the future of how much salt you want on your steak.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but then the steak and the salt kind of dance together.
3
SPEAKER_00
It depends on where the steak came from.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s true, that s true.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or the thickness of the steak, that ll make a difference.
3
SPEAKER_01
But for the most part, if you...
3
SPEAKER_01
If you re able to see it, versus table salt, for example, this just disappears.
3
SPEAKER_01
You just can t see what you re putting on your steak.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can t really learn as a result.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think you talk about roast chickens where your love of food began.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, what about steak?
3
SPEAKER_00
I love a good steak, it s so great.
3
SPEAKER_00
So in the French school,
3
SPEAKER_00
You add sauces and all this kind of stuff and boulders when you realize like there s a beauty to the basic ingredient.
3
SPEAKER_01
Simplicity, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like a good New York strip from a good rancher that, you know, there s a lot of
3
SPEAKER_01
discussion, controversy on how cattle should be raised.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we have a very different approach, which is we know how our cattle are raised.
3
SPEAKER_01
We go to the farm.
3
SPEAKER_01
We get to know the rancher.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes you do wanna have them be finished on, like they ll be grass-fed for the most part, but then there s some sort of cool recipe of food you re giving them that will then make them taste better.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes it is actually pretty good to have 100% grass-fed.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve had some amazing ranches that show me that the flavor is all there.
3
SPEAKER_01
For the average person that might go to Whole Foods or a grocery store, I think the simplicity of a good steak, it is important to get good sourcing, but also it s just good.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s your favorite cut of meat?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s New York strip, probably New York strip for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, New York strip.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I like the fact that it s lean, but if you want the fat, you can dive into that little strip of fat, or you can leave it alone, because you don t want it that night.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s also a great steak for adding something, like if you want to, you could either do a pepper sauce, or you could do a lot of ground pepper, which gives it a peppery, it s not sauce, but it s a peppery steak.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a really good,
3
SPEAKER_01
a canvas for other things.
3
SPEAKER_00
But the basic ingredients you re playing with is salt and pepper.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, pretty much.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s just a steak.
3
SPEAKER_01
Actually, I will say there s another one, garlic.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is my favorite recipe for a steak is you season it, both sides, salt and pepper.
3
SPEAKER_01
You saute it in a little olive oil, barely anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you re getting a nice crisp, like a golden dark, golden brown on both sides.
3
SPEAKER_01
The other trick with cooking a steak is don t touch it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, just put one side.
3
SPEAKER_01
When you re ready to turn it, turn it around.
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t touch it any other time.
3
SPEAKER_01
But at the end, you take a dab of butter and you crush a clove of garlic.
3
SPEAKER_01
You don t even chop it, you just crush the clove and you put the two of them in the pan and you just roll the steak around in the garlic butter.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that s the one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bold move.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bold move.
3
SPEAKER_00
What are you, since you re in Austin quite a bit opening
3
SPEAKER_00
a restaurant here, what do you think about barbecue?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of the Texas way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I would say there s an Austin way, which is, and actually even Austin would say there s a suburb of Austin way.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that actually the adventure of food is wonderful.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would absolutely say that Austin is one of the great food cities of America and barbecue is one of its gifts that it gives the city.
3
SPEAKER_01
But you go to one and the other and you ll have a different approach and that s the part I love is where the real celebration of the artisan
3
SPEAKER_01
So you might go to one and they have a style that they love and they ve been doing it for years.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you ll go to another and they have a style that they love and they ve been doing it for years.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s not, they re still barbecue, but they re actually different.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s really beautiful to see that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s, I think that s what food culture is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like it just builds up over time.
3
SPEAKER_01
by people who love this style of cooking.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I especially love the communal, like how they structure restaurants usually, or I don t even want to call it a restaurant because it doesn t feel like a restaurant.
3
SPEAKER_00
It feels like a tavern of some sort, like Terry Black s is like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they also have like paper towels, get as messy as you like, and it s a whole roll of paper towels.
3
SPEAKER_01
They don t just give you a napkin.
3
SPEAKER_01
They know what you re getting into.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s just wood everywhere and it s kind of has this feel like this place has been around forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not changing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know it s the 21st century with the internet and all this kind of nonsense that you people are building, but really this is all about the same.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s been the same for generations.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re doing it the same.
3
SPEAKER_00
That kind of feel.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you want to escape the world in that way and then truly connect with people.
3
SPEAKER_01
One of the other things that ll happen in a town like Austin is there ll be a barbecue joint that is just legendary, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then out of that will come someone who wants to do their own barbecue joint, and they ll take the learning from that barbecue joint.
3
SPEAKER_01
They ll open up a new one, but it won t be the same as the other barbecue joint.
3
SPEAKER_01
Part of it is like, dude, don t just do the same thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do something.
3
SPEAKER_01
What do you have to say?
3
SPEAKER_01
But also part of it is, if you re in the world of food as an art form, and you wanna go open up another barbecue joint, you kinda wanna prove yourself.
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Like, I deserve to have a barbecue joint in this town.
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I know this is one of the holy grails of barbecue.
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And people will follow you like they re following a musician or they re following an artist, and they are excited
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to see what your version is and how well you can pull it off.
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It s actually, that s what I love, that s what I mean by a city with a food culture, Austin has that.
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There s also a legend to certain places.
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Certain places are more than just the food they create.
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It s like, that could be a burden.
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You have to live up to the legendary nature of the name.
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Our restaurant in Boulder, the kitchen, is 20 years old.
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We re very well known, very well respected, and we do have to live up to the name.
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I think that our restaurant lives up to its name in not just the food, it s like you walk in and you feel the restaurant, and that is also something we ve just done naturally.
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The space is a 120-year-old building, used to be a brothel,
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bookstore, like storied history.
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This was a mining town, right?
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So back in the 1800s, this was built late 1800s, that sort of Brussels River, that was a thing.
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And so there s an actual tunnel in the basement that goes to the local hotel,
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that would be used for going back and forth between the hotel and the brothel without people knowing, and the tunnel is now concreted up.
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But you can go about 20, 30 feet into the tunnel.
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But you go into the space, and it s actually an old space, so you feel like it s been there forever.
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Yeah.
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In 2010, you had a life-threatening accident that changed the way you see life, the world, also the way you see food and cooking.
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Can you tell me the story of it?
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Yeah, so 2010, I was 37.
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I had opened the restaurant in 2004, and I had loved the restaurant world, loved it.
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But I didn t really wanna grow a restaurant company.
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That wasn t my goal.
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And so I went back into technology, and I had gone from something that I love to something that I like.
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For me it was like chewing sawdust every day.
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I just couldn t believe that I had gone from, that had changed my life, I had gone back into technology.
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And now I do do work in technology and I do love it, but I found a better relationship with it.
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But I was really unhappy.
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From the outside I was a sort of CEO of a part startup, but from the inside I was just very unhappy.
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And I was in Jackson Hole and I was doing these very aggressive snowboard runs and I m, at the time, a pretty good and aggressive snowboarder.
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And I remember saying to myself, look, I ve got kids, I need to chill on this.
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Next day was Valentine s Day.
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Tomorrow s Valentine s Day, I m just gonna have a nice day with the family and my wife at the time.
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and we went to a children s run to do the inner tube run and the tubes are small but everyone uses the same tube.
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So I m six foot five and my kids are four years old and everyone uses the same size tube.
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It should have been
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a message to me not to get on this thing.
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But I went and got on it, and on the first run, and I went down, and you re going super fast, 35 miles an hour, and a tube hit the braking mats, and it stopped.
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The tube just stopped where it was, just threw me.
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My head was facing downhill, so that s created the wrong center of gravity, so instead of braking, it just threw me.
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I landed on my head,
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my head went into my chest, like compression into my chest, down like that.
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I ruptured my spine at C6 and C7.
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And in like the blink of a second, I was paralyzed.
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I was like, like, like what?
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You know, just like impossible to,
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impossible to comprehend, and they take me, they put this big thing on my, like halo on my head, and they take me to the hospital, which was more of a medical clinic, and I m just like, what is going on here?
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Do you remember your thoughts from the moment it happened to like, the way to get to, got to the hospital?
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I remember being, so this is one of the things that actually the doctor said caused the most damage was, I don t know,
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I was thrown from the tube, and I heard this big crunch sound in my body.
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And I knew that I was hurt.
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But I didn t feel any pain.
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That s also, why wouldn t you feel pain?
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Because you don t have paralysis, you don t feel pain.
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And I m face down on the snow, and the snow is burning my face, because you can t do that, you need something.
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And I,
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found a way to turn myself around so that my face wouldn t be on the ground, but I knew I couldn t move.
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And that, they said, actually caused more damage than, well, obviously the accident created the opening, but once you move your body, the blood goes into the spinal column at a faster rate, and that is what caused my paralysis.
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But I remember that, and I, you know,
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I remember getting into the ambulance.
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Did you think you were gonna die at that, in those seconds, minutes?
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It was a different feeling of death.
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It was more, it was more of a, what is going on here?
4
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It was more, I can t make sense of what s going on.
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It was a,
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There was a moment where I got to the hospital and they did this MRI and the doctor comes up to me and says, look, we ve done this MRI and so now I m in the hospital and I m like, I can t move.
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But I also don t feel any pain.
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So I m like, it s very confusing.
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Your body looks like you can move it.
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Like, see how I m moving my hand?
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It looks like you can do that.
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And then it just doesn t move.
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There s no feedback loop that it s not moving.
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Your brain even thinks it s moving, but it s not moving.
4
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It s like the worst, most terrifying thing.
4
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So the doctor says, look, the way you broke your neck was really at a zero degree angle.
4
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That is so rare.
4
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But as a result, there is no twisting of the spine.
4
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We think that we can get the blood out of your spinal column and you should get some or maybe all of your movement back.
4
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And I was like, oh, okay, I think I m gonna be fine.
4
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I guess I m gonna be fine.
4
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And then I realized I had tears just streaming down the side of my face.
4
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And I was like, whoa, man, I have no idea what is going on.
4
SPEAKER_00
So this kind of intense state of confusion, I wonder if it s a weird psychological defense mechanism of like taking you away from the obvious possibility of death.
4
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Yeah, it was for sure all of the defenses were up.
4
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I don t know how else to describe it, but there was denial, there was this curiosity of like, why is there no pain?
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When they did actually repair me and fix me, that was three days later, the pain was,
4
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indescribable how much pain I was in.
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But it was no pain for three days.
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The human body is fascinating.
4
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Man.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
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So they were able.
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Yeah, so they did the surgery, but I had this very clear voice in my head that kind of determined that it s God.
4
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I m not religious, but I don t know how else to describe the voice.
4
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And this voice was very clear.
4
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You re gonna work with kids and food.
4
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Okay, where did that come from?
4
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I m like tech CEO, I have a restaurant.
4
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And we were working with some kids in schools with like some, you know, helping a local non-profit.
4
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you re just gonna work on kids and food.
4
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And my good friend Antonio, my brother, were in the hospital and I was like, I m gonna work on kids and food.
4
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You know, cause they re like, he s crazy, he lost his mind.
4
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But not that they weren t, no one was arguing with me, but I was like, I m just going to do that, I need to say it out loud.
4
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And I remember resigning from my job as CEO from the hospital,
4
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And that was it.
4
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It was just clear.
4
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It was a clear voice.
4
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Wasn t for a moment, wasn t like a flash of light or anything.
4
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It was probably two weeks of clear voice.
4
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Of clarity.
4
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Clarity.
4
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Exactly, clarity.
4
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No monkey brain, nothing.
4
SPEAKER_02
No monkey brain, just clarity.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you re not a religious person, but you do call it the voice of God.
4
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Who is that God, do you think?
4
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Who is that?
4
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Where did that come from?
4
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Well, I ve done ayahuasca, and I ve spoken to what they call Mother Aya, which is another version of God.
4
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It s a divine presence, is maybe, I think, is a better way to say it.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve also had this debate in my head, maybe it s just me, I m talking to me, and it s my peaceful, more kinder, less caught up in the emotion of the day version of me, maybe it s me.
4
SPEAKER_02
Okay, maybe it is, but it s there.
4
SPEAKER_00
But who are you?
4
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How deep does it go?
4
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What does you mean?
4
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You could be, first of all, the depth of what the human mind even is is a gigantic mystery.
4
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Consciousness, all of it.
4
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Who are you?
4
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It s like, yeah, maybe it is you, but then maybe in order to build you, we need to build the universe.
4
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You are actually,
4
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a fundamentally a part of this whole human society so the piece the pieces of humans that you ve interacted with are all within you and then maybe the history of the humans that came before also in there and maybe the entirety of life on earth is also in there and whatever the
4
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whatever brought life about on Earth is in there somewhere.
4
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So that s all you.
4
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Yeah, all of the, which is really true, evolution is, it literally is true that we all are, the photons from the sun came in and we all- You re part fish.
4
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We all came from that.
4
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I think this one, so one of the things I do is meditate and this was, I ve been meditating for many, many years and the way I meditate is I sit and I listen to my thoughts and I simply just do that for 15 to 20 minutes and it just calms the nervous system and I might breathe and just be,
4
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breathe through, because it s been a stressful day, and it s just a beautiful way to, I kind of do it around, I remember I said I used to do a scotch at the bar after work, now I go meditate for instance, a little less, a little bit better for my, for my health.
4
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But meditation, I was taught, was, Sam Harris actually taught me this, was not so much just about watching your thoughts, but realizing that you re a watcher,
4
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You re actually a watcher.
4
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You re not just, who is the person watching?
4
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That s you, actually.
4
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Your thoughts are floating through your mind, but you are the watcher.
4
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And I was like, ah, that s really interesting.
4
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Okay, so I m gonna learn that.
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I m gonna be the watcher.
4
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And what I learned was, I m watching these thoughts go by, and there s a consistent other presence.
4
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And I m like, what is that consistent other presence?
4
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It s not a thought.
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It s not something I can kind of let it float away, and it doesn t even want to float away.
4
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It s just a consistent other presence that I can watch and feel.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you are the watcher watching the feelings and thoughts, but there s also another presence next to you almost.
4
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Yes, yeah, that s how I feel.
4
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And it s a beautiful presence.
4
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It s not a presence that is trying to intervene.
4
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It s not a presence that is trying to tell you what to do.
4
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It s just a beautiful presence.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that might be the thing, part of the thing you met when you took ayahuasca.
4
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I learned about Mother Aya where you have this experience of talking to, actually I would say the closest thing to breaking my neck, that feeling was Ayahuasca.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can you go through that experience?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I m actually traveling to the Amazon jungle in a month.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ll probably do Ayahuasca for the first time.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, I need a preview.
4
SPEAKER_00
Unofficial instruction manual.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, sure.
4
SPEAKER_02
So, first of all, I think many different ways to do it, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
So, and I ve done many, many different ways.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s a very Western medicine approach where you have doctors that look after you during the day.
4
SPEAKER_02
You put an eye mask on, you re on a futon, and you really are,
4
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in a Western medicine setting, and it s, frankly for me, has been the most powerful experience.
4
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I feel the most comfortable, because I m part of Western medicine in my upbringing.
4
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The other extreme, but they re kind of in between, would be very, probably a Peruvian ceremonies, where you re probably gonna go, very much about
4
SPEAKER_02
You do it in a community, you do it with others, and you feel people go through their pain and their processing.
4
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So I know the whole gamut, but the thing that I found most powerful about it, and profoundly powerful, I would say, first of all, it s non-recreational, so no one should do this for a good time.
4
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This is not a good time.
4
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This is a very, almost traumatic,
4
SPEAKER_00
but in, again, a beautiful way.
4
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I was actually gonna say that word, but it s not traumatic, it s profound.
4
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So it s more like you don t have, you really leave who you were before behind.
4
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and then you become the person you will be afterwards.
4
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And that s never an easy thing.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes, exactly, and sometimes what I recall was arguing with Brother Aya and saying,
4
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No, I m fine, what are you talking about?
4
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Leave me alone.
4
SPEAKER_02
How did that work out?
4
SPEAKER_00
But before 2010, the accident, the two transformational experiences you had, you were very successful.
4
SPEAKER_00
tech CEO.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe go back to the early days with Zip2.
4
SPEAKER_00
In 1994, you and Elon started Zip2.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tell me the story of that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so in 94, we actually did a road trip around the US to brainstorm about what we wanted to do after college.
4
SPEAKER_02
What was the road trip like?
4
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That was awesome.
4
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So we went from Silicon Valley to Philadelphia.
4
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Nice.
4
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My brother s old, like a really cool, you know, it s one of those very old BMWs, not ones from the 60s or 70s, but the car didn t work, it would break down all the time.
4
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But we had a blast, you know, we just, I remember going through Needles,
4
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It s on the border of California and Arizona.
4
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It s a town called Neal s.
4
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It s the hottest place in America.
4
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And the engine was not cooling, so we had to put the heat on.
4
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So we did the heat blasting to keep the engine cool and keep the windows down because you can t stand the heat in the car.
4
SPEAKER_02
But actually, the outside heat is hotter than the inside heat, so you re just in a furnace.
4
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You re driving through.
4
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Just sweating.
4
SPEAKER_02
I can t imagine doing that in the day.
4
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Yeah, it was a wonderful, it took us a few weeks, I think three weeks maybe.
4
SPEAKER_00
First time across America?
4
SPEAKER_02
First, like a road trip like that, yeah, for sure.
4
SPEAKER_02
But it was really not a road trip for tourist sites.
4
SPEAKER_02
We went to the weirdest places.
4
SPEAKER_02
And actually, I would say we didn t go to them, we broke down in the weirdest places.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because that s when we stopped.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, did you meet any interesting people?
4
SPEAKER_02
I remember we broke down in the badlands of South Dakota, about an hour from Rapid City, and that road is empty.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so we actually slept in the car because there was just no one around, there were no cell phones in those days.
4
SPEAKER_02
And eventually a trucker picked us up.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was just like, man, you guys are the dumbest kids on the planet.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was like 21, he was maybe 22.
4
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But he was so nice to us and so kind to us and found us a mechanic in Rapid City and then found us a tow truck.
4
SPEAKER_02
You find the most wonderful people.
4
SPEAKER_02
When you re in a place of distress, people do wanna take care of other people.
4
SPEAKER_02
They help you.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, they wanna help.
4
SPEAKER_00
And especially when you re on a road trip.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I ve taken a road trip across the United States and there s a part of people where they,
4
SPEAKER_00
They really love that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think part of them wants to do that also, wants to kind of escape whatever the local, the struggles, just whatever the mundaneness, the struggle of life are.
4
SPEAKER_00
A road trip is a kind of thing where you re like, you know what, I m going to get away from it all, and I m going to experience life in the full.
4
SPEAKER_00
the epic sort of Jack Kerouac way of seeing America.
4
SPEAKER_00
The people, not the tourist sites, just the humans.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_02
This was not tourist related.
4
SPEAKER_02
We did, of course, when we stopped at Mount Rushmore at night, which you can see nothing.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
We thought that was hilarious.
4
SPEAKER_01
We couldn t see Mount Rushmore.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s great.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, well, we physically were here.
4
SPEAKER_01
We took a photo of us not seeing Mount Rushmore.
4
SPEAKER_01
In the darkness.
4
SPEAKER_00
You could just say you went to the Grand Canyon too at night.
4
SPEAKER_00
And just visit different places when the car broke down, I love it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So yes, you took the road trip before founding Zip2.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so I had an experience in college running a house painting business that for me was my first experience with success.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was very, very hard.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was a franchise where they teach students how to paint houses and
4
SPEAKER_02
But I was good at it.
4
SPEAKER_02
I built a team of 30 people after about two years, and so I was like, I had a taste of, hey, I m not unable to do this.
4
SPEAKER_02
In fact, my most vulnerable place I remember as an entrepreneur was I had, I just loved the idea of Wall Street and finance.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was kind of allured by it.
4
SPEAKER_02
This was in late 80s, I m in high school and there was a lot of these books, Liar s Poker and others that came out and I was like, oh man, this is awesome, these people must be amazing.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I went to business school and I busted my ass to get like a kick-ass summer job and I got a job in one of the main banks and it was in Toronto but it was like the original Wall Street.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I was so disappointed with the people that I was around, I was just like,
4
SPEAKER_02
whoa, I totally misunderstood what the banking world is.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was a very large bank.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m sure if I d gone to a more aggressive one, maybe I would have had a better experience.
4
SPEAKER_02
When I say aggressive, meaning someone
5
SPEAKER_00
one was paying attention, like this was just people kind of showing up and not doing much.
5
SPEAKER_00
And actually, this is funny, so this is great, so 1991, 92, so one of those summers, but the summer job was,
5
SPEAKER_00
Literally, you go to the, they print out the sales for all brokerage houses for the whole company, like a pile of papers that s maybe four or five feet tall.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you have a pencil and you add things up using your pencil and a calculator.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I had known about Lotus 1, 2, 3 forever.
5
SPEAKER_00
Excel was coming out and I was like, hey guys, you know that there s a different way to do this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, don t talk to us, just do your job, go do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I went to the head of the database, I just asked.
5
SPEAKER_00
Those days you had the Manila envelope where you just write the name of the person that you want this to go to and it ll go to them.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like email, I guess, but there s no filter.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you felt, I sent a note.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no spam filter.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no spam filter.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I sent a note, I wrote a nice letter to the database administrator, who I didn t really know, and I said, would you be open to me saying hi, and maybe I can get access to the file, rather than print the damn thing out and use a pencil.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she responded right away, and we hit it off.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, she was great.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so she s like, of course you can, I can t believe you guys are.
5
SPEAKER_00
doing what they re doing.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, for the first couple of weeks of the summer, I wrote code in Lotus 1.2.3 that would, it s gonna sound crazy, but you type in the date range.
5
SPEAKER_00
You type in the geography, and you type in which part of the bank you care about, and it will literally just create a new spreadsheet, and it will just, the macro would print it out.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was like a magic trick for these guys.
5
SPEAKER_00
And... Incredible.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, it s like, it s astounding.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, for me, I was like, guys, this is...
5
SPEAKER_00
So obvious.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I got all that done, and this job was supposed to take three or four months because it s really, you re doing this with a pencil, and now I d created this macro that you could not just do it, you could tweak it and say, oh, I want this area of the world or this area of, or this month or that month compared to that month, you know, all the normal things you could do with a spreadsheet.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the software was on a floppy disk, and I was like, here s the software, and just put it into your computer.
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SPEAKER_00
All right, now open one, two, three, and it just pops up with a little box that type in your dates, and the whole little, I coded a little thing like that.
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SPEAKER_00
And what I was astounded by was,
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SPEAKER_00
Not so much that it was a magic trick.
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SPEAKER_00
It was the lack of appreciation for innovation.
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SPEAKER_00
They just looked at it, they were like, huh, that s nice.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, we re gonna have someone spend hundreds of hours doing something, and now it s something you can do in a minute.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, if that doesn t fuel you with excitement.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, if that doesn t move your needle, what the heck?
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I was really disappointed with the banking world.
5
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, that was also fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
Such a good example though, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
And then also see the possibility of where that goes.
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SPEAKER_00
But then I got back to business school and I,
5
SPEAKER_00
I canceled all of my business classes I possibly could.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was actually in business school so I couldn t cancel them all.
5
SPEAKER_00
All finance courses, I m done with that industry, I m not going back.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the vulnerable part for me was my whole family is full of entrepreneurs and there was this franchise to do house painting and I genuinely was afraid that I wouldn t be good at it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, wow, I really am afraid of failure.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s very easy to avoid entrepreneurship, but if your whole family s entrepreneurs, and you go in and you aren t good, I was really afraid.
5
SPEAKER_02
You re gonna have to face that failure every time you meet your family.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and it s, our family are wonderful and everything, but they,
5
SPEAKER_00
But pretty much everyone s an entrepreneur.
5
SPEAKER_00
And of course, not everyone is perfect, not everyone s doing it successfully all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
But when you re young and you want to prove yourself, it really was putting my heart on my sleeve.
5
SPEAKER_00
I started the business in this part of Toronto and
5
SPEAKER_00
For the first, so you paint the houses in the summer, but you do all your sales pre, before the summer, and all the way till April, I was just not succeeding.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, oh, I m like, oh my God, I m just, I m just gonna fail.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I remember that, I was like, my whole nervous system was like, I m a failure.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I remember I had this general manager who, you know, he was like, Kimball, you seem like you know what you re doing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Why are you not making any sales?
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SPEAKER_00
And so he actually went with me on a few sales calls and I was like, oh, you re, he was great.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re doing this wrong, you re doing that wrong, you re doing this wrong.
5
SPEAKER_00
And changed those three things.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was like a,
5
SPEAKER_00
like a watershed moment, just like, all of a sudden, and I just followed the instructions of what this guy had told me, all of a sudden, every single sale I would make, I was like, I can t believe that I, it was really my lack of humility to learn from someone else.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, no, I m gonna prove that I can do this without your teachings.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I,
5
SPEAKER_00
I was gonna fail.
5
SPEAKER_02
So to you, that humility is essential for the entrepreneur, especially young.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would say if we have an openness to learning, which does require humility, you course correct, or you get other people to help you course correct.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it does start with humility, because if you try and pretend you have all the answers, you don t.
5
SPEAKER_02
So you went from that to founding Zip2.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was an interesting time in the history of tech.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, what was it like?
5
SPEAKER_02
You mentioned the first people to look at a map, basically directions.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so mapping had been on the internet, but vector-based mapping had not, so that s the ability to zoom in or zoom out, and it s really data versus an image that comes across.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we went to this company called Navtech, my brother and I, and we just asked for the data, and they, this is Silicon Valley, they wrote us a one-page letter that we had to sign that said, here s all of our data.
5
SPEAKER_00
We own it, you don t own it, but you can use it on the internet, and if you ever make any money on it, you have to call us.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we re like, okay, that sounds great.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we put it up on the internet and back in those days it might take 60 to 120 seconds to actually give you an answer back.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was amazing, the door-to-door directions, the ability to take a map and zoom in and zoom out.
5
SPEAKER_00
We use these things 10 times a day now.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
We were the first two humans to see it on the internet.
5
SPEAKER_00
This stuff didn t even exist to the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
Navtech was building it for Hertz Nebulas, which would come out a few years later.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was not something that people knew existed.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was something we discovered that it existed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everyone was like, well, let s put it on the internet and share it with the world.
5
SPEAKER_02
What did the two of you feel like to see that magic?
5
SPEAKER_02
Did you know?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was like, what?
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SPEAKER_02
I mean, the amazing, just that it s cool, but also that you could see the future that this could transform.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think people understand
5
SPEAKER_00
Before this moment, you could not be told your directions.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just could not.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like today, we live in this world where we re told our directions all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Before this moment, you could not be told your directions.
5
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden, you could.
5
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like a little thing.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, there s a bunch of things that we, once we have, we take it for granted, and that takes like a day for people to like transition.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like, boom, oh, okay, cool.
5
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s when you see, maybe when you re one of the first humans to see that thing, you re like, holy shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
Holy shit, this is going to be used by everyone all the time forever.
5
SPEAKER_01
So Zip2 was a success.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would say it was a success, but it was also a very hard company to build.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I mean it because the internet in those days was a boom time.
5
SPEAKER_00
We were being funded, but you couldn t make any money.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so it was actually really hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
The constant outside criticism that we aren t for real, this is not gonna survive, this is not gonna, and it started to feel that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re like, wow, man, this is, we are doing something that is great that people are using, and we were top 100 website.
5
SPEAKER_00
Most of our work was through folks like the New York Times, so we were even much busier than that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But there was just no money in it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And even today, you go to Google Maps, there s no money in it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just local search that is needed for everyone.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so it became an add-on to search.
5
SPEAKER_00
But even remember in those days, you couldn t make money at search either.
5
SPEAKER_00
No one had figured out AdWords or anything.
5
SPEAKER_00
They didn t realize how big of a business this was.
5
SPEAKER_00
But we all knew this was a thing, and everyone was using it.
5
SPEAKER_00
But didn t quite know how to make money on it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Couldn t make money.
5
SPEAKER_00
When we got acquired, it was a bittersweet moment, because Compaq, that owned Ulta Vista, wanted to merge, so that s sort of regular search, with the best search engine at the time, pre-Google, with Zip2, which would be the best local search, and it would be a Yahoo killer.
5
SPEAKER_00
And Compaq just wanted to make money by taking the company public.
5
SPEAKER_00
but they wouldn t give us any stock.
5
SPEAKER_00
They paid us cash which turned out actually very well for us because the whole internet bubble burst.
5
SPEAKER_00
We didn t know that at the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so it was bittersweet because they essentially wanted our company and we were welcome to stay, but you don t have to.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that was a pretty rough feeling.
5
SPEAKER_01
But in retrospect, it opened the door to- It set us up for an incredible,
5
SPEAKER_01
platform to go do beautiful things.
5
SPEAKER_02
You ve invested in X.com that eventually merged with PayPal.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s a fascinating story there.
5
SPEAKER_02
Also fascinating on many levels including the fact that the current social media company formerly known as Twitter is now called X. History has like a
5
SPEAKER_02
has a rhyme to it, like it s kind of all hilarious in a certain kind of way.
5
SPEAKER_02
You invested in and helped sell a lot of the initial products for Tesla.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I still sell on the board of Tesla.
5
SPEAKER_00
Tesla is 20 years now, isn t that amazing?
5
SPEAKER_02
From the Roadster, the initial Roadster to what?
5
SPEAKER_00
I still have the first business plan.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t join as a founder, I joined as a founding board member.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I actually, I didn t write the business plan, I got to read it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I still have that, I still have it as a part of history.
5
SPEAKER_02
Did you see the future at that time?
5
SPEAKER_02
Like the company that Tesla is today, could you have possibly, could you and Elon imagine it?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, I certainly didn t.
5
SPEAKER_00
What I saw in it was,
5
SPEAKER_00
a real, for me personally, I was really upset that General Motors had killed their EV car.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s even a movie called Who Killed the Electric Car?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I knew that the physics of electric is perfectly fine.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s no reason why you couldn t use an electric car to drive around.
5
SPEAKER_00
What resonated with me with the business plan was take an electric motor, which is really a high-performance motor, and put it in a sports car and sell it at a high price as a way to enter into the market, whereas what others had been doing, at least General Motors had done, is you put it into a really crummy car and you sell it as a commuter vehicle that doesn t really work that well.
5
SPEAKER_00
and looks ugly as well, like they really did everything they could to make that thing as ugly as it s in.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I was like, okay, I get it, we re gonna take an appropriate technology and put it in an appropriate car so that when you have, because electric motors, they have constant torque, you get incredible power, put it in a car that looks like a sports car.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the idea was to put it in the Lotus Elise, redesign it a bit.
5
SPEAKER_00
And even at that point, I was like, this is theoretically good, so I m gonna join and help build it.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I was not convinced that it would work because General Motors had done such a terrible job of making everyone think that these things are terrible.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I was curious, and the time that I fell in love with the company and its mission was I was driving in what s called a mule, where we take a car and we take the engine out, and we put in an electric drivetrain.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I drove it, even the dashboards, there s no dashboard.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just like you got a steering wheel and it s just like wires and everything around.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I remember there s a street we were on in the Bay Area called Bing Street.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was just like, no traffic.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I m just gonna drive this on the floor, see what happens.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was a feeling I d never experienced before.
5
SPEAKER_00
Gasoline cars have an inertia to them, so you go.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is just, it was like being shot out of a cannon.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, this is gonna be real.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a very spaceship-like feeling.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s like, whoa.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like the G-force pulls you back.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, okay, this is gonna be great.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is gonna be an interesting, we re gonna create something interesting here.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think the real transformative thing for Tesla was the Model 3, when we were able to get the price down for the world.
5
SPEAKER_02
And that was also one of the most challenging periods for Tesla.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we were borderline bankrupt like two or three times that year.
5
SPEAKER_00
And everyone was hating on us about whether we d get that done.
5
SPEAKER_00
The Model 3 today is incredibly affordable car, like 300 bucks a month kind of lease and $3,000 down.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s where you get the scale.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s where you get people who... And by the way, it s a great car.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s even a better Model 3 now than it was five years ago.
5
SPEAKER_00
We don t function the way...
5
SPEAKER_00
car companies function, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
We function more like how an iPhone company, how Apple works.
5
SPEAKER_00
So our Model 3 today is, this year is better than last year.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like way better.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we just keep getting better.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the software is a fundamental part of the car and the software keeps improving.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, and we can upload over the air.
5
SPEAKER_02
Which was one of the things that people don t,
5
SPEAKER_02
often acknowledge it s the over-the-air updates.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s like a revolutionary thing.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s not just the autopilot.
5
SPEAKER_02
To me, it s like the over-the-air updates is even bigger thing than autopilot, at least in this moment of history, because you basically turned a car into the iPhone.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, it s an iPhone with wheels, but actually talking about autopilot, like right after this interview, I m gonna go test out the latest Model 3.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna get driven around by a robot.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna get driven around by the car.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna say, I wanna go to this barbecue joint.
5
SPEAKER_00
Take me there and park me there.
5
SPEAKER_00
and I m gonna see how it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this is our, the latest Model 3 that we have out into production.
5
SPEAKER_00
Anyone can buy it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s super affordable.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, okay, it s not, you know, full stop driving is a journey, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not like there s a destination.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a journey forever.
5
SPEAKER_00
So let s see where we are on the journey today.
5
SPEAKER_02
And there s been a bit of a push and pull between you and Elon in terms of levels of optimism about deadlines and so on, timelines about
6
SPEAKER_00
when we ll arrive at the destination.
6
SPEAKER_00
I like that you said it s a journey.
6
SPEAKER_00
For Elon, there s a destination.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that destination is tomorrow or yesterday.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think that s a really good insight.
6
SPEAKER_01
I actually live with this concept of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s a philosophical term where fixed mindset is about the destination.
6
SPEAKER_01
And growth mindset is about learning on the journey.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think that I m a happier person because I take that learning on the journey approach.
6
SPEAKER_01
Whereas it s really frustrating if you re always, it has to be about the destination every time.
6
SPEAKER_00
The nice thing about destination, at least from my personal perspective as like a programmer, engineer, is like it puts a little fire under you to get shit done.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like if there s a clear deadline of a destination,
6
SPEAKER_00
You feel the anxiety of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I would say that I still do that, but I call those forcing functions instead of destinations because you re just forcing people to crank on some code or cookbook or whatever because you have a date.
6
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes there s a reason.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s the 20th anniversary, you want to get the cookbook out.
6
SPEAKER_01
We have a reason.
6
SPEAKER_01
We didn t make this up out of thin air.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so, yeah, that does push you.
6
SPEAKER_01
But just because we have the cookbook doesn t mean it s a destination.
6
SPEAKER_01
It means it was a forcing function to get it out there.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now we re on the journey.
6
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of journeys, I have to ask you about SpaceX.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the journey that all of humanity s on.
6
SPEAKER_01
Seriously, talk about a journey, that is incredible.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s an interesting moment in the history of humanity that perhaps, hopefully, will become a multi-planetary species.
6
SPEAKER_00
But SpaceX is also a company.
6
SPEAKER_00
You invested in SpaceX, you were side-by-side with Elon through the highs and the lows.
6
SPEAKER_00
to the lows and the highs.
6
SPEAKER_00
So what were some memorable challenges?
6
SPEAKER_00
What were some low points from the history of SpaceX?
6
SPEAKER_01
One of the hardest times in SpaceX was
6
SPEAKER_01
We were in the mid-Pacific in KwaZulun, and my brother had sold PayPal.
6
SPEAKER_01
He d done well financially, but in the rocket world, that money goes away really quickly.
6
SPEAKER_01
We were in this military base in KwaZulun, and I think it was the second rocket that blew up, I m not sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
We didn t have infinite resources.
6
SPEAKER_01
I certainly didn t have the resources.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m there to support, brotherly support.
6
SPEAKER_01
So every rocket launch was do or die.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the first one had blown up and so the second one, I think it was the second one, blew up and it was so depressing.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just like, oh, there s nowhere to go.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s no distraction.
6
SPEAKER_01
you re on this military base, you don t really socialize.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just, we were all together.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I had gotten to know, for me, I m not part of the team.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m just there for emotional support or whatever, because it s cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I got to know a couple of people locally.
6
SPEAKER_01
I got to know this one guy who had a mobile home, best view in the world, but it s just a mobile home with a patch of grass next to it.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I was just desperate to find food that wasn t from the cafeteria, because this is the worst food you can imagine.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so he showed, I met him and he showed me this little tiny little grocery store which had a few things like canned tomatoes.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is again, you re in the middle of nowhere, so it s nothing fresh.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I made this dish that was kind of a version of, like an Italian version of chili, you know, just baked beans, and sweating onions, and tomatoes, and it was a big pot of food, because it s a group of people.
6
SPEAKER_01
We didn t even have a table, and we just put the big pot in the middle, and we had our little paper plates, and we took a scoop as we needed it.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it was really the gathering place of, like, food brings people together.
6
SPEAKER_01
in the most difficult times.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it was one of my favorite memories because I was able to bring my gift to this group of incredible people that their hearts were broken.
6
SPEAKER_01
And to sit there and share a meal and feel the life kind of come back into us and by the end of the night we re actually having a good time.
6
SPEAKER_00
What a fascinating contrast of rock as kind of representing the peak accomplishment of human beings as a society, and then returning to the thing that is the foundation of human society, which is that communal experience.
6
SPEAKER_01
A communal, vulnerable connection, like we mentioned vulnerability earlier.
6
SPEAKER_01
The most vulnerable place, actually that s when you have some of your most beautiful meals.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the descendants of apes gathering around some baked beans.
6
SPEAKER_00
After watching a rocket explode.
6
SPEAKER_00
What gives you hope about the future of this whole thing we got going on?
6
SPEAKER_00
Humanity.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you look at how things have changed over the past, say, 50 years, you can clearly say, oh, wow, poverty rates have gone down, infant mortality s gone down dramatically.
6
SPEAKER_01
All these things have gone down a lot.
6
SPEAKER_01
So if you look at it on a daily basis, you can tell that life is very dramatic, whether it s something s blowing up on X or on some of the newspapers or whatever.
6
SPEAKER_01
and you can really get caught up into it.
6
SPEAKER_01
But if you look back over the past few decades, things are getting better.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I mean at the fundamental level, like are less people hungry?
6
SPEAKER_01
Are more people, are more, is there, I mean there is war going on, of course, but are there less wars?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that, I think if we all just step back a little bit, it s less about hope, it s more perspective and reflection.
6
SPEAKER_01
And if I do see a problem, like in case of the obesity epidemic, I work really hard to help with that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I work, our nonprofit s called Big Green, and we work with 150 nonprofits around the country to help Americans grow food again, get connected to their food.
6
SPEAKER_01
because I really believe growing food changes your life.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so, okay, let s go do that.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I ll help out where I think we really can make a difference, but if you step back a little, things are actually getting better.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s just a bumpy ride.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and for those of us watching all of this, I think,
6
SPEAKER_00
I would love to see more celebrating of the people that are helping.
6
SPEAKER_00
The people that have found their way of helping and just celebrating those people.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well I would also, actually that s a really nice point.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have learned that you really wanna celebrate your successes.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because even in the greater scheme of things, I ve learned this in the startup world, where you re constantly facing death.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why should you even exist?
6
SPEAKER_01
Do your customers want your product or whatever?
6
SPEAKER_01
And then something will happen where you re like, wow, we really nailed that.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s really great.
6
SPEAKER_01
We got a product released or got some good kudos from something.
6
SPEAKER_01
All right, everyone, we re gonna go celebrate.
6
SPEAKER_01
And actually everyone s still like, no, no, we ve got all these other problems.
6
SPEAKER_01
Nope, we re gonna go celebrate, and then we ll go back to the problems.
6
SPEAKER_01
But if you don t do that, then it starts building on this kind of, you never really get to celebrate.
6
SPEAKER_00
And be grateful.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think this is a good time to go celebrate the very fact that we re alive today.
6
SPEAKER_00
We get to live and enjoy this incredible life, the two of us, and have this great conversation.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we ll get to celebrate over some scrambled eggs.
6
SPEAKER_00
Beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna hold you to it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_00
Kimmel, thank you so much for talking today.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for having me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Kimball Musk.
6
SPEAKER_00
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
6
SPEAKER_00
And now, let me leave you with some words from Anthony Bourdain.
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SPEAKER_00
Your body is not a temple.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s an amusement park.
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Enjoy the ride.
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Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.