Law of Success 2.0

An Interview with Chan-Mo Park

2011-12-21T11:23:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim (HK): What is your personal definition of success?

Chan-Mo Park (CP): My personal definition of success may be summarized as follows:

- To achieve the goal set by considering one’s desire, capability and environment.

- To be able to contribute to the society by working for well-being of mankind.

- To attain the status of self-esteem and gain respects from others professionally, morally and ethically.

It is important to have a “Possibility Thinking” to be successful.

HK: Does the term "success" important to you?

CP: Yes, the term “success” is important to me since I do not want to be a social burden but to become a person who will live for the welfare and happiness of human being as well as for the World Peace through “Science Diplomacy” especially through IT.

HK: When and how you've decided the path you're currently walking through - the world of Information Technology?

CP: From the elementary school days I liked mathematics and science. My role model was Thomas Edison since he contributed so much to the mankind. When I graduated from Kyunggi High School in 1954 with the top grade, many of my teachers recommended me to go to a medical school since my family was poor and I was the oldest one among the seven children of my parents. However, I went to the College of Engineering of Seoul National University majoring Chemical Engineering because Korea needed engineers to recover from the Korean War. I continued to major chemical engineering at the graduate school of University of Maryland, College Park from February, 1960. In Fall, 1960, because of my ability in mathematics my advisor recommended me to take the first computer course at the University of Maryland taught by Dr. Roberts of Naval Ordinance Laboratory for the faculty members and a few selected graduated students. Right away I fell in love with computers and worked full time as a Research Programmer of Computer Science Center since 1964 and became an Assistant Professor of Computer Science after I received Ph.D. in January, 1969. Since then I have taught computer science courses at the universities in U.S.A and South Korea for 30 years. Now I am working at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology as a professor and Chancellor in North Korea. IT is my life and my destiny.

HK: I'm sure that the landscape of computer science has changed drastically during your 30-year career. What's the biggest change and what'd be "the next big thing"?

CP: As a person who has worked with computers for more than 50 years since 1960 I would say the biggest change is the marriage between computers and network, in particular with the Internet. Of course there have been drastic developments in hardware as well software such as extremely high speed, tremendously reduced size, advancement in multimedia technology, reliable and reusable software and so on. However, the effect of internet is so huge that our daily life has been changed so much and our society is becoming ubiquitous and globalized.

Next big thing will be converging IT with other technologies and humanities to make everything ‘smart’ and ‘secure and safe’. Super high speed computing and embedded software will also be important.

HK: Many people outside of North Korea are thinking there's no freedom on information. Would you tell me how people in Pyongyang and other parts of North Korea are living with the web and information as the chancellor of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology?

CP: Each country has her own rules and regulations. It is my understanding that many people never visited DPRK and conjecture that there is no freedom on information dissemination. Of course DPRK is one of few countries which do not allow people to use the Internet freely. However, foreigners in DPRK normally have access to the Internet and the Intranet in DPRK is very efficient for her people to use. Graduate students in my university, PUST have access to the Internet for their research and study. Other universities also have some restricted access allowed to the students, I heard. More than 800 thousand people in DPRK use cellular phones and the number of users is increasing rapidly. This may contribute to more dissemination of information in the future.

HK: How importnat to know how-to interact with information in the 21st century, especially for young people? And what'd be advice for them to attain information literacy?

CP: The 21st Century is an era of ubiquitous, knowledge-based and globalized society and information plays an important role in achieving personal success and national prosperity. In particular young people are pillars of a nation and their knowledge on information is very important. Information literacy can be attained through education, books, media such as news papers and TVs. However, most effective way in this information technology era is through Internet such as Google search and Wikipedia.
Like other S&T there are two sides with IT, bright side and dark side. For example there are correct and incorrect information, useful and harmful, up-to-date and obsolete, private and public, so on. Therefore I would like to advise to young people to nurture capability of choosing right information and learn about computer and internet ethics.

HK: As the final question, this is again about success. And I actually am asking this to all the interviewees so far. What is your advice to achieve success?

CP: There are many factors to achieve success. The following items are what I think important beside normal factors such as studying hard, etc..

-Vision (Big dream)
-Possibility thinking
-Honesty
-Faithfulness
-Patience
-Diligence
-Humbleness
-Considerateness
-Global mindset
-Unselfishness
-Soft outside but strong inside (외유내강)

HK: Thanks, I'd love to go to Pyongyang in the future and see you in person again! Hope it comes true soon.

CP: I hope to meet you in person too, maybe in Pyongyang?

Chan-Mo Park is the Chancellor of Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (PUST)

An Interview with Ken Shibusawa

2011-12-12T13:24:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim: Thanks a lot for your time. At first I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Ken Shibusawa: I think there are two perspectives. One perspective is based on my personal feeling that success is like climbing a mountain. After you are successful in climbing a high mountain, you certainly enjoy the scenery, but if there are no other higher mountains in view, then the only direction from there is down. So, being successful means, always having another mountain to climb.

HK: You never felt satisfaction then?

KS: Well, I think I feel some satisfaction by seeing the beautiful scenery, certainly. But as you know, even Bill Gates, Ken Shibusawa, you, or anybody, we all share the same result. That is departing from this material world. So the end result is same. The difference is a path we take.

HK: OK.

KS: The other perspective is that you never know if you’re successful. People may think that you are successful, but you may feel you have not done enough to be successful. It is difficult to see yourself objectively. If, on the last day in this world, people feel “Oh it was good to have this guy around,” then I guess you were successful.

HK: What you can control is not what people think about you but what you think about people.

KS: Yes, that’s right. You never know what others thinking about you. Even if I don’t think of myself as "successful", sometimes my friends tell me what I'm very successful. So you really never know what’s success unless you set your own criteria.

HK: Do you use that criteria not only in personal life but in business life?

KS: Yea sure, on the business side there are lots of mountain I’d like to climb. As a venture business, you can set your own criteria on what’s good or bad. For me, the key is whether it's “fun” or not. I don’t mean it in a light way, but what I mean is do you really enjoy what you are doing from the bottom of your heart. For me, that joy comes from creating something that did not existed before. But it’s not creating all from scratch. Rather, it’s more about connecting two or more ideas, which didn’t look related to most people, until you did it. For instance, currently I’m trying to connect finance and nonprofit and worlds, which seems unconnected to most people, especially in Japan.

HK: You’ve been engaging connecting finance and nonprofit since 2001, haven’t you?

KS: Yea, it’s been about 10 years. On the morning of 9.11, I woke up in Seattle, thinking I was going to fly to Washington DC. I was wrong. I was grounded in Seattle for about a week, until the airports started to open up. Here I was, just starting a business six months ago, leaving my baby son and my wife, who was bearing my second son, and I was completely stuck. I lost my freedom, that I took for granted. Growing up in the US, one big difference between Japanese and American societies is the concept of freedom. You went to the university in the UK, so it might be little bit different but for American, freedom is like...

HK: Virtue?

KS: Yes, but it’s more like religion.

HK: Interesting.

KS: It’s what the United States stands for. It’s what America is. Admittedly living in the States can be more personally dangerous for you than to live than in Japan.In Japan, you probably will not get shot on the streets, but there is a price to pay for that, and it is called freedom.

HK: Mmm, true.

KS: I’m sure you understand this concept of less freedom since you grew up in Japan as a minority. It’s really difficult place to be a minority in Japan. But on the other hand, I think we should always remember that there’s always cost for the freedom. Freedom is really sensitive and complicated, isn’t it?.

HK: You’re trying to bring freedom to Japan?

KS: Well, I’m not a freedom fighter. But I agree with your point about diversity and the 21st Century. 20th Century model was based on increasing efficiency and productivity to become industrialized, and of course wealthy, nations. So there was basically one mantra that everyone followed. As the Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman said, "there was one social responsibility to do business which is profitability. I thought there was more to it than that, but he received a Nobel Prize, but, not me.

HK: Haha, then what about the 21st Century?

KS: Well, the very year that Friedman passed away in 2006, Muhammad Yunus received the Nobel Prize for recognition of his work in micorofinance to combat poverty. He said that, “people are so diverse, and because businesses are comprised of such diverse people, then it should not be bound to a single objective of profitability.” Two Noble Prize laureates with opposing views. I think Yunus represents the 21st century model of diversity. Diversity means profitability is certainly important, but there should be and there are other important issues too. People are very diverse, so we have to have a share a mindset to understand one another, right? That’s the message in this century.

Japan had its period of high growth, but currently is a mature, stagnating economy. There are other economies that are growing rapidly, and some others whose growth may be some years ahead. But, our society is now interconnected on the Internet, it’s very close right? You have your Facebook account and I have mine, and we can be friends even you're living in Africa; this never happened before.

Certainly there was diversity in the 20th Century but it was much less connected. In this interconnected century, in order for companies and society thrive, they must embrace diversity as an invaluable asset.
But there's an interesting dilemma, because the diversity means that people have different backgrounds, different principles, different values, and different rules - so what do you do? There can be the one rule, the so-called “global standard.” That is certainly one way of thinking.

However, I think rule-based world, especially in Japan, tends to constrain, rather than encourage innovation. However there must be some important commons values shared by all, a principle-based world. Principle meaning that there are shared values even you’re American, British, Japanese, Korean, whoever you are. If your family or friends pass away - it’s sad. right? But, everyone is happy when their child laughs. Sure, we are different, but there are certainly common values that is shared by all the human beings.

HK: Do you suggest writing down the common value and share that with every one?

KS: We don’t have to, because they are already written for us. If you take philosophy from ancient China, or Greece, they are all saying the same thing. [Laughter]

HK: Haha, yea in a way true.

KS: Look at religion; different religions have been killing each other throughout the history of mankind, yet they all say the same thing. Do good and don’t do bad. At the core, it’s all same. Even 2000 years elapsed, humans make the same mistakes, and because we make mistakes, that is why diversity is important. If we are wrong or make a mistake, then we are not all wrong or make mistakes, and humankind can continue to thrive.

HK: Cool. Let’s talk about the professional side of your life. As the Internet grows, how is the landscape of donation for NPOs changing?

KS: I think the potential is huge. You can see how powerful the crowd resource is at the Obama’s campaign in 2008. Commons Asset Management that I established with my partners during the same year is based on a similar principle. Individuals who believe that sustainability of themselves and their children can, by nature, think about the long term. That is, investing a modest fixed amount at a fixed period, monthly, for their future. The amount that the individual invest may be modest, but if even10% of the households in Japan thought and acted in this manner, this will generate huge monthly inflows. With this monthly inflow, we can continue to support those listed companies who believes that their objective is to create sustainable corporate value growth. We also contribute 1% of our revenues to support social entrepreneurs through the Commons SEEDCap Program. A little bit of hope can do a lot, if it is gathered and channeled properly.

HK: Haha, true.

KS: The problem is that if it is “long term”, some people feel that they can’t see the benefits, i.e. the economic return on their investments, immediately. But, if one believes in the cause to leave a better society for our next generation, it shouldn’t be a big barrier. You know, the world cannot be changed overnight, it takes long, long time, till it happens, when it happens very fast.

HK: Is the mountain you’re climbing, which is to bring a change on those traditional yet ossified donation culture, the highest so far?

KS: [Laughter] Yea, actually it is really difficult, but that’s why it’s fun right?

HK: True. As the final question, I’m asking this to all the interviewees: please tell me your own advice to achieve success.

KS: Well it’s sort of a plagiarism though...

HK: [Laughter]

KS: But according to the Analects of Confucius, there’s a saying: “To like is better than to know. To enjoy is better than to like.” There are different ways to interpret this proverb, but the one I prefer is an interpretation by my great great grandfather, Eiichi Shibusawa. He said in order to achieve, you must have knowledge. But having knowledge itself does not leads to success. Because knowing, doesn’t necessary lead to action. That’s why he said liking something is more important than knowing something, because there is a sense of attraction, and attraction leads to movement. But if you just like something and face a wall, you might give up. But, if you find true joy in what you do, then even if you face a wall, you might think of it as a “wall”, but simply something to to climb over, or something to dig under. If you find joy in something, then you just keep on doing it. And, we know that, keep doing something is the most powerful thing that leads you to eventual success. I’ve met many successful people in my career, and they have common aura. It islike “man, they sure are enjoying their lives!!”

HK: Haha, true, most of my interviewees love what they do and are enjoying it.

KS: I don’t mean that they’re all super wealthy, but they laminate with joy in their lives. You can study by yourself to obtain knowledge. You can like something on you own. But if you enjoy something, you want others to join. Or, if you appear to be doing something fun, then, people will gather. This joy is something like Joseph Nye’s “soft power.” At the end of the day, if you can attract the right people by sharing your joy, then you’ve achieved success.

HK: Thanks a lot.

Ken Shibusawa is the Founder and Chairman of Commons Asset Management

An interview with Shirasu Shinya

2011-07-28T17:40:00.002+01:00

Haegwan Kim: Let me know your definition of success?

Shinya Shirasu: Well, it depends on people. For some people it's fame, for some people it's money. And I don't deny that.

HK: I see.

SS: I think majority of people have that kind of definition of success.

HK: Well I see.

SS: But how you live should be free - those who was born as a farmer, that's really great. Those who was born as a son of huge company but becomes a craftsman, that's also success. So if you have something that you can be proud of, then you should consider yourself successful. It's personal satisfaction.

However we connect "success" to money or social position since the war (WWII), everyone is now suffering to grasp their own definition. Of course sometimes someone feel money as a satisfaction from their bottom of heart. I think that's miserable though.

HK: Hahaha. How do you feel your own satisfaction?

SS: Well when I'm doing good job for my works, I can feel some. But that's business side of me and I'm not working 24/7. When I talk with someone or since I like Japanese antique, when I find a great earthenware, I feel satisfaction. But the best is when I eat great foods, drink great beers and have a great conversation!

HK: Haha, I agree.

SS: You know, those are what you should do always right?

HK: True.

SS: And when I sleep well and feel good morning!

HK: Well, it seems we came to far from success, haha.

SS: I don't live for success. I don't aim at high. Always my circumstances are changing, so I don't live for others' happiness, I live for myself. Of course when I provide joy for people, I feel good though.

HK: Others can't be incentives for you right?

SS: No, it never happened.

HK: I can see Japanese culture on your base, you started to learn it because you love it, right?

SS: Yea, I'm an absolutely amateur. I'm not a teacher so I don't have any responsibility, for example for apprentices. Instead I need to take responsibility for myself. I always need to reflect on myself. In Japan, culture is really fragmented and segmented, so people should settle in a narrow space. I often talk with Dr. Ken Mogi that every sector has sort of similarity.

HK: What do you mean by "similarity"?

SS: Each subject has its own knowledge, expertise, and so on - but these are connected in a way. I don't know how to describe it verbally but I believe those who engage in lots of fields would agree. Dr. Mogi has a speciality on brain science but he does lots of other stuffs. And I think that's why it's interesting - I don't want to cut signals from other fields and say "I just want to stick to this".

HK: Mogi-san often talks about principal. Although he tries to challenge many things but he has one principal that others can't bend. Can't you explain this part with proper words?

SS: No. Because it's a feature of individuals. Principal is a difficult word but in a simple way, it's just like or dislike. We are animals, so there's always physiological part on us and that's very natural thing.

HK: I see...

SS: Of course disliking others just by looks or smells is bad thing. We should care about it. But as said, we are animals and that's why the core of our body is pretty simple - just like or dislike and I regard this simple feature of humans very importantly.

HK: Some people feel difficulty to find their own principles. What do you say to them?

SS: I've been asked that often, but I don't know.

HK: I think there's social stigma to peruse their own happiness or success.

SS: Well, that's true. People are fed by the government. In old days, "good" children and "bad" children were taught at same place but now they are all average. So they don't have question on their own, like how to live as blah blah blah. They don't think deeply, so they rely on others. People just try what TVs and newspapers are saying and don't have any confidence themselves. To find principle, you should face to yourself.

HK: Face to yourself - that's a good word. I started this research to find how diverse humans are. Find your own answer - that could be an only advice to achieve success.

SS: Yes, the method is not a thing that people tell you, it's the thing you've got to find yourself. A bonze recites sutra, but they don't know its meaning at all.

HK: Hahaha.

SS: But while they recite, and being absorbed in one thing, they think deeply and deeply about "what is myself"? I know a bonze from Hieizan, he told me that "we don't do ascetic practice for a certain achievement". They don't do for purpose, they just think deeply and eventually find out what's the "principle" for themselves. I believe this is very important not only for bonzes but ordinary people like us.

HK: Thank you so much.

Shirasu Shinya is a an evangelist of Japanese culture.

An Interview with Kohei Nishiyama

2011-07-19T05:01:00.003+01:00

Haegwan Kim : At first could you tell me about your definition of success?

Kohei Nishiyama : That's the term that I don't think often, and I don't think I put my energy or talent to achieve success. But I think success is something others put on you, rather than you take it. It's a credit that someone else gives it to you.

HK : Interesting. The biggest credit people put on you is, I believe, cuusoo.com. I was amazed its idea and execution you guys made. Would you tell me a little bit more about the story when you founded the company?

KN: It was 14 years ago and back then we were one of the first player who was making the social manufacturing platform. So we started long before Facebook or Twitter were present. At the beginning, we actually asked users to form a community of common interests, and they aggregated the binding power before manufactures create products.

HK: So "cuusoo" was made on our imagination and idea?

KN: No, it was started from potential market but it's actually visualizing the potential market by identifying how many users are wiling to pay how much on the hypothetical products.

HK : And how many the hypothetical products came into the real so far?

KN : About 100 products are out of market.

HK: Wow, that's pretty cool. Japanese people are famous for their craftsmanship - called "Takumi". Did you think this feature helps cuusoo.com to evolve dramatically?

KN: I didn't grow up in Japan, so it was certainly not myself who has the character you have defined as a "typical Japanese". That said, up until now, most of user community formed on the platform are Japanese living in Japan and their backgrounds are as you say mostly engineering, and their esthetics are pretty much higher than average. They appreciate well-designed and thoughtful products, so I think it is natural the "craftsmen" have got involved and appreciated our social manufacturing products which was built long ago SNS were present in the United States.

HK : I reckon that you guys focus on "user innovation". I thought it's an unique idea and interesting. Could you tell me a bit about its concept and how to make user innovation?

KN: User innovations is coined by MIT professor whose name is Eric Von Hippel, from Sloan School of Management. His definition of user innovation is that it is an action taking by users who tend to lead other users who tend to invent or innovate things which are not supplied by suppliers. So user become the originator or innovator in a lieu of supplier.

HK : How user innovation happens on cuusoo.com?

KN : We're not trying to achieve innovation. We're just aggregating them. So user innovation exists everywhere. And I think it's a failure to identify how to make innovation rather than where innovation is happening. So user innovation happens everyday, every second. And it's not how to enable a person to innovate; those who do not innovate don't innovate and those who innovate innovate everywhere. And these innovators exist everywhere - so it's all about identifying where innovation happening and who make innovation.

That's why we've been seen as the very valuable entity by Lego or Muji, because we have identified 170,000 innovators online.

HK : These days people talk about eco-friendly products because of the natural disasters happening on the planet. If theres' your engagements on this field, please tell me about that.

KN : Our business model which is called design to order is already eco-friendly in a way because we don't produce if there isn't demand. We only produce if there's accesses of demand against minimal requirements of suppliers, which means that if break even point for manufacturer is ten and if there's five demands we don't produce, and if that's eleven we produce.

In this way we avoid producing which are not in demand, and if you look at the world suppliers actually do produce things regardless making sure that there's enough demand for their products. So proliferating what we do actually reduces the production of products which are not in demand and thus we say ourself eco-friendly.

HK : Do you think innovation comes first or demands come first?

KN : It happens either way - vice versa. As I said, we're not creating demands nor innovation - we're connecting dots, that's it. We just aggregating innovation because there's demands already. Innovators put innovation on the web, user react for that, and we visualize potential market.

HK : Can we say that connecting dots itself "is" innovation?

KN: No, however technology that enables to connect is innovation because it is a patented technology, in the light of algorithm or procedures of user interactions. We've failed so many times to connect users and replaced the old attempts by the new one because it simply performs better, and we finally overcame the difficulty to connect innovators online - I think we can say this is innovation.

HK: You're one of the members of World Economic Forum and acting as the global leader for a long time. Would you tell me how did you achieve and grow improve leadership?

KN: Just like the definition of success, I don't aim to be the leader. But after the 3.11, there was only myself who's available to do the job. I mean, if someone else was doing, I was totally happy to be lead. It just happened to me because no one else in my community was doing and I thought it is very important and my responsibility, mission and mandate to fix the problem.

HK: Did other people put the tag of "leader" on you, like success?

KN: They asked you to be a leader - you sometimes declined it but if there's no one doing it then you have to do it.

HK: Then would you say that so-called "successful people" or "leaders" are made by others rather than themselves being so?

KN: I don't deny the existence of natural-born leaders who tend to lead everything. Actually there are. And that's their temper, that's their nature and that's their character. What I am saying here is that I don't like to simply define what is leadership or how to achieve it. There's many many ways to be leader and including coincidences - I believe anyone can be a leader in their own ways, circumstances and situations that ask you to be the leader.

HK: As a final question I'd like to ask your advice on how to achieve success, but having a conversation, it seems difficult to ask?

KN: No, it's fine. My advice is don't aim for success, it will just follow.

Kohei Nishiyama is the Founder and CEO of Elephant Design.

An Interview with Kohey Takashima

2011-06-23T12:37:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

At first could you tell me your definition of success?

Kohey Takashima

I've got two definitions; one is achieving the goal itself and the other is being absorbed in the process to achieve the goal.

HK

Always being absorbed in what you're doing is success. Mmm interesting.

KT

I recently don't know whether I like to achieve the goal or I just like that I have something to achieve…

HK

That's interesting.

KT

Well, i think I love the both at last.

HK

Then what's your definition of success as the CEO of Oisix?

KT

"Secure foods" is a niche market indeed, but I believe it should be mass since foods are what people have every single day. So growing the market and leading it are my current definition.

HK

What's your plan for that?

KT

We've made our business based on the internet but from this year, we also start the commerce in retail stores as well. This is because we're aiming at creating vast supply chain with a proper price both online and offline. And actually pricing is really difficult issue yet the the most important. Offline and Price - these are the key for us at the moment.

HK

You're also wearing a hat as a co-founder of NPO and engaging in TABLE FOR TWO, the nonprofit that supplies school meals in developing countries. What's your definition of success in this part?

KT

I think NPO and business are the same - so regarding activities on B2C, we should scale it up. Last year we provided 5 to 6 million meals, but I think we need to put two more figures on that. School meals are not for surviving but it incentivize children to go to school and that raise educational level and creates lots of labors - and that's why this is so interesting.

Ultimately we do donation to create the world where donation isn't needed. So we are aiming at elimination the NPO like, eventually. Having said that, we want to make as big impact as possible for society and provide great foods to change the world until society doesn't need us.

HK

What was the first motivation you started nonprofit works?

KT

It was an agenda of the Davos meeting, and actually there's no one but me who was doing foods distribution, and so I felt it's dangerous.

HK

I see.

KT

For me, the challenge is always how to make sustainable system with good for society. It goes both Oixis and TABLE FOR TWO. I don't believe volunteer spirits - of course it's a good attitude but when you get tired, you can't keep on the work - so rather I'd like to make a system which is really sustainable that makes more money when you do more works, and this is that's why I thought joining Table for Two is an interesting idea.

HK

There's always the Internet in the base of your activities, why?

KT

The first time I touched the Internet, I thought it will change everything. I couldn't imagine the world without the internet and back then no one had tried foods distribution on the web, that's the reason.

HK

Why did you choose the foods distribution for your business?

KT

I wanted to create something valuable for society and wanted to use the Internet to make my business. Plus foods seem to have affinity with the Internet, plus no one made success in the field in even the US. So there's plenty of reasons to start.

HK

Hahaha, you're a challenger.

Including the World Economic Forum, you've shown your leadership in many ways. So I'd like to ask about your thought on leadership, at first what's your definition of leadership?

KT

It's really simple - if she could lead the team to victory, then she is a good leader. Of course there's many types of leaders - charismatic leaders, kind ones, or severe ones. So it should boil down into the result that the leader made.

HK

It's all about the result then?

KT

If I say "the result theory", I feel strange, but I think the result is rather important than the process.

HK

What's your advice to achieve the leadership?

KT

I love leadership so I try learning lots of things from my respecting leaders, but I concluded that I can't steal the essence of individuals, although I can steal their skills. If I mimic other leaders, I need to be "others" and that's not me. You should strongly hold yourself.

HK

Then what's your own leadership?

KT

I want each member of my team have spontaneities. When you're doing football, you feel you've got to win right? It's the same - I want my clues feel absorbed into the work and believe in the victory.

HK

So it's not how you work, rather how you support your team?

KT

If the number of team is five then you should do hard work on your own but if the number is 100, then it's much effective to support your clues. That's more fun too!

HK

As a final question, please tell me your advice to achieve success.

KT

It's how hard and strictly you can define your own success and commit onto it. You might have to sacrifice lots of things, but if you put your success on top of you priority, then success will come.

HK

Thank you so much for your cooperation.

Kohey Takashima is the founder and CEO of Oisix.

An Interview with Yoko Ishikura

2011-06-01T02:14:00.002+01:00

credit to Shinichiro Mikuriya

Haegwan Kim

Let me ask what's your definition of success at frist.

Yoko Ishikura

Definition of success depends on each individual. To me, success means accomplishing what you set out to do, no matter what it is. So it doesn't mean money or fame. It means you accomplish something you're so dedicated and so committed. To me, people I work with are also very important.

HK

What kind of people do you want to work with?

YI

I like the kind of people who are always curious, who are always willing to do something new, and who are ready to explore new area.

HK

I guess interesting people tend to work with interesting people. Do you think that's true?

YI

I think that's true to some extent. People who are connected tend to be open to new people, be interested in getting to know new things and explore new field rather than staying in one fixed small circle.

HK

So they are connected beyond the realm of their professional?

YI

Yes, I like a lot of people regardless of their expertise, whether they're from sports. Academia, business or whatever.

HK

In that light, can we say that we need to be open to be successful?

YI

Absolutely. When I come to think of it about success, I feel happy rather than successful when I work with people that I'm interested in and like. I feel I have succeeded when I accomplish my goal, but I feel happy when I work with people I like. Even if you achieve success, if it is without people you respect and like, it's no fun.

HK

Does it mean that you put your focus on process rather than on result?

YI

I guess both.

HK

Then can I ask what goal you set to achieve?

YI

I really don’t want to be known to everybody. I am not interested in becoming famous, but I want to be remembered as a person who is good at certain things. I want to be unique and be one of the leaders in certain area. You know, people often say "how do you want to be remembered?" I'm not interested in being rich, being famous, but I want to be remembered as a person who has made some kind of impact in some area, even if it is limited to the small field.

HK

Let me ask your professional side. You recently published a book on global career, so let me ask how to achieve it, especially how young people can pursue the career?

YI

“Global” in global career is not just geographical area or region. It means broader perspectives. Because technology and transportations has made so much progress, you can go to almost any place in the world. Today you can define the whole world as your arena. That is, "the world is yours" if you'd like it to be. You don't have to limited to the country you're born. That is my first definition of”global” career.

At the same time, “global” career means broader perspectives. Today knowledge or information in one area is not as valuable as it's used to be. Because we have search engine, you can look for information easily from huge data base available on internet. So how you integrate, how you combine the knowledge in one area and apply it to other area is becoming an important skill.

What I'd like to tell young people is to find your own uniqueness, your own strength, by combining fields and elements. How do you find your own strength or uniqueness? I believe the best way is to identify what you really like. If you like certain things, you forget how much time passes when you do it, because you're so enthusiastic, dedicated, and committed to it. You don't have to eat or sleep, when you are concentrating on doing what you like. You also tend to be good at doing what you like.

So if you can find something you are truly passionate about, you become better at it and eventually, it becomes your unique strength. When you find your unique strengths, you can explore where your unique strength is appreciated. It will be your competitive arena. As the world is interconnected today, you can easily find out the place where your strength is appreciated.

HK

In the global arena, the lingua franca is English. Could I ask your opinion on how important to learn English is?

YI

As of today, in 2011, English is de facto standard of the world for communication. It is often described as "Globish" instead of "English”. It could be broken English as long as you can convey your opinion to others. It goes without saying that, if you can express your view in English, you can reach millions of people throughout the world. For this reason, I would say English is very important.

With the technological breakthrough, today we can access tons of information on the Internet, and most of them are written in English. If you don't know English, it is as if you stay in a small box in this huge universe.

HK

Some people in non-English countries say that they own disadvantage because of the issue on language. What do you say to them?

YI

It is not necessarily bad. I think it is good to know two different languages because you can compare and contrast. For instance if your mother tongue is not English, you can compare your language to English. When I write something in Japanese, I re-write it in English to check whether it's written logically or not. If you're just an English speaker or one language user, it's difficult to check your writings because it is your own and makes it easy for you to write without much attention to clear message or tight logic.

Also, you can learn culture from learning different language. In Japan there are many words to describe “rain”, because we have lots of rainy days here. Only by understanding the language, you can understand culture, environment, lifestyle and mentality of people. Another example which shows the link between language and culture is how we describe “age”. This is an example one Carnegie Mellon Professor told me many years ago. For the Japanese, age is really important and the sound of the Japanese language shows us how age is important in Japan.

In Japanese “Ane” means older sister and “Ani” means older brother. On the other hand “Imouto” means younger sister and “Otouto” means younger brother. “Ane” and “Ani” sound quite similar, but “Ane” and “Imouto” do not. As you can tell from their sounds, Japanese sound doesn't distinguish gender, but differentiates age more clearly.

HK

Interesting.

YI

This doesn't apply to English, which only has sister/brother classification. This is just one example showing how valuable knowing other languages and culture behind them is.

People today are not too picky on your “English”, as long as the content is great. What you say is much more important than how your say. Of course we need minimum knowledge and understanding of basic English grammar and vocabulary, but people listen to your opinion as long as the content is good and logically structured.

HK

You teach media for children at the university, so let me ask some questions on the filed. At first, we saw the malfunction of Japanese media at the disaster in March 11. I'm sure many people suffer from information flow which is not precise and useful. I'd like to ask how people can prepare for these issues, I mean, how we can raise our media literacy?

YI

First of all, I suggest we should look through many diverse kinds of media, from newspaper/TV to the information on the web and social media like Facebook and Twitter. In the 21st century, much more information is available for us than any previous generation. Twitter, Facebook and other social media is an enabler to makes democracy possible. Now everybody can have an access to information and media by which they can express their own individual view. This is unprecedented and never happened before.

Traditionally information was costly and limited. Only those with power have control over media and have access to information. When we needed information, we had to gather information from different source in different ways. Now we don't have to even try to gather information, it's just out there. What we need, today, is to select them - which information is valuable and which is not.

So my advice is not to watch only one information source, if you are US citizen, don't read only US newspapers or TV, if you're Japanese don't watch only Japanese TV. Check out the media in Europe, South East Asia, and Mid-East or in Africa, Latin America. They report the same incident in totally different ways. Sometimes they ignore the incident and do not even report.

I would say Japanese media is one-sided, not balanced and conservative. So it's important to try to have diverse viewpoint in this country.

HK

Do you think the new media such as Facebook and Twitter have the possibility to change the condition?

YI

Sure. I wonder why it hasn't happened. As we see what's going on in North Africa and Mid-East with social media, its potential is huge. The politics began to change with the 2008 U.S. election for Barack Obama with social media. He used internet well to mobilize ordinary people on the street. So social media has been playing a significant role to transform the society. We need to think much more about how to utilize the new media well.

HK

As a final question, please give us your advice to achieve success in general sense.

YI

My advice to be successful is to do whatever you're passionate about, follow your heart, do what you love, and don't waste your time doing what you do not like. Keep upgrading your skills and strength by interacting with people whom you respect and whom you like. Always try to create the better future.

Yoko Ishikura is a professor at the Graduate School of Media Design, KEIO University in Tokyo.

An Interview with John Kim

2011-03-26T00:51:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

Thanks for your time. At first I’d like to ask your definition of success.

John Kim

I don’t know how others defining success but I haven’t thought about it and actually I’m not that interested in success. But if I’d tried to define, there’s a definition of success in social aspect and personal one.

Social aspect means like position or fame, which society and others determine. And the personal aspect is what you determine. The former is what others determine, so it’s uncontrolable, and that’s why I’m not interested in. I consider success depending on the attitude that I make actions with enough thoughts every moment I live. So yesterday or future doesn’t matter. Every moment I make all myself be into thinking, meeting, moving and doing, all these are accumulated and as a whole I feel successful. What others think just doesn’t matter. I came to think like this since when I was about 30. You know, young people often care about social reputation right?

HK

[Laughter] Yes, indeed.

JK

So it’s really important, in your 20’s, to find what you really want to do and try to achieve it. Many young people are afraid that if what they’re doing is meaningless in the future. That’s why only those who have clear vision and determination can go further.

HK

I see.

JK

But after I became 30, I quitted to put a criteria to succeed outside of myself. I realized that it’s all depending on how I define. Even if the other 6 billion disagreed and only I agree it, then that’s fine. If I know that all the responsibility of the choice is mine, then I can be happy anytime.

HK

Interesting.

JK

I think that’t the true meaning of success. It’s not depending on others, it depends on yourself. If you think like that, you’d be successful forever till you die.

I often teach about the controlable and the uncontrolable for students so that they know what they need to consider in their lives. If it’s impossible to resist, that’s just fine but if you can do anything on it, then you have to put your everything on it.

If you do so, even unfortunate things happen to me, I can switch myself within 3 minutes. Of course if that’s the family’s or friends’ issues, that’d be tough though. But in other cases, my life doesn’t rely on others, because I do what I’d like to do. I don’t stick to one thing, I'm always resilient, I have changed my professional field like economy, law, policy, journalism, telecommunication, and I’ve moved from Japan to America to the UK to Germany and came back to Japan.

By the way I feel strange when I feel comfortable.

HK

I agree with the feeling!

JK

For instance if I feel comfortable in Japan, I feel dangerous at the same time. [Laughter]

HK

[Laughter]

JK

Since I graduated from the high school in Korea, I’ve lived overseas and my ability of adaptation has been raised whenever I change where I live. I think you’d agree.

HK

Yep. For instance my vitality rises a lot when I went to Israel or America as a homeless.

JK

Indeed. When you play in the different concert, you’d feel difficult in terms of language and how to live but you can find something new in yourself. You can be what you want to be through the interactions with audience of your life - it’s writing the scenario on your own and improvise your life each moment.

HK

Interesting.

JK

I don’t feel any regret when I make a change and by doing so twice, three or four times, my adaptation skill has been raised. I met lot’s of incentive people and realized that I lived in the tiny tiny world. So now I think the world is big enough as I can enjoy until I die. Now I can travel around the world and keep finding the interests in all around the world! I need to visit two or three countries every year...

HK

[laughter]

Why you became a Professor of Law at Harvard and of Media at Keio? Is that the result that you’ve been changing so drastically to be resilient?

JK

I’ve thought that I don’t want to wake up early morning.

HK

Hahaha. [Laughter]

JK

And I don’t want to work under someone’s order. [Laughter]

HK

Whatever. [Laughter]

JK

I want to use my time for me, not for others. I want to determine my agenda on my own. I’ve been thinking like this for a long time. So what’s the most free and happy occupation? The answer is a professor.

HK

Hahaha. [Laughter]

JK

Professor is really nice, half of the year you can rest and the other half you can interact with your students, which gives me lots of inspiration. And we get paid! [Laughter]

HK

I’m jealous! [Laughter]

JK

Just what you need is writing creative papers - that’s it. Every 4 years, students graduate so you can get the cutting-edge information of the time. This is a position even you don't mind to pay to stay actually. Hahaha.

But it’s dangerous because it’s too comfortable for me, as I talked previously.

HK

True!

JK

Also people care about position, like Keio or Harvard, so I took the opportunities on purpose. But it’s nothing after one or two weeks past. Humans get used to their condition; when I thought what’s after Harvard, there’s nothing.

I’lll go to Switzerland from this Friday, there’s lots of beautiful mountains but you’ll get bored in an hour right? I live in Roppongi, at first it makes me fascinated but now it’s nothing.

That’s why it’s dangerous to try to bringing inspiration from outside. That greed gets grown forever; car, house, money, and so on so forth. So you need to find out value in your mind - you shouldn’t see the outside of people, you should see their inner side.

HK

I see. Since you’re familiar with innovation and such, I’d like to ask few questions in the field. At first about how to make creativity. I don’t think it’s right to say that Japanese people are not innovative but people in this country are struggling to be so. What’s your thought?

JK

My definition of creativity is very clear; it should be new for society and it should be meaningful for society as well. This combination is an essential component of creativity and plus implementation, it’d be innovation. I think it has two sides of definition; personal and social one.

HK

Then it’s linked to the talk about success we did right?

JK

Yes, creativity should be meaningful for both you and society. And you know, society changes by the era and nations; community has always changed. In other words, creativity or innovation is depending on how you persuade society.

HK

Interesting.

JK

So even if society and it's majority say one worthless cup is new and meaningful, that’s creativity. In this sense innovation has really political and democratic process. Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift is a good example. Even natural science, once people believe the Ptolemaic theory, that’s gonna be true.

So it’s all depending on society. I think of society as a relative entity - there’s no absolute truth. If your believe right, that’d be “truth” and that part isn’t where others can invade; it's really arbitrary thing. Human beings create not only commodities but common sense.

HK

I agree.

JK

In this way, the disruptive and incremental innovation are just the matter of definition. If the incremental innovation had a big impact, that’d be the disruptive one. No one can draw a line between them and the criteria is all depending on who you are.

It’s a really interesting theory because the two opposite word can be the same. Talking about innovation, the more important thing is not how to define but how you create benefits for society.

Japanese people are really good at creating new things but very bad at persuading society with story-telling. Even if you create a thing, no one buy it, that’s pointless right? Even if you find out that the earth is moving around the sun, people say that’s wrong and no one accepts the fact, that’s meaningless.

So I believe the exact moment when the innovation happens is not the time you create things. For example Gogh or Bach, their arts were evaluated after hundreds of years from their death. Of course for them, it’s really great innovation but not for society. I believe the time when the thoughts or commodities spread out into the whole society is the exact moment of innovation.

HK

I’d like to hear your opinion on social media recently rising. What’s the biggest change since its appearance on our society?

JK 
I think the connecting points among the people increased drastically on Facebook or Twitter. Like us, it’s possible that someone introduce us, we exchange DMs, and the meeting happens. We can say that our ways to communicate has been enriched (although some say it’s getting poor).

But at the same time, rareness of analog has increased a lot. You know, the ability to feel atmosphere and make a choice based on the understanding - that’s the ability people are required nowadays, that’s the ability that digital can’t do. Today, consideration for others are also important because everything else is digital and can be done by the Internet or robots.

I always say to my students not to get knowledge on Google because that can be done by 5-year-old kids. Students, especially in the universities, need to get wisdom that can not be found on the web.

HK

For example what kind of things cannot be done on the Internet? What cannot be changed into digital?

JK

At first atmosphere. I often attend universities’ board meeting, and it’s hell long. We prepare the next year’s meeting from this autumn and every two months, well-known professors come along and discuss 2 hours or so. But for me, two weeks are enough to prepare it; just send emails and get conference room and then done.

You don’t have to talk for two hours, just 10 minutes are enough to set agenda. These ‘feeling’ cannot be possessed by robots and it’s only available for human beings who think deeply enough. Is he mission-oriented? action-oriented? That’s everything. Prioritizing fragmented issues and synthesize them - these process should be analog and not digital.

HK

True, could I have your advice to achieve success as the last question?

JK

Hold your criteria of success, don’t put it outside. You don’t have to care about what others talking about you; you have to stand on your own feet. If you do so, you’d be successful forever. Live the every moment and think deeply, do your best, feel joy and if that joy matches to society's benefit, then you’d feel more joy. These accumulation will make the whole your life successful.

John Kim is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

An Interview with Chiaki Hayashi

2011-02-11T05:35:00.002Z

Translated by Haegwan Kim

Haegwan Kim

Today's interviewee is Chiaki Hayashi. Hello Chiaki.

Chiaki Hayashi

Thanks for having me.

HK

So, as always I'd like to start from your definition of success. Not as a co-founder of Loftwork but your personal one.

CH

Well, it's not about whether you can do or not, it's whether you want do or not and make actions. Oh can I say one more thing?

HK

Of course you can. [laughter]

CH

So, I force myself to stop thinking whether or not I can do and if there's two choices, I take both of them.

HK

Oh, you do everything you can!

CH

Yap, I do everything. I think people often take only one when there's two or more choices, but if we get twice energy, we can do the both right? So it's fine to challenge everything and just do it!

HK

Wow, that's powerful. So your stance on challenge itself is success for you. I mean, for many people achieving success is a kind of success, but your success is more like mindset.

CH

Well, my definition of success is doing what you want,, and the mindset is a kind of preparation for that. I think we need energy to achieve anything, for example passion, wisdom, physical training, or human network. But all of them can be said as "energy". And you can raise your energy throughout your life. No one has energy since they were born. That's why I said I challenge everything I can, this is because I want to enhance myself by raising energy. You know, once the work started, you should do no matter what. [Laughter]

HK

I want to talk about your professional side. Loftwork, the biggest creators' online platform in Japan. Is this what you wanted to achieve?

CH

Nooooot at all!! [Laughter]

Kim

Hahaha. Thing goes like that.

CH

At first I aimed at connecting creators and tho who want creations directly. The concept is called "creators direct". So this is like if you think of yourself a creator, you're a creator. Nationality, gender, age, everything don't matter. Whether it has value or not can be decided only by people, not professional workers. Everything is based on direct matching, which hasn't been changed yet.

But that was a decade ago, when infrastructure of the Internet hasn't be set and creators couldn't even scan their arts. So there's just few people who update their works and also at that time EC hasn't been famous, so people were suspicious on buying creative on the web. Many people told me it's suicide to sell creative at the moment.

HK

You went there too early.

CH

Yap. So I thought if I can't do this directly, I can at least provide resources of artists indirectly, and Lofwork has been taken the model. Creator Search Platform. Today many people tell me they've got lots of works on Loftwork and we made a certain circulation of human talents. But still, when I find a company that connect artists and people directly, I say "Jeez, this is what I wanted to do!!"

HK

Hahaha [Laughter]. So this is really not what you wanted to do, but you made a kind of…

CH

Yes, I still don't feel satisfaction but I believe Loftwork made artists' lives better. And I still pursue the first dream and am trying to accelerate the activities.

HK

You mean you'll change the way of Loftowrk? Going to EC part?

CH

Of course, but it's not like EC but creating a platform where money goes to artists directly. For example using Paypal, providing talents not only at a national level but…

HK

International.

CH

Yes. So having the first vision, I want do various challenges from now.

HK

I think circulating capital on the web and for creative workers are pretty tough challenge since many of their works aren't visible. I want to hear your perspective on how you think to capitalize, or evaluate invisible works and create capital flow for them?

CH

I have an idea on that. So, until now, there's been capital flow for visual materials like images or files on EC. But I think this model will change.

I talked about this at Vabel Conference, but Ryuichi Sakamoto's project let me realize that the model between consumers and producers would be over and instead there will be relationship economy - social commerce.

So it's not like buying Sakamoto's song, but it's more like paying money because we like his way to live, we like to be a part of his musical activities. It's already happened in the US, for instance Kickstarter. They are paying for engagements. They are not paying for materials but paying for dreams, ideas, and engagements. I believe this will be mainstream in the 21st century.

In this sense, creators have huge influence on social sphere and I want to create a platform them, which can be an answer to your question.

HK

Wow, cool idea.

CH

Don't you think it's super fun if you pay for 100 dollars for your favorite artists and get a surprising present from him/her!?

HK

Cool! On the other hand, since you're engaging in Creative Commons, I have few questions. You know, Japan is really nervous about copyright issues right?

CH

Hell yea.

HK

And Creative Commons doesn't disagree copyright itself but is trying to clarify the process.

CH

Yap.

HK

With this part and your loftwork activities for artists, I want to ask about your thoughts on how copyright issue will be changed in the future?

CH

Well, just come along to our talk session if you're free on March 26th. [Laughter]

HK

[Laughter]

CH

What you asked me is exactly what we will talk about at Roppongi Art Night. Its title is "20x4 dialogue" and 20 people will talk for 4hours! There'll be 4 themes and one of them is how we can utilize copyright and we'll gather people both from artist side and Internet side. Joi Ito will come.

HK

Oh Joi will come? Great.

CH

Yap, and Professor Miyaga, who created MIT open course will also join the session.

HK

Wonderful.

CH

In the session, I'd like to say "society is changing and that's unstoppable, no matter how you lament". This flow, more and more people put their works on the web, is irreversible. Of course there'll be people who get benefice from change and lose their privilege, but this flow itself will never change, never. So it's useless to talk about whether we use the Internet or not, the important thing to talk is how we use the Internet.

I don't think it's negative to share works on the web, and I even think killing information only on the web - except few examples - would lead failure in real world too. Being too protective for copyright would kill works in the real world, at least I believe so.

HK

Agree.

CH

So as business strategy, it's necessary to enhance your famousness on the web regardless what type of business you do.

HK

So there's no choice for you?

CH

Nop.

HK

Wow.

CH

But the choices on how you use the Internet - there's tons of choices on this. So how free you make copyright, when and how costumers pay money, and so on; there's choices. Of course you don't have to use Creative Commons. But talking about whether you put your works on the web or not; there's no choice.

HK

Share is the key - I think the sharing is not a cup existing in the infinity space, but hundreds of cups interacting vigorously. And you think this action of sharing itself is synchronizing with actions in real life right?

CH

Yes, but I don't say we all should use CC and share with people all around the world. It's totally fine to share just with 100 people. Including all choices, how we share on the web is important.

HK

By the way don't you think there is negative image on the Internet in Japan?

CH

Yes, indeed.

HK

Since I travel around the world, I realized that each country has each opinion on the web. In India they think it's a way to get jobs, in America it's innovation that makes people's lives better, in the UK, it's …. way to enjoy life? I don't know, but anyway they all utilize the power of web. But in Japan, I feel there's negative image on the web.

CH

I presume many Japanese people don't want the web to grow, to be honest.

HK

Yes, so I want to ask you whether Japanese people hate share or not! [Laughter]

CH

Hahaha, I think business person don't like, but in personal they like sharing, very much.

HK

Interesting.

CH

You can say that from the fact that Twitter's second largest language is Japanese, there's lots of bloggers in Japan. In this sense Japanese really like to tell their stories to other people. So potential at an individual level is quite high. But this mindset doesn't go to business because Japan had successes with offline works for a long time. But it will change; now is a time of transition.

HK

So you think this will change?

CH

Yes, Japan has been famous by creating things. So I think many of mangers can't resist the atmosphere of the web, saying "you sell this quality!?"

HK

[Laughter]

CH

But as I said individuals' level is high, so will be changed soon. I feel necessity to engage into this transition, that's why I do lot's of challenge apart from loftwork.com.

HK

Do you think we can share success as well?

CH

……. Yes we can, I think.

HK

Does that mean sharing success story or something and other people gets happier?

CH

No, what I imagine was each individual has an element to succeed, and by sharing "something" on the web, that elements get bright. So it's not sharing success story of me with you, but by sharing my story, you realize your own success because your success is only for yourself.

HK

Great opinion. As a final question, can you tell me your advice to achieve success?

CH

Well, I'm not a "successful" person yet.

HK

Everyone tells me as you exactly said. [Laughter]

CH

[Laughter]

HK

It's totally up to you.

CH

I have advice for myself. So as I said earlier, I'd be happy if I can share this with people on the web.

Make actions - no need to complain.

This is my advice. I regard creation rather important than criticism. I believe creating something makes people happy above all. In my mind, success equals happiness, so if I'm happy, then that's fine. Dr. Mogi was saying the same thing at Vabel Conference right? We don't know when we die, and when we die, there's no time to complain others. More than that, I want to spare time to make people happy i.e. creation. Making something new; that can be things, a company, love, children, whatever - but creation makes your life better. This is my belief and advice.

Chiaki Hayashi is a co-founder of Loftwork.

An Interview with Natsuko Shiraki

2011-01-28T05:28:00.002Z

Haegwan Kim

As always, I want to start from your personal definition of success. What's your thoughts on success?

Natsuki Shiraki

Well, it's really difficult question at the very beginning…

HK

[Laughter]

NS

Personally I think it's the moment you achieved what you want, and that'd be money, occupation, or family - so it's totally depending on who you are. Since I was a child, I've had many things that I want to achieve, and when I achieve one of them, that's success for me.

HK

So the moments of achievement are not once in your life…

NS

No, there're many times you can feel so, and by having the moments many times, or accumulating the moments, I think humans can grow up.

HK

So you founded Hasuna because that's what you wanted to do?

NS

Exactly.

HK

Can you tell me the beginning roughly?

NS

I fell in love with the global cooperation when I was 18. Until then, I was just a stupid high school student, and I'd been thinking what I should do. But when I watched the speech of a photo journalist, I had a vivid sensation. I saw pictures of genocide at Rwanda, poverty in Ethiopia, and natural disaster in Indonesia. I thought there's so many people struggling with these problems and we need to help them, and that should be my life work.

Since then, my explore into global cooperation has started. I worked as an internee at NGO, NPO, UN, but concluded working as a social entrepreneur, here in Hasuna, is the best way for me.

I embedded my passion on the global issue and passion on fashion and art, which I have had since I was a child, into Hasuna. In fact, I wanted to work as an artist when I was a primary student, but with my mother's disagreement, I gave up the dream. But with this business, I think I can pursue the dream again.

In that sense, I can do fashion that I like and global cooperation that I found when I was 18 as lifework here at Hasuna. So it can be said that I'm creating my own foundation to achieve what I want to do.

HK

I see. Since I start interviewing social entrepreneurs, I do often ask this question, which is "does your happiness equals other's happiness?" What do you think about this?

NS

I believe happiness circulates around us in many ways. Of course sadness as well. That's why I think everything I've done will come back to me in the future; it's like a dogma or mantra. Doing good for society would be doing good for me. So I think it's important to do something beneficial for others and our society.

HK

Why you chose jewelry to start your activities as a social entrepreneur?

NS

As I said, I met with the global cooperation when I was 18 and went abroad to study at London University for three years. During the time I went to India for two months to stay with people in poverty. I wanted to know what I can do for them. The villages I stayed are 5 to 6 hours distance by bus from Chennai of South India. I visited many villages in the two months, and found people are quite happy despite their financial condition in many places. However, in a village where only the lowest position of caste live and work at mine, they had really bad working condition and didn't show any smile. From the old to children, people in developing countries have energy in many cases, but they are totally different; all of them had dark atmosphere. People only say negative things and treat me badly. And then I realized that absolute poverty even deprives a child of smile.

The poorest in the poor, they often lose even the purpose to live, hope to live. Things we can get at mines are marble, jewelries and others that enrich people's mind, but those who dig mines are so depressive, I thought. They are human beings too. I started thinking about this issue since then, and knew that there's 14 to 16 millions of mine workers around the world and of course millions of them are children. Many of them are dying because of the harsh condition.

So I thought I want to give smile not only those who put jewelry on, but those who create jewelry. We often have a special feeling on jewelry. For instance things to pass on like father to son, son to grand son or engage ring which will be worn for the entire life. I thought that there should be smile behind the scene of jewelry and I founded Hasuna.

HK

You established the concept of "ethical jewelry". What does this concept mean?

NS

Very simply, it means, at least we define, the world as that jewelry that's tender for people, society, and nature. So we lessen the damage on environment and take care of nature and human life.

HK

Although it's important to take care of nature but to live in capitalism society, earning money is necessary. What does "money" mean to you as a social entrepreneur?

NS

Well, personally I'm not interested in earning money.

HK

Hahaha. [Laughter]

NS

But I like dress-up, love fashion and am into bargain!

HK

Hahaha [Laughter]

NS

Of course it's not bad to have money, and if I don't have it I will suffer. But I'm not interested in, I like buying stuff, though.

HK

I see.

NS

We, Hasuna, think of money as gratitude; we pay for craftsman as a proof of our gratitude. So money equals gratitude for us.

HK

An interesting opinion.

NS

Of course we have goal set in the company, but we are not using "Yen", but instead we use "smile". Like "Let's achieve 40 million smiles!" or anything like that.

HK

Wow [laughter]

NS

100 million smiles!

HK

[Laughter]

I want to talk about a gender issue in jewelry industry. In my personal understanding, the number of females are much bigger than that of male. What do you think about this?

NS

Well, but in fact management teams are almost male. Especially big companies' CEO or CFO, they are always old guys. There's a ceremony for the rewardable companies that achieve many success in the year and I attended the ceremony. Those who stood at the arena as representatives are an old guy, an old guy, an old guy and an old guy.

HK

[Laughter]

NS

So the problem is rather aging issue than gender.

HK

[Laughter] I see.

NS

Our industry itself is aging. And this makes us more protective and conservative.

HK

Understood. What's the aim of Hasuna for now?

NS

In short term, we will open the first store in March, so we'd like to manage it well. In long term, as I talked previously, I want to enrich the condition of developing countries. Plus, I want to repay kindness for the world of art. For example. Suntroy or Shiseido, they invest lots of benefits to museum and creative works. Like them, I hope we can protect the artists who need money to keep on their creative activities.

HK

We didn't talk about success that much, but would you tell me your advice to achieve success as a final question?

NS

Having ambition and telling the ambition to other people. I imagine what I will be 5 years or 10 years later once a year. And if the imagination is clear, I can see clear path to achieve the ambition. To make your vision clear, it's important to talk with various people, read variety of books, and share it with your friends are very important. This is my advice.

Natsuko Shiraki is the founder of Hasuna.

An Interview with Motohiko Tokuriki

2011-01-21T02:18:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

Can you tell me your definition of success?

Motohiko Tokuriki

Well that's a difficult question, because I haven't thought about it. I think it's whether you're satisfied yourself or not.

HK

Does that mean "satisfied about what you're doing"?

MT

I don't think success is a thing that has an end. For instance, selling a billion yen, or earning a million yen - that's not success. In the end, for me, doing what you want to do and accumulating tiny successes one by one - that's success.

HK

I see.

MT

Whether you're successful is determined only by yourself, and whether you're doing what you what to do.

HK

I want to talk about your professional things. At first, you're familiar with social media, especially blogging. What's the beginning for you to start blog?

MT

I was working for NTT and thought I'd like to start new business. But when I started, I didn't know anything and had a tough time. in 2004, blog was popularized and I got interested in this field.

HK

Is that in Japan?

MT

Yes, the US is earlier than this. Especially I remembered many bloggers appeared after 9.11. They dramatically increased at that time.

HK

You told me that success depends whether you're satisfied or not. Is the reason you started blog and social media that you felt some sort of possibility for that?

MT

No, it's opposite. I chose social media not because I want to succeed, but I started blogging and then gathered lot of things and learned a lot.

There's fundamental difference between us, that's you interview "successful" people, but I don't think of myself as a successful person.

I quitted NTT and started venture, but I failed. I mistook many times. The good thing is that I wrote that progress of mistakes on blog, and as a result I had human network and changed my perspective on business and eventually I earned credibility in this business. So I'm still far away from being called like "successful person"

HK

I got it. But the purpose of this research is not interviewing successful people and I don't try to create a framework for success. What I'd like to do is spreading diverse ideas on success and society.

I want to listen to your opinion on satisfaction again. Do you have any idea on how to be satisfied yourself?

MT

Well, many people who are regarded as successful often don't think of themselves as successful. For example I like "Hokutono-Ken" (Japanese Manga), there's really few people who can die like "Raou" (a character in the manga) who said that "I have no regret" just before his death.

HK

[Laughter] I see.

MT

Son san as well.

HK

Masayoshi Son from Softbank.

MT

There's few people who can foster a company in one generation that much, but I don't think he has being satisfied himself. That's why he takes risks and bought the phone company and keep challenging and challenging.

Of course there's people who complain about what he's doing and it's pretty philosophic but - it's not always true that "socially successful" people feel themselves successful or satisfied. In the end, once you define success as being satisfied, you would never be successful.

HK

Well, so it can be said that present satisfaction is much more important than expectation for future's satisfaction.

MT

You can say so. I think success is not "past tense". Accumulating tiny successes day by day, that's rather important.

For instance, there's a person who wants to be a TV star, but there's nothing you can get just by being TV star, because you will see a new challenge. Same for Hollywood star. So success can be said as a point you're aiming at.

HK

Then can I say that you left NTT not because you wanted to have a current position but when you look back now, there's a road you walked so far. Is this right?

MT

When I left NTT I didn't think anything, but like you said, there's been changes of value. When I was at NTT, I was so simple, the definition of success equated with a promotion. Once you got into the company, everyone aims at being a CEO. Of course there's people who'd be satisfied with being VP or DM, though. But now, I can say "success is not a mathematics". You can't define success just with number.

You get lots of money but do what you don't like to do, or you get less money but do what you really want to do. It's depending on you. And I think it's linked with the phenomenon of increase in the number of social entrepreneurs in these days. Of course there's huge differences among people, for example who can be satisfied if his family is happy. It totally depends on who you are.

HK

What's the biggest change in your life since you started a venture?

MT

It's more accurate to say "since I started blogging". So I quitted NTT and had a-year consultancy and moved to a software venture. The biggest change is that, when I was at NTT, I was trying to improve the company's reputation. But here in a venture, we create a horizontal relationship. For example, promoting i-mode and getting satisfaction in the company - this is a huge company but we collaborate with other ventures and achieve success together. I found the collaborators by blogging. Simply, being friends is the fastest way to promote a venture. Of course it can be said to the gigantic companies, though.

It's whether individuals come first or companies come first - I learned this since i started a venture.

HK

Since we can see blog as an individual media, can we say that the power of individuals is getting stronger and stronger?

MT

You could say so. When IT companies create new innovation, like Google or Twitter, many of them can be benefits for individuals. Obviously it's time for people to live "comfortably".

HK

Personally I think making friends in real society and virtual society is different, and with the stronger individuals on the web, can we say our society itself, especially in terms of how to create a community is also drastically changing?

MT

I think there's no longer a clear distance between "real" and "virtual". Until now, even if you chat with someone on the web, you wouldn't talk to him in real society. But today, especially since 2004 in Japan, there's so many connections between real society and web, and many people are surpassing the border. People knew each other in blog met in a conference or met in a conference and found their blogs and so on so forth. I don't think it's rational to separate real society and the world of web anymore - they are both "a place to create a community".

The biggest difference is a cost. Meeting people - for example like this interview - takes time and money. Of course phone call as well, you should make an appointment. Blog, Twitter, and other new communications are different - they are "pull" communication. Their attitudes are "hey, I wrote this, so check this out if you like". It's not "please read this" - which is "push" communication. Obviously the latter takes more time, energy and money.

For instance, if you take interviews and send it to your friends, I guess that's 100 or so. Or sending Nengajo (Xmas card of Japanese that send each other on January 1st), you'll get tired soon.

But pull communication, you don't have to. Plus, it doesn't mean to have less communication ability. Sending 100 emails takes lots of time but tweeting to 100 followers takes just a moment. And sending 10 emails are spam but 10 tweets are just usual.

HK

Hahaha, that's true.

MT

I think with the rise of the Internet, our ways to communicate are getting much easier. So far even if we exchanged name cards, we could barely communicate with some of them, maybe 50 or something? But now we can keep all the connections with pull communication. In this sense as well, we are now living in the age when individuals can life comfortably.

HK

Thanks for your wonderful opinions. As a final question, I want to ask your advice to achieve success.

MT

It's good to have a high vision, but I think it's rather important to start with a small step. I'm not sure whether it's appropriate example, but people who failed with blogging often have an aim at earning lots of money.

People who are successful with blogging often write because they want to write - that's why they can blog everyday. They use blog as a personal memo or something, and as a result, gather lots of readers. Their goal is really low, and the purpose of blog is just because they like. If you start blogging with an aim of earning money, since it's difficult to earn money and readers by blogging as you know, people feel frustration and eventually end up as a failure.

But it's interesting that blog is really helpful in many ways if you keep doing for a couple of years. For instance even it's a small amount of money you can get on blog, you can communicate with many inspiring people like "oh, you're the one who write that blog aren't you?". The value of these human networking can't be measured by money. So I believe it's more important than anything to accumulate small successes.

Motohiko Tokuriki is the CEO of Agile Media Network.

An Interview with Eriko Yamaguchi

2011-01-11T04:15:00.002Z

[Translated by Haegwan Kim]

Haegwan Kim

At first can you tell me about your definition of success?

Eriko Yamaguchi

Doing what you want to do!

HK

Then what would be "what you want to do"?

EY

For me, it's enjoying life.

HK

You're helping developing countries through producing bags, was that "what you wanted to do"? Or you realized "what you want to do" during the process?

EY

It's the former.

HK

I'm just wondering whether you're happiness links to other's happiness. In your case, does contributing to developing countries mean to increase your own happiness?

EY

Well… I hope both connect one another, but we sometimes work for projects, which are not necessarily for others. So our primary is not others, it's ourself.

HK

So working needs personal incentive first?

EY

Yes, I think so.

HK

Today, many social entrepreneurs appear on various areas and saying that their motivations come from "other's happiness". You disagree with them?

By the way, I agree with you in many ways. Through my projects, I realized that I would fail if I seek incentive from others. So I always look for the reason from my inside.

EY

…otherwise people can't keep on, I think. If you work on just projects for others, I doubt that they can be sustainable.

HK

What is the biggest lesson you learn from Motherhouse's activities?

EY

When I founded the company, I have some sort of certainty to make my ideas happen- even that's invisible - and I made it real. Our company is still a venture, but having 6 stores, making tens of thousands of bags in a year, I feel there's nothing we can't do. That's my biggest lesson.

HK

When you founded the company, you could overcome uncertainty, concern and stigma which Japanese female entrepreneurs often have. Why?

EY

The imagination of success surpassed my all concerns.

HK

[Laughter] I see. Since your working links to developing countries, would you tell me your vision on their future.

EY

Wow, big question.

HK

[Laughter] Surely.

EY

I can't think of anything but expanding our projects at the moment.

HK

Don't you link your activities and developing countries?

EY

Of course yes, but that's long term view. We're now just focusing on creating better products 120%. It's not time to talk about the big picture yet.

HK

Bringing developing countries' products to developed countries - this model is now proliferated in many countries but when you started the company it wasn't. What was the reason you chose this model?

EY

I didn't think about the model at all. I even didn't consider selling. I just started to create great bags.

HK

Wow, you're brave! Then the beginning was a tiny challenge…

EY

Yes, through selling and making bags, we've been thinking thinking thinking then we found our model. We created website, we failed, then we went to wholetrade, we failed and finally we had our own store.

HK

Let's get back to our first topic, success. I always ask this question, which is what would be your advice to achieve success? You told me "do what you want to do" at first, but there's plenty of people who even don't know what they'd like to do. Do you have advice for them?

EY

I think you have to keep on working. Continuing your works - I wrote about this in my book, which is "keep walking" - is the key.

Whether you fail or succeed totally depends on whether you keep on the work or not. If I stop working at the first year, I would fail. But since I tried to continue our projects, now we can see success.

"If I'd keep on a little bit more" - many people think like this. But it's difficult. The last thing that drove you to do is attitude of challenge. You better to challenge if there's even few percentage of opportunities.

HK

I see, then you never failed? I mean, you can keep on everything until they will succeed?

EY

So what I'm most afraid of is the time when I can't keep on working. For example breaking my body, having accidents, anything like that. But as long as I can keep on my challenges, I'd like to do it.

HK

What is your motive power to work on so many stuffs?

EY

It's my habit.

HK

Habit? [Laughter]

EY

In sports you can't do anything if you didn't practice well before the match. Same thing for the company. So I make bags constantly to keep on the attitude. It's really like a habit. [Laughter]

HK

Wow, habit. I've heard you did Judo. Did it help you to have the habit? Or did any child education help to have the attitude?

EY

Of course Judo did, but education after you become adults is also important. For instance, improving customer service always and make it link with the number of selling - these experience would be your nourishment and they are practicable, mentally. Hard working and hard working, then you made it - then you can experience like "oh this works well". What' the important is continuing those experiences, earnestly.

Eriko Yamaguchi is the founder of Motherhouse.

An Interview with Tumi Makgabo

2011-01-08T06:01:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

So the first question is about your personal definition of success. As Tumi, an individual, what would be your definition of success?

Tumi Makgabo

You know I think that’s a very difficult question because success is a little bit of an intangible thing. I think, for a lot of people, they measure it in terms of wealth, and wealth creation, and so on, but I think that’s superficial. In real terms, sometimes people who are successful don’t know they’re successful.

But the reality is that when you’re thinking about what is success, I think if you’re doing something, one, that you enjoy doing, I'm not saying it’s going to be easy, but something that you enjoy doing, and something that you can do well with a positive result that impacts other people positively, for me then you will have been successful.

Not only are you fulfilling your own need to do something that you enjoy but you’re also allowing yourself to influence other people in a positive way, and I think if we all did that you would be quite successful. And I'm not talking about the monetary issues, because I think that’s a very debatable thing. When you look at somebody like Bernie Madoff who had a lot of money, and now is in jail, you know, is he successful?

HK

Nah. Ok, I got your point. So it’s not about money but it’s about how you influence others in a positive way.

TM

Yes, it’s about influencing others, and I think maybe even, I won't say inspiring, but hoping other people make positive changes, or decisions, in their own life, because at the end of the day you don’t live in isolation, you live with other people. So I think that becomes very important.

HK

As I said you succeeded in a lot of things as a TV presenter and a broadcaster, so can I ask about what is the key element to be such a great, so-called "successful" presenter?

TM

You know it’s funny because I think whenever you look at people that other people regard as being successful, the qualities that differentiate them from everybody else are not always easy to point out. So, for example, you can say if you want to be successful at business, you have to do well at High School, so that you can get good grades that get you into Harvard. So, you can go to Harvard Business School, and hopefully then you become a very successful businessperson.

And then you look at somebody like Bill Gates who never actually finished College, or you look at somebody like Richard Branson who never actually finished even High School, so I think for me it’s a similar principle that applies to broadcasting, or to anything that people regard as successful when it’s an external view. We all have our internal motivators but when you’re looking from the outside I don’t know that it’s easy to define what it is.

There’re a lot of people who work really, really hard, there’re a lot of people who do a lot of research, there’re a lot of people who put in the hours, and never get to do that. So, what makes a good presenter, I don’t know, I don’t know that I can answer that question.

But, what I would say is that an important characteristic that comes across for most people who are successful in that industry is that they’re very true to who they are, they don't try to be somebody else. They just are who they are, and they look, and feel really comfortable in their own skin, and I don’t think that that necessarily happens by happenstance.

I think it’s a conscious decision to say, you know what, I can only do what I know how to do, and that’s what I'm going to stick to doing. So, yes, it’s a combination of things, but I suppose if I had to pinpoint one thing it would be that, that you try to be true to who you are, and that usually fixes it I think.

HK

You've interviewed prominent people like presidents of the United States, billionaires, artists, entrepreneurs. Since I also do interviews, I'm just wondering what do you most carer about when you interview people?

TM

I'm very much interested in people, not in a sociological context, but what interests me, in my own mind, getting to know what the person is like. And looking beyond that sort of wall, of this is what I'm supposed to be like, because of my position, because of my fame, and my fortune this is what I'm supposed to be like, and trying to get a sense, or a feeling of what the person really is like. So I always approach things as a conversation.

To me an interview is more of a conversation than a list of questions that you have with someone, because when you have that conversation they’ll let you see sides of them, or parts of them, or parts of their personality that sort of slip out, because they’re comfortable, and that’s what really matters to me.

Of course you want to get the facts, of course you want to challenge people, but it’s also, it’s part of the exercise, is to show people a side that they may not readily have seen, and I think that’s really what I try to do.

HK

You have a really unique background as a South African lady, can you tell me pros and cons of that background to be a broadcaster?

TM

I think one of the big challenges, and I don’t think it’s because I'm a South African, I think one of the big challenges that women generally have on the continent is that most countries on the continent are patriarchal. So you’re functioning in the context of a male environment and I think that’s one of the big challenges that we all have.

That’s not a challenge that’s unique to me and I think because of that you have to work harder at defining who you want to be, and that’s not in a superficial context. In other words if I say I just want to be the best Tumi that I can be I have to focus on that, and work, and be true to that, and I have to decide what is Tumi like, and when Tumi’s confronted by a situation that feels very patriarchal, or where she feel constrained, because she’s a woman, she needs to fight that.

And it may mean she doesn't get work sometimes, or it may mean that people don’t want to engage with her, but she’s still being true to who she is, so I’d say the biggest challenge that you have is that. But, in terms of the pros, you know, I live in Africa, so there’re a lot of pros, and I think one of the biggest pros is that in many ways people… It’s a lot more community driven, not just in the sense that everybody lives in community but people enjoy that socialisation, which I think is wonderful living here.

I've had the good fortune to travel to a number of different places and one of the things that one misses about being in South Africa is that feeling of family; you know, even if people aren’t your family you can create your own family fairly easily, because people are so much more outgoing, and so much more open about themselves, and welcoming of you into their lives.

So I think the pros of that is the very fact that I live in this country that’s, it’s a beautiful country, with some amazing people in it. I'm looking out the window today, and the sun is shining, and the weekend, and barbeques are coming up, so… Yes, that's the pro; the pro is that I live in South Africa.

HK

Many people are now looking forward to seeing a huge development of that beautiful country, especially after the World Cup, can you tell me briefly your perspective on the future of South Africa?

TM

I think the continent has been on the cusp of really defining itself for a number of years and I think that the future has a lot of promise, but as is the case with so many things that have promise it can only materialise, or it can only realise when we actually take ownership of it. I think one of the challenges for many developing countries is that everything we do is done in the context of developed countries.

So the way we behave, the way we eat, our rules, and everything are done in the context of developed countries, and I think that for us we now, with the global economic crises, and so many other things, we really have a unique opportunity to find solutions that work for us on the continent, and to make those things happen in our own way.

You know whether we’re talking about the way we use our natural resources, or the way we deal with our intellectual property, or all of those things, that we really embrace this moment that we have to make our own decisions about how we want to be, and how we want to view, and to be viewed, and how we want our story, or stories, to be told.

The potential is great but potential is only as great as one is willing to maximise it. I think there’re a lot of people who want to do that right now, which is different, perhaps, you know, a few decades, it’s not so much about revolution, but it’s about empowering, and building a continent. We just have to do the hard work of getting there, and it’s hard work, but we’ll get there.

HK

As a final question, can you tell me your general advice to be successful?

TM

You know it sounds very clichéd but it’s a couple of things. At first you have to believe; you have to believe in your ability and in your inner strength to achieve the things that you want to achieve. So when I say believe I don’t mean think you’re better than everybody else, but think, for example, here’s a good idea, and I can work hard to make this real. So I think that’s one thing, so you have to believe.

Number two; you have to do the work. Without the work it’s not going to happen. And the third thing is don’t forget to bring other people along with you on your journey, because it can get lonely sometimes, and also it allows you to spread that knowledge, and to help to make things better. So the three things for success is that you have to believe, you have to do the work, and you have to bring others along with you as best you can.

Tumi Makgabo is a broadcaster and was an anchor at CNN International.

An Interview with Hemant Dadhich

2011-01-08T04:07:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

So my interview is about success. You've already told me that your goal is always what you can achieve, right?

Hemant Dadhich

Yes.

HK

Then can you tell me how you set the goal?

HM

You see, I set a very practical goal. I set a workable goal. Like in the beginning of this year, we decided as to INR100 should be our target. Alright. Now once we decide INR100, we were at INR60 a year, so we've got to increase INR40. Now if you have to increase INR40, you must plan in your mind to increase INR60 so that even if there is a slippage, you still achieve INR100.

Alright, so what I do is, while planning stage, I plan a little extra. While achieving stage, I don't rush myself. I will achieve. So we divide it then, you know? We have a direct sales. We have a sale through dealers. We have sale independents.

Likewise, there are various segments. So when you divide those segments, you see an normally reinforce your success. You see, if you reinforce your failures, you are bound to land up in failures only, so you must reinforce your success. Wherever you are getting success, move slightly more, push slightly more. You'll get more success.

Success is something which multiplies. It does not add up, it always multiplies. Success story is something which always multiplies.

HK

Can you give your definition of success? 

HM

I believe success is what you want and what you get. You want something, like I want INR100, alright, now getting INR100 is success, right? Getting INR90 is not a success. Now if you are to get INR100, you have to work for INR120. Alright? So your effort should be much more effort and planning rather than an addiction. It is a plan which succeeds. It is not the effort which succeeds. It is a plan which succeeds. If you plan well, you will achieve well. But if you don't plan well, you will not achieve.

HK

Your basic criteria to be successful was being happy, wasn't it?

HM

Happy, yes. Happiness I will tell you, if you remain happy, if you keep your environment happy, if you keep your team happy, your efficiency is much more. Only a happy team can have a good efficiency. If you are morose, if you are depressed, if you have other worries on your mind, you can't give the output which I really expect from you. So happiness you've got to keep in you, in your friends, in your environment, in your team; entire team has to be happy. And only happy people can have better efficiency.

HK

So the happiness is the matter of efficiency.

HM

Happiness is efficiency. And happiness does not come from worldly things. Happiness is a state of mind. I give you a good gift, you'll be happy, it is not sure. Alright, but if I give you a smile, I'll do also a smile, that is happiness. Alright? Have a look at your heart. For happiness, you've got to touch each other's heart. For happiness, I have to share your mind.

HK

That's very interesting.

HM

Happiness does not come by mere lip service, it comes from within.

HK

I was impressed by your background as first like doing an engineer, and then doing mentoring armies and then doing the business as a manager, what did you learn from your total career?

HM

With engineering, I learnt how to apply working principles in life. From mentoring, I understood what is comradeship, what is being together, what is being friend in arms. That I learnt; brotherhood; happy, good social life; bonding. And uprightness. When I came to business out here, I learnt the philosophy or turnover, philosophy of producing better and better and quality products. What sells is quality. What sells in market is quality. If you maintain quality, people are ready to pay. If you maintain your time schedule, people are ready to pay. So this is what I learned in business out here.

HK

Are they connected one another?

HM

If you are a good person, you will emit good vibes and there will be goodness around you always. Everything falls in place. My plans don't fail. They don't fail.

HK

Okay, why?

HM

Because firstly, I try and maintain good vibes all around. Secondly, I try and plan well ahead. When I make a plan, I plan well ahead. I plan for next five years, next ten years. Go slowly on the plans. Try and take cooperation from everyone. It's a collective situation. So that is the way I plan.

HK

You say that you had to apply your working principles into real life as an engineer. Can you talk about your working principles?

HM

Be true to yourself. Don't cheat yourself. You can cheat everybody in the world; you can't cheat yourself. So when you're planning a thing, be sure you're not fooling yourself. Alright? So when you're planning something, be sure what you're doing is right. If you're not right, take advice from people. There are consultants available. There are market leaders available. There is no harm in asking. There is no harm in seeking knowledge from anywhere. Alright? But don't try and cheat yourself. If a process requires three days, it requires three days. Give three days to it. Don't try and make it two and a half.

But you can optimise other things. You can optimise on resources. You can optimise on labour. You can optimise on other things. But in the entire plan that you make, don't cheat yourself. Don't cheat your own mind. Sometimes you will try and convince yourself, oh, I will manage it. No, it's not like that. When you plan it, make a plan, put it on a pencil, put it on paper, go step by step whatever is aimed at, whatever is the planning phase. Do it that way.

But it's the people which give the result, not me. In fact, I will tell you, I'm a very small element of the entire workforce. So it is the entire team.

HK

How do you make that great team?

HM

It is to obtain their wilful cooperation from everywhere, and I will tell you, if you genuinely think good of others, like if you're in trouble, I would like to help you in whatever way I can; if you are in need, I would like to help you; but you know, once I do this, naturally, your attitude towards would be also okay.

HK

Of course.

HM

Right? So people reciprocate with you. So whatever I do to others, others do to me. If I do good to others, others will do good to me. That is the philosophy. You will get what you deserve.

HK

Interesting. As a final question, can you tell me your advice to be successful in general sense?

HM

You see, at various points of time, various things have decided the course of young, junior people. At some point of time, people thought having money is being successful. Today, it is not so. Today, even someone has got a lot of money, but it does not mean that he is successful.

In times to come, people with good virtues in life would be regarded as being successful. You take Mahatma Gandhi, he was a very simple man. He did not own lots of worldly possessions. He had in fact nothing much with him. But then he could lead India to freedom. Alright? What are the basic principles? Honestly, truthfulness, and insight. These two/three things he had, and he could lead India to freedom. India became independent. Even the British Empire, which was so powerful, with all its weapons and with all its weapons of mass destruction, it failed in front of Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was a man half naked, with a stick in hand… have you seen his photograph?

HK

Yes, sure.

HM

He was a elderly person, barely could walk. But he could stand in front of that British Empire. Why? Because he was truthful. He was full of truthful life, and in service, not harming anybody; not killing anybody, in no sense. Tomorrow, in times to come, the same kind of principles will have values in life. Honestly will be a very big word too in life. He was very honest man; he has many achievements though.

Prime Minister Singh says, a very honest person. We may be having all other ministers cheats, but the Prime Minister is a very honest person. Likewise, these virtues will have a lot of values. Value system will also see a change in times to come. You'll find that in times to come it will evolve and there is something in the world which keeps working and these things will get evolved. Tomorrow, a man with a lot of money will not be considered a rich man. Even money may be considered as a bad virtue. It may happen. But what will be considered good is honestly, truthfulness.

Hemant Dadhich is a Brigadier of Indian Army

An Interview with Anupam Kher

2011-01-04T03:13:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

First, tell me about your personal definition of success.

Anupam Kher

Success definition keeps changing over years. You can't have the same definition of success all your life. Success as a struggling actor for me when I was looking for work to get into movies, success for me was becoming an actor. When I became an actor, success for me was getting an award, becoming more successful. So it's completely different.

Today, for me success is more important to do as a person. To me, success is about not greed; that you should not be greedy. Today, the success for me is to be able to be yourself. Today, the success means to me that you should deal with life simply. And today, success for me is to be able to change people's lives through my work, through my deeds, through my thoughts.

It's a very fixed thing to say that this is what success to me is. It's very difficult for me to describe success. Success is achieving something. Now what do you achieve as a person, as a professional? And success is always related to happiness. But materialistic success, spiritual success, that depends from people to people.

HK

So when people get older, their success become more outside-oriented?

AK

Not with everybody else. People are greedy at the age of 70. In India, there are father-in-laws, mother-in-laws who kill their daughter for money. It depends how evolved you are as a person. It depends from people to people. Age has nothing to do with success or the thought. If that was the case, then we would have had no problems in history.

HK

That's true.

AK

All the prime ministers and presidents are old. All the dictators are old, so they have not understood the meaning. It is what makes you an evolved person. To me, life is about reinventing yourself. You have to keep reinventing. So that's what is important.

HK

You teach for many superstars of the future. So I’d like to ask about a key element to be a successful actor?

AK

There is no alternative to honesty and hard work in any profession. That's what I believe in. You have to be honest and you have to be hard working. There are no short cuts. Short cut successes are for just short term. I've been in movies for the last 26 years and done about 400 films. I am still working. If I compare myself with the success of Amitabh Bachchan, then I'm not successful, but if I compare myself with so many people who are wanting to be successful, then I'm a very successful person.

But I have maintained that I have to be hard working and I have to be honest with my profession, and then success will happen to me. It's a matter of time.

Also, success comes with attitude, not with talent. It's what your attitude towards life is.

HK

Talent comes later?

AK

Yes, talent comes later. First attitude comes. Attitude gets you work; attitude gets you singled out.

HK

You teach, have a foundation and working for many social goods. Do you have any obligation for that?

AK

No. I want to grow as a person. I want to be rich in my mind. Bill Gates decides to give almost of his wealth. I don't think he's giving it only to pay back to the society, that's what he feels. That's what makes him happy. Foundation work, I work with mentally challenged children, it makes me happy. I'm doing it for selfish own reasons. You want to feel better. More than anybody else you are doing it for yourself. As I said earlier, life is about growing up. You have to grow up as a person. If you don't grow up as a person, then how can you grow up as a professional?

HK

That's true. I came here in India, so I want to ask about Indian philosophy on success.

AK

We are a very young country. We are only 63 years old.

HK

After independence.

AK

Yes. As an independent country we are a young country and we are raring to go; we are raring to prove it. Technology is on our side and the new Internet, mobile, etc., is happening, and the free market has happened. But tradition strangely used to give grounding to the people. I think tradition-wise we are missing on that. People used to chant, people used to sing. Similarly in India, we may be a new country but we have old traditions. Learning and information is very good, but it does not really translate into knowledge. Today's generation has less sense of wonder; oh my God, life is like that, because everything is at a Google search button.

Today, a 12-year old child can find out everything. But that is information, that is not knowledge. So by the age of 16, you know everything. Then, the frustration comes in. Why are the suicide rates in Japan and other places more among youth people? Because there is no sense of wonder. There is nothing to look forward to. Then you get into drugs, then you get into drinking, then you get into rape, and then you get into all negative things.

I hope that does not happen to India because we are traditionally a very old country, so the grounding, our DNA is very strong. Otherwise, in America. I was recently talking as a motivational speaker. In India if I have a problem, I will tell my boy, the shopkeeper, or whoever like oh, I have a problem, I just can't sleep these days. Or even I will tell you who I know. We will have somebody to rely on. Bus driver? we will tell our problem. In America, to tell your problem, you have to pay $500 to the person, the psychiatrist. Same thing. Oh, I can's sleep, man. I can't sleep. I've got this horrible dream. So that idiot is telling the person, and the psychoanalyst is saying, actually, what I think you should do, etc., etc., give me $500. We have no communication left unfortunately. We are not communicating with people. There was a time when people used to communicate with people.

HK

Mmm, it’s really difficult problem. What is the biggest lesson from your total career?

AK

Life is beautiful.

The lesson is life is beautiful. It's still worth it. It's amazing to be alive. It's amazing to chat with somebody. It's amazing to make a difference in somebody's life. I'm an optimist. I'm an eternal optimist. To me, life is fantastic. God has been kind to me. God is kind to you. So I think people should be happy.

Sadness is like a drug. The more you become sad the more you want to be sad. And sadness is also personal. Nobody's interested in your sadness. But if you're happy, you can make five people happy.

HK

That's a really great lesson.

AK

And happiness, you have to choose to happen. You have to decide that I want to be happy. Today, if you want to be happy, you say that, okay, from today onwards, from 7th December 2010, sitting with Mr. Kher, I decided to be happy. Then you have to practice that happiness for three months. It's a practice. Anything happen? No, no, no; I'm happy. I'm happy. Nothing, I'm happy. You say it for three months and you do it for three months, then it becomes a habit.

Like you practice motor driving. You want to learn it so you go to a motor driving school. Then you bang into some car. You do this, but ultimately, you can drive with one hand and do this, and you talk on the phone also, and you flirt also with the other person in the car, because you have practiced it.

HK

Everyone can be happy!

AK

Everybody can be happy. My grandfather used to say that happiness and sadness is in your hands. You can feel very sad by thinking how many people are better than you, but you can feel very happy by thinking how many people are worse than you. You are better than the person who is getting you cup of tea. You are better than him. You are better than person who is driving your bus. But you may say that I'm not better than somebody who has an aircraft.

HK

As a final question, what would be your advice to be successful in general life?

AK

Follow your dreams and don't give up. Dreams keep you busy. Dreams do not make you feel miserable. The day you stop dreaming, you are dead. Follow your dreams and reinvent more dreams; not greed, but dreams. Footsteps on the sands of time were not made by sitting down. You have to get up. Footsteps on the sands of time are not made by sitting down. You have to rise. You have to walk. If you try, you risk failure. If you don't, you ensure it, so you have to try. Today, world is trying to make you feel frightened. This is happening; nuclear power; environments; this issue; that issue. Murder, rape, so you are constantly thinking that I am living in a world which is not safe. Breaking news is always about bad things. It's never about good things. So your strength is you, not outsiders. If your strength is you, then you have to go in and bring out the strength.

What is your strength? You decided to come to India for one month like that, and there was no plan. You would not take my appointment from Japan. Dear Mr. Kher, I would like to meet you so meet me on so and so date. You took chances, and life is about taking chances. Life is about taking risks. If you live a secure life, if you live a balanced protected life, that's what you want. But if you want to develop your mind, if you want to do something about life, then you have to take a difficult path. That's why they say that a bend in the road is not the end of the road.

Anupam Kher is an award-winning actor and working on various projects including foundation and teaching for the future.

An Interview with Gautam John

2010-12-28T21:52:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

First question is, your personal definition of success.

Gautum John

Success to me is a journey. It’s not a destination. I don’t think I can look back as where I am today and say, I’m successful. I think success is like all things, an ongoing process. It’s not a place you reach. I would not define success in terms of money. To me, success would be, it would be more external, like how many difficulties have you had to overcome to get where you have, where you are, and I think the biggest measure of success for me would be, what have you left behind for everyone else? Have you made the world a better place?

In that sense education is important to me, so have you helped one child study better, study harder? Have you made the world a better place for children, in terms of being able to give them access to education that they otherwise would not have. I think I’m too early in my journey to define success.

Success is something that takes time, and more important than where you’ve got and to say that you’re successful is to look back at the road you’ve taken to success, and look at the road as a metaphor for what it is you’ve done. Along the way, have you caused, have you created more happiness in the world?

Money to a lot of people could be a measure of success, and I’m fine with that. Success at the end of the day is something that’s very personal and is something that I have to be happy with. If I end up with a lot of money, people might consider me successful, but I would not necessarily be the happiest person.

Also, I think that success in many ways is a function of what it is you find meaning in doing. It’s also a function of time. What you consider important is different when you’re 20, 30, 40 and 50, and your definition of success will change, or rather how you measure your success will change over time, but to me, I’m very clear that to me success really is, have I made the world a better place? And, have I impacted people in a meaningful way?

HK

There are many ways to make the world a better place, and you pick up education as a way to change. Why?

GJ

It’s something that I’m passionate about. Some people are passionate about health, some people about the rights, about ecology, about environment. Everything is as important as the other. At the end of the day, one chooses to walk the path that one is most interested and one is most passionate about, and I really think that’s the only one you can, that’s the only way to really be effective and meaningful in your work. I would hesitate to tell someone to choose a path of environmental sciences just because it’s really important and it’s something that everyone is talking about now. If what you’re passionate about is making the world a better place by having less cars on the road, or by helping children read better, or by creating more access for the visually, for the physically handicapped, those are equally important as well, and you need to choose to walk the path that you want to walk, not the path that people say you should walk.

HK

Then was education your personal choice?

GJ

Education is my very, very personal choice.

HK

So for you, it's fine to create public benefits that started from personal emotion?

GJ

Yes, to me that’s the only way you can do it. There are two or three ways to approach the social sector. A lot of people grow up in an environment that’s conducive to them choosing to lead a life in the social sector. There are people who decide to spend a short while in the social sector, because it looks good on your resume, because for whatever reason, which is as good a reason as any to do it, and there are people like me, who chose to come to the social sector, both to spend five or ten years, a) because I believe I have been fortunate enough to come to a place in my life where I can afford to do this and b) because it’s important to me, so the nature of the people working in the social sector, whether it be for profit, be it for profit social enterprises, or non-profit, non-governmental organisations, everyone has different motivations, and to me, any motivation is as good as the other, so what I think has changed in the last few years, is that has made it more possible, is that I think people have realised that governments can’t solve everyone’s problems, and that the for profit world of business also cannot solve everyone’s problems, and that’s led to a lot more visibility and some amount of funding and support for the ecosystem around non-profits and social enterprises, which has also made it at some level financially possible to walk that path, because otherwise the traditional thing was if you chose to work in a non-profit or the social enterprise sector, is that you were going to be subject to a great degree of financial uncertainty, and I think the last decade has changed that.

We’ve had examples of large non-profits and social enterprises that have actually made a difference, and I think that creates a vicious cycle of good, so to speak. People hear about non-profits and social enterprise doing good, because of which there’s an ecosystem of funders and donors, because of which more people are interested, because it becomes possible, and I think that’s an ecosystem that has now been built and it’s possible for people to come in and do that, though I still maintain that the only reason someone should come into the sector is because they want to, not because they’ve been told that they should.

HK

Since I came to India, I've been impressed by its diversity, and I love it, but on the other hand, it’s quite problematic to have huge gap between the rich and poor. As one of the most prominent social entrepreneurs, can you tell me your perspective on this financial problems or financial gap in India?

GJ

In the social sector, it’s still not very good. In the West, if you choose to leave your corporate job and go to the non-profit sector or to the social enterprise sector, you will give up somewhere between 20 and 30% of your salary, if you’re getting paid 100, you will get paid somewhere between 60 and 70 in the non-profit sector, or the social enterprise sector, whereas in India it’s actually reversed.

If you’re getting 100 in the for profit space, you will give up between 60 and 70% to come and join the social sector, so you will get between 20 and 30 as compared to 100.

Now, it has its own problem because it means that only a certain kind of or a certain class of people can come and work in the social sector, with some degree of comfort and certainty. It doesn’t make it available to a choice of hundreds of other people for whom, who have families to support and can’t really support them on 20 or 30% of their corporate salary.

India has a long way to go in bringing some amount of equality or at least less disparity between the for profit and the not for profit space. Though India is also slightly peculiar because we have the whole Ghandian philosophy, that you must do good for good’s sake, and giving up everything to do good is a good thing in itself. Sacrifice is a good thing, which I don’t disagree with but realistically it makes it an option only for so many people, and we have so many different kinds of problems at such a large scale that we should be doing everything in our power to encourage more people into the social sector, and one way of easing the transition from the for profit to the non profit space is being able to make people at least, to give people some sort of comfort around the financial aspects.

While work is truly meaningful for myself, or for an individual, you need a base level of financial support to make it possible, because otherwise it’s just not a choice for a lot of people, and you can’t fault them for that. If they have family, they have commitments, they need to be able to honour that, and you can’t expect that degree of sacrifice for that many people, coming into this space.

So, India has a long way to go to make up that disparity, but like I said, we have these historical notions of what community service should be like, and Ghandian philosophies that make it harder, but we will get there.

HK

What's the problem for social sectors in India at the moment?

GJ

There’s an interesting statistic that people talk about in India, where I think we have the most number of non-profits for any country in the world, but 95% of them are not really non-profits and just a way to steal money. The government and donors do fund, channel a lot of money into the non-profit sector, and sadly not all non-profits are created to meet the poor. A lot of non-profits are created either as entities to funnel money out, it could just be a front for something else, so there really is a problem of establishing the credentials for any non-profit, and by the same flip of coin, the problem is also how do you distinguish, how does anyone distinguish a good non-profit from a bad non-profit.

HK

You chose education as a solution for that. Could you tell me about details of your model? Especially how you make a sustainable and healthy nonprofit model.

GJ

The organisation I work with, called the Akshara Foundation, we work in preschools and in primary schools, only government preschools and primary schools, and we work exclusively in the state of Karnataka, but we decided not to replicate the government system of education, but we decided that when children leave school, they need to have basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills, so we designed programmes that targeted only these. One, to substitute for government programmes, could be delivered in 45 days, had very little material that you needed and was low cost and could be delivered by the government’s teachers themselves, because then what this has done is allowed the programme to scale, because we didn’t need to scale along with the programme.

The programme could scale on its own, because the government system already existed. All you had to do was support that, and the model is scalable because of the way it’s designed. It’s also replicable, because there’s a base level of training and teaching that’s required, and it’s sustainable because we decided that we would prove our model using our own money, but then we would transition it into government, so a lot of our programmes are now run by the government themselves.

By definition, they’re replicable, scalable and sustainable. Our sustainability is that the government will run them over time, and we provide an external monitoring function, just to make sure that it is actually going well.

HK

A final question, talking back about success, what would be your advice to achieve success?

GJ

I’m sure that everyone has told you this, but follow your heart. There’s no other way to achieve success. I think following your heart sometimes is hard, especially in India because you may not have the money, you might have obstacles, but what you should know is that there are other people who have walked that path before, and you can always rely on the support and advice of friends and family, and people who’ve done that work before.

The biggest thing about following your heart is that no matter how hard it gets, you go to sleep feeling good about what you’re doing, and I think that matters more than anything else .

Gautum John is a social entrepreneur and educationalist.

An Interview with Somika Basu

2010-12-25T03:22:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

Okay, so thank you so much for your time. The first question is your personal definition of success.

Somika Basu

Well, I think I don't really have one definition, and I think the concept of success is so fluid and so dynamic that it keeps changing. Like what I view success now is very different from what I thought of success maybe five years ago. So right now, given my past life experiences, I would say that success is a combination of happiness and freedom, and maybe given my line of work, I think success is also largely defined by something that's beyond just yourself that involves other people around you. It could be your family and your family's happiness, your community and your community's happiness. And for me right now, as something to measure myself by is I think India's children's happiness, given the work that I'm doing now. The term "success" seems to be redefining itself constantly.

HK

That's very interesting. I'm pretty impressed by your working at Teach for India, and because, as you said, your success is not only for yourself but for others. I am wondering what was the beginning for you to start your engagements?

SB

What happened was I did my journalism. When I graduated from my Bachelor's degree in Sociology, I was writing for the newspaper, and I was doing lifestyle reporting, so I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And I went on to do a degree in journalism where we were taught very practical aspects of the craft, but I knew that I wanted to do some sort of development reporting, like about society, so I didn't know that I was going to write about underprivileged communities, I just knew I wanted to do like a social commentary, because I'm fascinated by people, I'm fascinated by notions of identity. And India is a country so complex. I knew that I wanted to write about Indian people and different kinds of Indian people.

After I graduated, I went back to my newspaper. I was writing for The Hindu, and I said I want to do development reporting. My editor laughed at me and said, you're so young, no one's going to take you seriously. Like what have you seen of the world?You need to travel and experience rural India if you want to write about development issues. So I did. I went to one of the poorest states in the country, Orissa, and I was living and working with people there, and I realised that no one was publishing my stories, in spite of my editor telling me to go there and work there and live there and understand the issues. No one was publishing the stories; no one was watching the documentary films I was making. It's a tiny little clique of people in NGOs who just pat themselves and each other on the back, just encouraging one another, but you need to influence and affect a much larger group of people in order to actually make a difference.

I was 22, 23. I thought I could change the world. I thought I could change India. But then I think every day I got broken down into realising that I'm not going to change the system and I moved away from just writing about what was going on and actually starting to get my hands dirty by setting up night schools and women's self-help groups, micro finance, literacy campaigns, aids awareness campaigns, whatever it was. And I knew that the task ahead of me was so huge that I just wanted to chip away at stereotypes and notions, and I wanted to just open up people's worlds, and especially young people, because they're so much more open than older citizens that you know there are choices that lay ahead of you, and unless you're made aware of those choices, you're not going to exercise them. You're going to think that you're happy in your little fish bowl, and I think my whole purpose was to like just shock people into realising that this doesn't have to be your life, you can choose other things. As naïve as it sounds, I still believe that.

So I hope I did that to some level. Now at Teach for India I think that I'm using my skills as a journalist and as a communicator to really spread the message of how powerful education is, and quality education is the only thing that's going to really give Indian kids that choice, especially coming from low income communities. Nothing other than education is going to give you the confidence, is going to give you that world view of what are the options that lay ahead of you.

HK

There’s one billion people in India and thus it’s full of problems. What is the most difficult or challenging thing at the moment for you?

SB

I think, like you said, just the scale of the problem, the magnitude of the problem is daunting, which is why a lot of people just opt out, and it's so easy to shut yourself out and say, you know what? I'm really not going to make a difference by myself so what's the point? It's not going to happen in this lifetime. But just, like starting with children, which is why I think to focus on education and young people and just the optimism and hope that they have is huge. And if you can convince ten kids who can convince another ten kids through their confidence and through their articulation and just choices that they ahead of them that you've maybe created for them or shown them, I think all you need is hope. Like every time you look at the numbers in India, you look at the statistics and the facts and the realities, it's so easy to get beaten down and discouraged. You need to be stupidly naïve to do anything like for the better. Or like you have to have your blinkers on and see rainbows everywhere you go. And people will call you crazy but you just have to do it.

I think starting with kids is really important because they're so open to change. They're not sceptics. They're so trusting, and it's more easy to see the change in children than to see the change in young adults or older people. I think it's having the hope and the optimism is half the battle. You know, the sense of possibility that things are going to change and that we can all be part of it I think is really important.

HK

What was the key element for being successful for Teach for series?

SB

Right now, since the Teach for India programme is in its second year running, we don't yet have the statistics to show measurable impact in the classrooms, but we've got kids who are confident, who are articulate; who are no longer afraid of going to school because their teachers don't hit them; whose parents have been convinced about the power of education; whose communities see that, you know, girls who go to school can really turn the whole society around.

And I think it's a question of changing mindset, and once the mindset around the importance of education changes, you will have so many more subscribers to quality education and creativity in education and just expressing oneself. Education doesn't have to be sitting down with your books. It could be expressing oneself through art or theatre or like every child is talented in their own way, just finding that particular talent or that strength in one child, it's really making that blossom. And it doesn't have to be like 95% in your maths exam, it could be the confidence to get up on stage and sing in front of 500 people.

And now everything is a viable career option. There is nothing that you can't make a living out of doing. And I think especially in the context of India, giving kids these skills that later they can capitalise upon, like whether it's, you know, painting or theatre, or designing solar panels or photography, or maths, English, writing, whatever it is, I think there's something for everyone, and just giving those options to kids. And also changing the mindsets of parents that this is a good career choice or this is not a good career choice is really important.

I think organisations like Teach for India that encourage creativity around education, that encourage people to keep an open mind around concepts of learning and expression is the way forward, because regardless of whatever social standing you come from, just knowing that you have options ahead of you is really important.

HK

I'm not sure you had one, but as a final question, I want to ask you to give me your advice to be successful; to achieve success.

SB

Well, I don't even consider myself successful because I don't have one definition of success. It’s constantly…

HK

Changing, right?

SB

Yes. I'm like redefining my profession, my attitudes; refining the way I speak, the words I choose so as not to offend people. Like just being really careful and more sensitive to people around me, I would just say that I've been fortunate enough to consider all my life experiences as like happy accidents. I'm not going to complain about anything that's happened to me, and I think that's because on some level I'm so happy with my work and I really believe in what I do. And because my work takes up most of my waking life, like I'm working like 12/14/16 hours a day sometimes, if you're not passionate and if you're not driven every morning when you wake up knowing that, oh my God, I have like these things to do and I'm really excited about it, I don't think you're going to be successful in whatever it is.

How do I describe it? I think just having that passion when you wake up in the morning in whatever it is, whether you're a writer or a singer or a teacher or a dancer or a doctor, if you're not excited by what you're doing every day, then I don't think you're going to be successful because I think success is so closely tied to happiness and what you're doing at every given point in time.

By making my life and my work, not just about me, like I said, for me right now, success is influencing and touching other people's lives. And it could just be like being respectful and loving the people closest to you, but I as a person get happiness from extending that to people that I don't even know and people that I meet every day. And I think my work allows me to meet new people, especially to interact with kids, and I just say seek happiness, even if it means doing something different every single day of your life. If that makes you happy, then success is not even going to figure in the equation.

Because success has such monetary and economic overtones, don't you think? I think people should just aim to be happy, success or not. I think a happy world and a happy society is so much more important to strive towards. That's what we should aim for instead of...

HK

…being successful or being millionaire?

SB

Yes. I mean, that won't even figure in the equation if everyone's happy.

Somika Basu is a Community and Communications Specialist.

An Interview with Pooja Warier

2010-12-24T16:03:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

Let's start from your personal definition of success.

Pooja Warier

Oh, that's a profound question. So there are two or three things to this. Personally, I feel I wouldn't know that I'm successful. If I die and I'm on my death bed, and I don't have any like what-if questions in my head left, like what if I had done that, or what if I had tried this, I think I would be successful if I have followed every dream, or almost every passion that I have. So if tomorrow I want to retire and become a break dancer, I hope I have the courage to follow that dream.

So just like that at the end of my life I don't have too many what-ifs left that I have explored. So that's my personal thing of like success.

But on another level it doesn't matter whether you're selling tea on the road or whether you are running a multi millionaire empire, whatever that may be, but the thing is how do people remember you when you're gone, right? Or how do people remember when they interacted with you. So if they can remember that interaction was an inspiration, or it happiness, or whatever it was that you wanted to bring, I think you'd become successful. Like if people can look back at that time and say that was a great time that I had with that person, I think that's really profound.

And the third thing I guess is in what I do right now. If I have inspired other people to take action about stuff that they care about, then I think it's success.

HK

There are people, including you, focusing on making social impact rather than monetary or financial impact. Why are you focused on social aspect?

PW

Commercial entrepreneurs as well add value to society, so I've got no issues against financial activities. Personally, I think I have an interest in people in social sector who commit their lives to change, so that's why we're working on that.

Ultimately, I think whether you're creating a material or a financial impact, it has to come down to social. If you can't improve the quality of life of people that you're working with, you might give them lots of money, but honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn't count. The person has to have a better quality of life, or a good quality of life, and that you can define as whatever you want. You know, the person has a house and three TVs, or whatever it is, but ultimately, they are just things.

It's very hard to demarcate all these things, isn't it? Ultimately, I feel like in the world, the world would be a much better place if everyone is happy doing what they do. I don't think many people are happy doing what they do. That's why you have all these frustrations and fights, and all of that. I think if every person can actually do what they really like to do, or what they enjoy, the world would be a much better place.

HK

I agree. So you help so many social entrepreneurs in many ways, and you said some are now really successful or famous, and some are still kind of under progress. What is the common elements to be successful, great social entrepreneurs?

PW

I guess the first thing to clarify is when I say some people are successful. It's by the definition of the larger things, numbers, their skills, their impact on 100 million people, whatever. That's when I say it's like a usual definition of success. And other people are not able to influence 100 million, but they make one person really really happy. Personally that’s also a success.

It's a very difficult question, what does it take to make a great social entrepreneur. I mean, I can answer that to a degree. I know all the kind of points. But I don't think in my head it's so straightforward. For example, if you're very focused, if you're very determined about what you want, if you're able to inspire your teams and take them along with you, how do you say that? Keep your social impact above and very important, if you have a clear vision… I mean, the list goes on and on. So you can have a great social entrepreneur. Yes, brilliant. But I don't think it's that straightforward.

Because it's again, like what metrics are we using? Because you influence 1 million people you are better than somebody who influences smaller people? That's a kind of a skew.

HK

Since I came to India, I really feel like the religion brings some sort of passion for social entrepreneurs.

PW

Does it?

HK

I'm not sure, but like in the United States as well, I feel Christian and Hindi helping others. Do you think religious perspective promotes social sectors?

PW

I believe in spirituality and not religion. Well, there are all these things that you have to do this under Hinduism, under Islam, etc., etc. I think that leads to a more traditional form of change making, that you go and donate to temples, that you go and donate to whatever. You know, you be nice to your neighbour and all that. I think it would be an interesting study to do in terms of how much does spirituality affect a social entrepreneur. Of course you see a problem and you see a need, but there's also like an interim obligation, like I would say to be of value and change the world, and I think that stems more from a spiritual source rather than a religious source. I think there's a distinction there.

Yes, there are missionaries and there are Hindus, and they are doing great work as well. But that's a duty to God they're performing. Do you see what I'm saying? It's not a duty to their human kindness. It's a duty to God, having brownie points from God; when you die you will probably get like better heaven facilities. But you know, spirituality is different. It's something you do for your own, it's for a more intrinsic obligation towards the world. There's a kind of difference.

HK

What are the biggest challenges for you at the moment?

PW

Very clearly, we need more people to join our team. It's more than finding the right mix of people, because we work with various of people, lots of passion, you have to have strategic thinking, and so that's a challenge to find people who have that mix. Personally, I guess the challenge for me is to figure out what social entrepreneurship is all about, in the sense that I've done this for now five years and it's great. I've enjoyed every bit of everything that I do, but it's again that question like how much is enough. It’s personal things; Do you go deep in your impact? Do you expand? Or do you let it go? Or what is it? So I think that's a challenge that every person goes through.

HK

The final question is about success, what would be your advice to be successful in a general sense?

PW

Be authentic to yourself and follow your passion and your heart, but the main thing is be authentic to yourself.

Pooja Warier is a social entrepreneur and the director of UnLtd India.

An Interview with Sunil Abraham

2010-12-12T16:20:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

I'm always staring with this question which is what is your personal definition of success?

Sunil Abraham

I don't have a personal definition of success because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. When I say I don't spend much time thinking about it, I mean in a personal sense, that I, myself, am successful. I don't think about that question very much. What I think about a little more is when the projects that we run, the programmes that we run, the institutions that we support that we work for, that those things have become successes.

And often you might have to do something which is very, very counter intuitive, so I started a social enterprise called Mahiti 12 years ago. And today, about 70 engineers work there, they do hundreds of projects a year. It became successful when I left my Mahiti, when I gave up my shares in the non profit company, when I gave up executive control. So when can parents, for example, say that they have successfully raised their children? They can say it the moment their children don't depend on them anymore to have a full and complete life. Similarly, if a change that you worked towards happens and then that change or that new condition is no longer dependent on you, then, to some degree, you must have been successful. When you are no longer required then you have been successful. If you are still coming to the office and you're still working, then that means that you have still not become successful.

HK

Wow, that's a really interesting one. Can I ask why you're focusing on social enterprise rather than for profit companies?

SA

In any society there is a mix of motivations behind organisations and institutions. And some organisations work only if there is the right motivation. If you have a prison in society and the prison is run by a private company, then you would, obviously, have problems because for a private company, the more people in prison the better. For most private organisations, more is necessarily an indicator of success. So in any society you need a variety of players. You need individuals who are diverse and independent, as you said. You need organisations of individuals. You need organisations that work to create more wealth. You need organisations that work to spread the wealth. You need regulatory organisations that monitor other organisations.

The modern society that you and I live in is a very complex society. So this question is not very meaningful because in modern society, all of us have to finally do some job. I have to make bread or you have to cook fish or somebody else has to fly a plane, there are a variety of jobs. For some people, the moment they were born, they knew they were going to grow up and become a fire engine driver or they wanted to become an aeroplane pilot. Some people end up in places because of accident. The accident of your life means that you end up in a place. For me, my father was born in the social sector, so I was born into the sector; I didn't really choose so much.

HK

Then can I ask why did you choose the Internet as a tool of your works?

SA

I think, again, it was a bit of an accident. I joined the voluntary sector organisation and I worked in their computer department. And at that time, this is 1995 or so, my boss asked me if I'd heard of the internet. I said yes, I've heard of the internet. He said do you know how to use it? I said no, I don't know how to use it. He said if you're willing to learn, then we will give you some work on internet related areas. So I got onto the internet, I got a modem. I used the internet to learn more about the internet. There were some textbooks, but the internet was the biggest resource.

So you could think that this non profit organisation has given me my main vocation in life. Before that, I was trained as an industrial production engineer. A non profit organisation gave me my main skill, which is internet technologies. I decided to repay that debt because a non profit organisation gave me my skill, I decided to now use my skill to repay the voluntary sector. That is really my personal motivation, which is, of course, a very dramatic and new technology, so it's exciting to work there. But I feel obligated to the non profit sector because they gave me an area of expertise that I do not have and now I'd like to use that area of expertise to serve them.

HK

Many people say the technological exposition is going on in India, can you tell me about your opinion?

SA

No, it's a very small phenomenon. Only 18 million people have ever used the internet out of 1.2 billion, so it's less than 1%. And only 20 million broadband connections, very different from Korea. In Korea, South Korea, if I'm not mistaken, maybe even 87% of everybody has broadband.

HK

Correct.

SA

Everybody uses internet. So it's a very different country. Something happens on the internet in Korea, it will influence many people. Many people will be affected. If something happens on the internet in India, only 1% of the population is impacted, even less. But they are rich people. They are educated people. Therefore, there's an indirect effect on others and there is a big opportunity which is there are 600 million mobile phone owners. Maybe more data services should be available on mobile phones and then more people will jump onto the internet, maybe in the millions, we don't know. But as of now, internet is a very small phenomena and that's why the work that we do here is not very important. From a national importance perspective, it's not very important.

HK

What I really feel from what you're doing is the sense of democracy. Is that related to Indian government's democracy or is that your personal preference of democracy?

SA

I think connecting the internet to a particular form of governance is very complicated. You can have internet in all sorts of countries, and just because you introduce the internet, it doesn't mean you will have democracy. It doesn't even mean that the internet will strengthen democracy. That's not guaranteed. There is no direct correlation between forms of governance or quality of governance and internet. What we can definitely say is that internet shifts the power balances. If there is an existing power balance in context and if the internet or technology is deployed in a particular way, there's a possibility that it can shift that power balance. Because children have bit torrent the power balance between big Hollywood studios and children is affected because the children have an enabling technology. It can be the reverse also. The big Hollywood studio can come across some powerful technology to monitor the behaviour of children and then children will lose out to the big Hollywood studio. So the only relationship that we know is certain is that the technology has a relationship on the power balance, it can change the power relationship. There's no guarantee that the technology will spread a particular type of margin of government or the technology will result in more democracy. This is not guaranteed. And each person in my organisation has a different idea of democracy. So it's difficult to arrive at a standard form of democracy that we want to promote.

HK

As the final question, let me ask your general advice to achieve success.

SA

I think there are some dimensions of success that actually don't make very much sense. If, for example, you wanted your idea to succeed, so success, if you take, as I said, I haven't talked about this, but if you take a very rudimentary definition. There is a person and the person would like to achieve an objective and if the person achieves the objective, the person considers himself successful. And a successful person will have many such objectives and he'll achieve many objectives. That's roughly, I guess, what we define as a successful person.

Now, if an objective has to succeed, sometimes it can be very testing and you might need many people to share the objective. And, at that point, it's no longer your objective. So if you want to succeed, it's better to have an objective that you share with many people and not a personal objective. That's the first thing. Then the next problem is if you try to take all the credit for the achievement, if you keep saying this is my idea, and if you succeed, you should go around and tell the world that Sunil's idea succeeded or Sunil's objective was accomplished. Then, again, usually you will fail because people don't like to give attribution. People don't like to contribute to somebody else's idea. So success at the individual level is a bit of a paradox. If you do anything to be successful at the individual level, usually, you will undermine it, unless it's something very small like making a cup of coffee or something. If that is your objective, then you can be successful. But if you have a really big dream, you want to eradicate world's poverty and then you say that you've been successful, then in order to be successful, you have to be part of a collective. True success, in a sense, is collective accomplishments. Individual success is usually trivial and meaningless I think.

Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of the Center for Internet and Society.

An Interview with Indus Khaitan

2010-12-09T09:33:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

Thank you so much for your time again. As my research is on law of success, I was wondering what is your personal definition of success.

Indus Khaitan

In India success is defined not just monetary, and that’s what I see. So if you pick up something and it reaches a certain stage, that’s a success. But that’s also very relative, so I’ll give you an example. I did a start-up in 2007 in Silicon Valley. Within nine months the start-up got acquired. For me the success was not monetary, because I didn’t make a lot of money then; but success was, it reached a milestone. So then what happened was, the start-up which acquired the start-up got acquired, so I had two successive exits in less than 24 months; that was again a milestone. Then I joined Morpheus, which is doing seed investments here. For me success is not like monetary or reaching an end-goal, but it’s a milestone towards a larger goal.

HK

That’s very interesting. Can you tell me why did you bring the idea of start-ups to India from the Silicon Valley?

IK

My trip to India was more of an accidental trip. The company I was working for, they wanted to open up a development centre in Bangalore, and it just so happened that within six months after me being here, the company got acquired. So I had a couple of choices: either go back and work for a larger company in the US or also work for, say, the likes of Facebook or Google in India. But there were two things: one, my wife said, no more start-ups, because she was, like, you cannot do 18 hour workdays and pay no attention to her and whatever.

HK

[Laugh]

IK

So she said, rule number one – no start-ups, so take it easy for some time. And then I thought, maybe if I’m in India, why not give it back in terms of my experience or whatever experience I’ve had in Silicon Valley in terms of creating products, relationships, building products. This generally started because the system was very well known to me. I used to attend events and know people.

So I saw that that was missing in India big time, hence I thought, let’s not just take it easy for some time, but also contribute. Then we started an event platform, meeting entrepreneurs, doing sessions and keynote speeches and participating in panel. And just randomly going into meetings and helping people out. Morpheus gave me that platform. So it was more of an accident in terms of why I moved to India, but I would not regret that, because in fact in the last two years, the start-up eco system has progressed beyond what I could imagine two years ago.

HK

What was the lesson you learned from entrepreneurial things in India when you compare between Silicon Valley?

IK

I think in India the eco system is very nascent, as in, I would not say it is non-existent, but it is at the down-level. So Silicon Valley, it’s okay to take risks; it’s okay to fail. In India failure is still not looked upon as a nice thing. Again, society has been very conservative. So if you fail and you write that in your resume that your start-up did not get sold for $50 million, people would just assume you wasted your time. Versus, in Silicon Valley, if you fail, it’s your experience, and if you’re doing another one, people would ask you the question – what were the lessons you learned from that failure? - rather than why you failed, if you like. So that’s missing.

Second thing is that, if you’re a young company, everybody looks down upon you. I was just talking to a lady here and I was telling her that, first you do not have access to market, because big companies have power, money, access to market. Second thing is, people will not work for you, because you’re a start-up. You don’t have a brand, and there’s a very popular saying in India that if you don’t work for a large company, you’ll not get married.

HK

[Laugh]

IK

And third is the problem of capital. As you know venture capital industry is very small in India, so if you’re a young start-up, hard to get funding. In Silicon Valley, all these things are given. If you are doing anything which is worth taking a look at, people will put money on that; versus in India, people look at revenues. Have you made money before I can put money on? I think that’s the main difference.

HK

How are you trying to change that difficulty into a kind of Indian Silicon Valley?

IK

Number one is definitely increase awareness towards start-up. So when we talk to potential candidate, we tell him, start-up is not about making money as you would make it in a larger company, but it’s about experience.

Just assume a big company. Versus you work for a start-up, which is, like, five employees. You’d learn more in one year… what you could learn potentially in that other big company in five, ten years. Or maybe you don’t even learn anything. So the opportunity to enhance your resume, or your career is hundredfold. So that’s number one; increasing awareness about why you should work for a start-up as a start-up employee. And the way we do it is, we also write very popular blogs; so myself, my partner, Samir, and we continuously hammer these points. We also do guest articles for, for example, either guest articles for a popular newspaper here. I do guest posts for other large blogs in India and kind of bring that thought out, why it is important.

Second is that we were trying to do investments at a very grassroots level. Now, what is happening is, we are supporting the very young entrepreneurs coming out of college, or people who have an idea or a prototype. They don’t have revenues, they don’t have customers, so in a typical scenario here, no angel investors, or very few angel investors, and no venture capital firm is going to talk to that start-up. We come in, we take that risk. We jump start the eco system and see if we can create a big company.

Primarily too but in general we’re trying to champion the eco system, 15 years ago in the valley, small start-ups got created; people actually ended up gaining experience. If not, they made a lot of money. Basically, we call it as a risk-free. So you work for a start-up or you do a start-up, you have zero risk. You learn and potentially you could make money. You’ve got to promote that often.

HK

Can I ask if there is a tendency for successful start-ups in India?

IK

I think number one is patience. It takes a long time here.

HK

How long?

IK

I would say if you take a real example like MakeMyTrip, it was started in 2001. It went IPO this year. So it took ten years. But I think that is slightly longer because MakeMyTrip was started when the market was not established. But I think in my mind it is five years minimum; five to seven years. The challenge is that it takes a lot of time to acquire customers and educate them about what new things you’re doing. So I would say five to seven years easy.

I think that’s also very possible very much in businesses in US, except for the likes of Facebook or Twitter or some of these newer media companies which you see. Selling businesses will take five to seven years, and I think that’s what is happening in India. But the good part is that things are at the ground level, so if you are an entrepreneur with a bright idea about facilitating, say, online commerce, and if you could execute it well, you could probably do that within two, three years; you could become a large company doing say $10 to $20 million in revenue, because very few people are doing it there’s less competition, but you have to have the patience to run for three years.

HK

The thing is, how do you live without any kind of financial supports for three years? How do you survive?

IK

Actually Indian entrepreneurs have figured that out. What companies typically do, which sometimes is also detrimental, as in not a good choice… So, for example, you’ve got a start-up and, of course, you borrow some money from your friends, family – you’ll survive. But that could run for 12 months. They take up small projects. They do some consulting to run it for a longer period of time, which gives money. Actually a lot of start-ups I know, the entrepreneurs or the founders do consulting. They would work for, say, three to four days and do some part-time developer role somewhere else. Then that would bring money, but as the money comes in, they would build the product and hopefully the customer gets coming in.

HK

What would be the benefits to start start-ups in India?

IK

The benefit is the eco system does not exist, so you are at the grassroots ground level. The opportunity in India is huge. You take up commerce, you take up mobile, you take education. So very few companies are doing it, because it’s impossible… or not really impossible; it’s tough to do a start-up in India, because you have regulations, you have financing issues, you have employee issues, you have funding issues. The environment to do business is not congenial compared to Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley you could register a company in 48 hours. In India it could take you 20, 30 days. So since it is not very congenial, it is difficult to start, hence less people are starting, hence less competition. So that’s I think good in terms of some entrepreneurs, because then, if they have the patience and tenacity, they could survive.

Second is, consumers are not exposed to the ideas, the newer ideas. So if you are doing something brand new or copied idea from the US, you have an opportunity to create demand for your product the way you want it. You could price it the way you want it, you could brand it the way you want it, you could promote it the way you want it. There are a lot of greenfield opportunities. Look at InMobi; mobile based advertising, or advertising for the mobile web. Five years ago nobody would have imagined, but in India the opportunity is huge just for them. They’re also looking at the global market. I’ll give another example, say, Flipkart. Flipkart is like Amazon for India. Three years ago the company did not exist, and today it does a revenue of around $10 to $15 million. So it’s greenfield. And when they started three years ago, people said, are you stupid? People are never going to buy books online.

HK

When you fund others, what would be your criteria?

IK

We look at just one thing: we look at the team. The reason being is that, we come in at a very early stage. Two guys out of college, or two guys a couple of years of experience… If they have the ability to execute or develop or trade a business, then we put money in it, because they would come with a business plan which will change in six months, but if the team is good, they can take the changed business plan to a next level. So our main criterion is, how good the team is. Do they have the domain knowledge? Can they write code? Can they work together? How long the founders have known each other. If they don’t know well, they start fighting after six months, and one guy would say, I’m going to business school; I’m going to do my MBA. If they’ve known each other, they would say, no, hang on for another year; let’s work it out. So we look at team the most, because if the team is good, we can change their idea to something else.

HK

How about a single founder? It’s really a kind of cliché to say a single founder is dangerous. Do you agree with that?

IK

I agree with that to a large part, let me just track back. Start-up has also become very competitive in terms of resource consumption in terms of information which is available. And if you’re a young company, you have to do sales on one side, sell the product, and then on the other side you have to build the product. Now, if you’re just one guy, if you have to build it and sell it… so it’s very difficult to divide your time. You could do it sequentially; you could build and then sell. In my opinion - good to have two founders minimum.

And also the start-up journey is very difficult. If you don’t have another shoulder to cry on, who do you bank on? But we have also seen that some of the single founder companies become very successful, and that also is based on the experience of the guy, whether he can hire well. If you are a single founder, you could know the product, but then you could hire good people. So ultimately it becomes part of the founding theme. But to a large part, we look at companies which are more than one founder. If the company has a product developed, certain customers already, then it is okay to have a founder, just one founder; but large part single… And I think it’s true. Many examples – look at Google, look at Yahoo, and of course Jeff Bezos is an exception, because Amazon was a single founder company, but then he got people early on, and he had money, so he hired people quickly and built the team himself. But I think more examples point towards more than one founder rather than a single founder. We like to have two founders, but of course, iPhone had one, because it was Steve Jones. But he had an army of people to build up.

HK

The final question, tell me about your advice to achieve success.

IK

I think general advice is, look for milestones which make you happy. There is no yardstick to measure success. So if something which makes you happy, I think that could be termed as a success; as simple as that. Successful marriage is defined as a happy marriage. Is there a yardstick for a successful marriage? Very simple -yes. If you’re happy, then your marriage is successful. Same thing in life as well; if you achieve something which gives you happiness, I think that’s a successful achievement.

Indus Khaitan is a General Partner at The Morpheus

An Interview with Pritish Nandy

2010-12-09T01:54:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

Let me ask about your personal definition of success.

Pritish Nandy

I don’t believe in success. I don’t believe that success is anything of value. I do not trust success as a parameter of well-being. I do not believe in success. I’ve lived my life in the pursuit of my dreams, in the pursuit of excellence, in the pursuit of ideas, in the pursuit of faith. I have not lived my life in the pursuit of success. Success is only a by-product. It comes to you; it doesn’t come to you. It does not matter. You’re destined to chase your destiny. You must chase what you dream to chase. You must go for what you want in life. If you’re good at it success will come to you. If you are a cook you can become the biggest chef in the world. If you are a farmer you could become the biggest agriculturist in the world. So, success is a by-product; success is not something you pursue. You pursue excellence, you pursue your dreams, and if success has to come it will come to you.

HK

That’s a really interesting point. You have achieved a lot of those by-products, as a filmmaker, writer, editor, entrepreneur, and poet, whatever. At first let me ask why you do so many things?

PN

For me it is one thing, which is chasing my dream. My dream was to talk to people, to communicate, to share my ideas, to find and help create a better world. That’s what I work for. These are all different ways to reaching the same goal. The goal is to leave the planet a little better than I found it when I was born.

HK

Wow, inspiring. I’m eager to change the world for the better as well. Can you tell me your philosophy or idea on how we can make our planet better?

PN

Many things. First of all, this mad chase for success must give way to pursuit of a better life. A better life means a more inclusive society, a society in which there are not so many divisions, not such huge divisions between the rich and the poor. A society where there’s not such huge divisions between those who consume and those who provide. A society where there’s not such a huge difference between the winners and the losers. That is the tragedy, that we have converted our society into a race where the winner takes all. In India 10% - not even 10% - 5% of people own all the resources of India, or 95% of the resources of India is owned by 5% of the people. America consumes more than the whole world put together. This is not fairness; this is not how the planet should be. It is our job to try and ensure through our life, through our work, that there’s greater equity, greater justice, greater freedom and greater integration between people all over the world. You see, when we judge a nation we are constantly judging it by its GDP growth rate. China is the fastest growing; India is the second fastest growing. We are judging it by the stock market. That’s all nonsense. You judge a nation by its talent, by its creativity, by its intelligence. You judge a nation by its writers, its musicians, its thinkers, its poets, and its painters. That is how you judge a nation because those are the talents that define the future of a nation.

HK

When you create articles or films or whatever, do you consider to put your philosophy into it?

PN

I try to. My writing says that, my poetry says that. My films often say that, not always. Everything that I do reflects my beliefs.

HK

What do you most care about when you produce new things into our society?

PN

I want to see if I can change the way people think.

HK

Talk about success again. I came here India, so I want to talk about Indian things. Is there a particular form of success in India?

PN

Yes, like everywhere else in the world. Particularly now under the influence of the western world our notion of success has become very materialistic, it is about money. A successful painter is not the best painter; it’s the painter who sells at the highest price. A successful cricketer is not our best cricketer; it’s the cricketer who gets the highest sponsorship. A successful musician is not the best musician; it’s the musician who commands the highest price. So, money has become the sole determinant. Fee has become the sole determinant of excellence, which is nonsense.

HK

I totally agree with you that money shouldn’t be the judge of the goodness of humanity. Do you think, for example, that Japan or the United States or one of the most economically advanced countries will solve those materialistic issues? I’m wondering about the tendency of humanity. Do you think that we can solve this materialistic tendency in the future?

PN

I think you’re right. But I think also that we have converted our society into that. Till about three years ago Bangladesh was one of the poorest nations of the world, but on the happiness index it was number one.

HK

Happiness index? That sounds interesting.

PN

Yes. It was number one. The point is it is not always money; it’s how a society looks at itself. What makes a society happy? If there is enough recognition for your talent, if there is enough opportunity, or at least equal opportunity for everyone or most people, a society creates happiness. If an entire society is poor, nobody minds. But if a few people are very rich and the rest of society is poor then everybody minds.

HK

So it’s kind of a relative thing, rather than an absolute. How you feel about your rich and poor is a comparison with society, isn’t it?

PN

You can be happy if the society in which you live gives you the freedom to chase your ideals and your dreams. You may not want a Ferrari; you may just want access to books that can change your life. You may want access to a great library, to books. You may want access to a publisher who will publish what you think. You may want access to a small radio station where you can speak your mind. Not everybody wants a Ferrari, not everybody wants to own an island in the Caribbean, and not everybody wants a private jet.

HK

I want to talk about your professional things again. In general you challenge lots of things, what was your lesson from your total career?

PN

…Keep struggling.

HK

Wow.

PN

Keep struggling. The day you stop struggling, you die. You lose your creativity, your zest, your passion, and you die. It’s about being passionate. It’s like a woman, life is like a woman. If you don’t constantly seduce her she will leave you and go away. You must constantly be on top of life. You must constantly be in charge of life. You must be struggling to make the relationship work between you and the planet, just like you struggle to make the relationship work between you and your girlfriend or your wife. You must make it work between you and the planet. You must make it work between you and other species. You must make it work between you and the environment. It’s not enough to do the big things, it’s important even to do the small things.

HK

That’s an interesting point. Thank you so much. The final question, talking about success again, and not as a professional journalist, filmmaker or poet, but, generally, as an individual, as Pritish Nandy, can you give us your advice to be successful?

PN

I say go out and chase your dreams, success will come. We have two goddesses in India. We have 330 million goddesses, actually, in India. Out of them, two are very frequently worshipped as sisters, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth who everybody worships, and Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge who I worship. I believe that if you worship Saraswati she will bring Lakshmi along with her. But if you worship Lakshmi, you may never enjoy the pleasure of knowing Saraswati.

Pritish Nandy is a producer, poet, journalist, and activist.

An Interview with Kalyan Varma

2010-12-08T20:42:00.002Z

* We talked a lot before this interview. Please note that.

Haegwan Kim

At first I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Kalyan Varma

Now success can mean different things actually; it’s a very valid point, because for most people success is what society make and thinks of them. But I think at a personal level success has to be a very personal goal. You can be poor, you can be the poorest man on earth, you might not have any money but you could be a very successful person for yourself. I think a person needs to be mature enough to realise that a successful life is for yourself, it’s not for society because we are grown in a framework where we are meant to do more for society than for yourself. For me the success was a very personal thing in a sense. I want to do these things in my life and they’re not financial goals, you know. A lot of people also associate success as equal to having and earning so much money. But I think success is more about being happy about yourself and being happy with what you do and taking pride in everything that you do, and looking forward to the next day, looking forward to Monday morning, basically.

HK

So the reason you became a professional photographer is just to look forward to next Monday morning?

KV

Absolutely. I took up photography because I love photography. I worked hard as a photographer because I wanted to take good pictures, not because I wanted to earn money. But if you’re good at what you do, money will automatically come. We live in times when money is never an issue; I think there is enough money generally, and if you offer the right service, the right product and are good at what you offer, making money is one of the easiest things to do. So I think even in a developing country like India these kinds of opportunities are there right now.

HK

There are many types of photographers; for instance I met Eric Cheng from who is an underwater photographer…

KV

Underwater, okay.

HK

Yes, and in your case, wildlife, so can I ask the reason why you chose that specific field?

KV

Actually it’s the other way around, frankly, because I always liked wildlife since I was a kid, and I used to go to wildlife places, not as a photographer but just to see wildlife and enjoy the wilderness. And about a decade ago I started film photography which is slightly difficult, thankfully digital cameras came out and made photography much easier. So I really liked photography as a visual medium and I like wildlife, and for me wildlife photography was a merger of two of my favourite passions. But still I think I’m a wildlife person first and then a photographer. Photography is a tool for me to share my wildlife experiences and probably use it as a medium for conservation.

HK

Not only talking pictures, you are getting involved with activities of the free software foundation and creative comments. Why you have a link to technological side?

KV

Because partly photography has also got technicalities in how you edit and all that, so coming from a technology background you’re much better at handling the issue of photography than otherwise, so that gives you much advantages. But at a higher level and more importantly I think it’s the way you think, the way you approach a problem. I think engineers tend to approach a problem with a a certain approach which artists might not. So as an artist, you as an engineer come in, you might not be right, but you’re still one of the key persons who thinks differently about a problem. And I think that gives you that edge ... being different about things. But probably the biggest thing of all and at a personal level it has been how I approach things, how I approach work, how I approach the philosophy of my work.

I think Open Source and Creative Comments have been highly influential philosophies, way back in my college actually. The way of thinking and the same thing applies to photography. It made a lot of difference in my life and I think I am what I am today is probably because of applying those fundamentals of open source and creative comments in the field of photography which not many people, in fact hardly any people have done it before. Because photography is creative art, people who are very protective about their work and once you go and you ascertain the equations in the market because suddenly if you start giving it out free other photographers are under the pressure to give it out free too. So you can shake the market up here in that way and use it.

HK

What was the results from that activity? You offer all the contents of your pictures and your works, what did you learn from them, what did you learn from that experience?

KV

I think that firstly there are good people out there and that there is something called altruism which is if people benefit from something they usually like to reciprocate. I think not everyone is like that but a big population is like that. So even though my work was three people who consume that work, had great respect for it, like the work so much to a point where they were either ready to financially pay for it, in some ways for the photography, or they would help you in other ways. So I think it’s a very strong thing of having belief in the goodwill of people. There are more good people out there than bad people.

HK

Agree. The Internet improves there is becoming more and more controversy about this intellectual properties and those kinds of things and although we already talked about this, there is two sides, one is a closing-side and one is an open-side, like Richard Stallman from the foundation and Professor Lessig and Joi Ito from creative comments. Can you tell me your perspective on the future of the intellectual property?

KV

I think it is wrong to think that one will win over the other. I think there is going to be a space for both and I think it’s a good thing because there is still certain pieces of work which need to be protected and be guided by copyright laws.

It depends a lot on the context. If a artist is producing music, Its important that he gets benefit out of it, you know. I would think that people would want to pay him, even though he releases free mp3s on his website with a donation and I think it will purely come by attitudes of people and I am an optimist about this is that people are good people and they’re ready to respect the freedom that they get with the product. And not just freedom but also the quality of the products. You get good quality people ready to pay for it and you get freedom with your product with very little to pay for it too.

HK

How do you take a good picture? [Laugh]

KV

[Laugh] That’s a very good thing to say. I think the best photographers in the world are the ones who are not photographers. Photography is still a tool for them and the best photographers are the ones who specialise in something and have really gotten into the subjects. If you look at Steve MaCurry who did the famous Afgan Girl, he spent six months in Afghanistan, really understanding the problem and because he knew the problem he was really able to portray that issue. So in the case of wildlife, if you are not a good naturalist , I don’t think you can do good wildlife photography, you know.

Let it be a food photographer; if you’re not a food lover it’s very difficult to be a good food photographer. And I think you need to immerse yourself in that field before you can be a good photographer and I think that will follow by itself. There is no easy cheat sheet. Fine, you can have fancy equipment, you can use some devices basically plan the position to get good pictures, but if you want spectacular pictures you need to go one step beyond that.

HK

What would be your advice to achieve success?

KV

I think forget about excellent courses and just go out there, do what you love and if you do what you love and if you put your heart and soul into it, you will be the best in whatever it is that you do. People will appreciate and even pay for that service. And you’ve seen examples with, let’s say, Apple computer, where even though the laptop is twice as expensive, people pay because they get a good quality product out of it. And I think that the same thing with anything and if you really are passionate about something you will be good at it, and people more often than not they look at the newspaper and say, oh, this job gives me a lot of salary, so let me go there, but people need to look back and say, you know what, and you will have hiccups, you know, it will take you, maybe, two months or two years to get there. But if you hold on, you'll will get there. There’s a famous saying , if you badly want something ... the universe will conspire to make sure it happens to you, and it might just take time but it will.

HK

Thank you so much.

KV

One last bit that I want to add is about the creative field. You are familiar with mona lisa painting right ? Its the most expensive painting on earth. It’s funny because everyone in the world has almost seen the painting; they know exactly how it looks but yet it’s the most costly painting. So it’s like a musician you know, Michael Jackson is probably the greatest artist ever and people have heard Michael Jackson, but keep listening to him because you like the music, it comes a bit more.

But for the first time in history of creative fields we have a platform – that's the Internet. To get your work of art out, let it be music, let it be a feature film, let it be a photograph or a painting, and if your work is good enough, it’s an easy platform to call it, because 20 years ago to be a photographer you had to do an exhibition in cities, you had to publish a book and all that to get your work out. But now you can just put it on Flickr and if your picture is great, people will automatically come and respond to you. So for the first time in the history of earth, artists have a platform and it’s the greatest evolution, the survival of the fittest. So if you’re good at what you do you will succeed in being an artist because traditionally being an artist was very difficult because it’s not just the art that you had to worry about but how you market you work and how you get your work out. But now we have internet which takes care of itself.

Kalyan Varman is a wildlife photographer.

An Interview with Sreekanth Rameshaiah

2010-12-08T11:41:00.004Z

Haegwan Kim

At first I want to ask you about your definition, personal definition of success.

Sreekanth Rameshaiah

It’s a very interesting question. It’s a simple question, but the answer is not so simple, but personally I feel success is… the change that you imagine, when you get it to happen, I will call it a success particularly. It may not be financial, it may not be just socially, it may not be personal wealth. If you work towards a goal and if you put in enough effort and if you see the end result coming closer to the goal that’s impossible, your goal, and you as achievement, that is success.

HK

You have an interesting background as once a programmer and the CEO of the non-profit, Mahiti. Can you tell me why this happens?

SR

It’s a personal story. Actually I was using computers as early as 1985 and in India that’s a very early stage for someone to have his computer, so I was a programmer from a very early age. I was ten years and because my father was a scientist I had access to computer at home. I always grew up thinking I would become an engineer one day, working for Philips research labs, working on an exhibition, fancy stuffs. I know it’s stupid but when I was 32 I thanked God that I did not go on that path. At the time I came across Sunil, and then we two together set up Mahiti. We started providing technology to other non-profits, so it’s now really natural we are, slowly we grew, and when the bank came to spin off on some of our works. We wanted to set it up as a social enterprise so that we continued to do cutting edge work, but primarily our focus should be on social sector and our profit should go back to the social sector.

HK

Can I ask the reason why you’re focussing on social sector and not on private sector?

SR

See, you would be surprised, there are families in night after night journey from Bangalore where $2 is enough money a the week. India’s a very contrasting country that way. In Bangalor, $2 won’t get you a cup of coffee so the comparisons are very different. Bangalore is highly evolved, but if you go a little further away you will see people who are really far behind in terms of development. Many people don’t even have a well roofed house so we learnt a lot about the social life working in some of our projects. So at that time it was somehow becoming very clear to us that we had to be a social enterprise which focuses on technology for society, technology for the social sector. And one of the key things that we had in mind was we did not want to go through the donor route for doing our projects, and some of our learnings assurance that when we get funds from donors, then we’ll have to implement their ideas and their wishes. So many times we end up doing things which is not correct but that’s what the donor wants. And we saw it happening, so we were really upset about it, so that’s why we thought we’d set up Mahiti as a social enterprise. It would do commercial work but it will use its profits to do social work that increases character and use it for the people.

HK

How do you measure your success as a social entrepreneur?

SR

When we started, we were three-people company, less than one third of this room, providing services to very few non-profits. Today, we have a working relationship with more than thousand non-profits. We must have Indian more than 3,000 non-profits inside India. In the last year, alone, we brought more than 1,200 non-profits on user of IT in their work, and in the last one here we have engaged with more than a thousand students across the country. We have projects in Burma, we have projects in South America, Africa, we have commercial plans in Europe and testing. We have worked in social projects in Mongolia.

Today Mahiti has its businesses spread out across all the five continents and we are a team of about 80 people now and we have our own premises. We have our own recognition, we are globally distinct, so I feel we have grown quite a bit. One of the key things that we decided when we started the company was not to grow in comparison to someone else. For Mahiti the competition is Mahiti. We don’t look at someone else to figure out whether we have performed our part. We set our own performance benchmarks, and we achieve them and we move out.

HK

Can you tell me about your perspective on how technology can help the people mostly in India, but in the world as well?

SR

Technology can change people’s life in a dramatic way, in an unprecedented way. See, I can give a very good example; when I was working in Samopan, then we were working in villages and in one of the places the nearest telephone line was 16 kilometres away, and sometimes in the late evenings or in the night if you wanted to communicate with someone, there was no way you could call people.

Today, if you go to any village in India, almost every family has access to the mobile phone. That has changed the way they live. It has really transformed it because today for the 1% are missing mobiles phone has communication device, but for the average poor person in India who comes from a very poor family, mobile phone is their value, mobile phone is their camera, mobile phone is identity.

I think four years before, less than 1% of the poor people in India had access to camera. Today at least 50% of them have access to the camera thanks to mobile phone. They’re able to capture photographs of the children growing, of the family. For them it’s a very big improvement for families, for which taking photo was a very, very, very expensive big thing; today it’s in their hands.

It has changed the way they add value with the rest of the world. Slowly and steadily mobile phone is becoming a very important tool. This is helping the aims for girl children in the villages to encourage their parents to let them go to schools and colleges far away because parents now know that their children are just one phone call away so it’s okay to send them to a college which is 12 kilometres, 15 kilometres away from their house. This is a very big movement. Technology will bring a lot of change to this country. It will increase transparency. It will make paying accountable. It will give power to the poor people.

HK

I feel like a huge wave is coming to India. Final question, I want to ask you about your general advice to be successful?

SR

I think it’s important to take the road that is not taken before. If you’re afraid of experimenting, if you’re afraid of pushing yourself to the limits you cannot really be successful, so and anybody has to be successful, they should dream the innovation and then work towards that even and do not be afraid of going beyond the traditional limits, then I think success will particularly come.

Sreekanth Rameshaiah is the CEO of Mahiti.

An Interview with Naveen Tewari

2010-12-08T09:17:00.002Z

Haegwan Kim

Today I’m going to talk with Mr Naveen Tewari, the CEO of InMobi. Let me start by asking your personal definition of success?

Naveen Tewari

Not that I’ve thought about it, but let me try and give you some bullet points on how I think about success. I think the first thing foremost is the ability to make an impact in changing the world. And if you can make an impact in the world then you are successful. The key questions are the magnitude of success. It depends on what’s the magnitude of people that you are able to impact with what you’re doing. And that to me is a criteria of one level of success. The second level of criteria of success, which is very personal, it’s are you content with life, are you happy with life, are you satisfied with life? If you are satisfied with life irrespective of whatever you have done, you’re successful. Because all of us are trying to achieve that level of satisfaction in life, and if you achieve that then you’ve done it. So, I look at success across those two dimensions.

HK

Interesting, let’s talk about a bit more professional thing. You’ve already achieved so many success in terms of business, especially mobile advertisement. what you mentioned is the impact on our society by the advertisement in the mobile industry not only in India, but also in Japan, Singapore, UK, United States and so forth. What was the key element to succeed InMobi?

NT

I think a couple of things. One certainly we were always very governed by the fact that let’s do something that’s big. If we had taken this whole plunge of trying to go ahead and taken an entrepreneurial direction in life, then let’s not do something small. Let’s make sure that whatever we’re going to do, we’re going to do something big. That was one part of it. We have always had this at the back of our mind that we’re going to make something big. The second, I always believe that if you have to do something big you can’t do it yourself only. You’ve got to have a team together. And so getting a variety and a fantastic set of people together to help solve a problem which is going to be impacting billions of people in the world, if you can sell that vision to people and have them come together and solve that problem, and those people are fantastic, it makes your life much easier and you become far faster and you grow far faster. That was the second. The third is if you’re doing that then you also want to ensure that you’re sharing this success of something with everybody. So, you’re not keeping every output of the success to yourself, you’re actually sharing with people. That’s the third. You share it with people in the form of equity that people get so that when things become big they’ll also gain from it personally in terms of wealth creation. They’re all fairly well motivated to do that. The fourth, we’ve always questioned the traditional way of doing things. If you look at traditionally you would say that let’s focus on one country and do this this way. We came out and said, yes, focusing on one country is fine, but I think there is a fundamental reason why we can focus on more than one country. Most of the people disagreed with that when we came out and we discussed it with people who we really trust, they disagreed with us to say that you should go outside of one market as two markets because you’re a small company. Now the point here is that I’ve always believed that you have to question the tradition and you have to do things based on the first principles, things that make sense. It makes sense for us to essentially do things parallel as against doing them in order. And that is what we have done. We have gone out literally like an explosion, and we said we’re going to go everywhere and we’re going to do this. Yes, it’s hard to execute but then that’s where the previous one comes in that you go and get great people to come and participate in this great vision who then work together with you to create this larger business. Those are points which come to my mind as I look through this.

HK

I have some questions. At first you said drawing the big picture is one of the key facts to success of Inmobi, and I was wondering as the CEO of Inmobi, do you focus on the details of each project or just you set general trajectory? For what do you spend most of your time?

NT

Well, I think it depends on what state of the company you are in. As an individual I only have 24 hours. When we were a smaller company of what, 15, 20 people, I would be far more detail oriented. As the company grows your vision is remaining the same and maybe at times your visions also expands with it because you’re seeing success and then you say, all right I’ll take the next leap. And so it happens as a result of that today my level of involvement on the detail is not that much. It is less so but I then have to specifically make sure that I have times set out for myself which is – let’s call it the time to think, so that I can plan the next time, while I have this fantastic set of people, who would be very much detail oriented. So, the thing is the following, if you have to create something scalable and large, you can either focus on the process and measure the output or you can also go and make sure that the input is great, and in our case the input is people. If you can ensure that the input, which is the people who are coming into this organisation are superlative. Then you don’t have to bother about focusing on are you doing your work or not, is the numbers coming or not, are you going and doing your sales calls or not. I don’t have to do that. The effort is on hiring and if you actually focus on getting the right people in, your effort on getting into the details and monitoring things goes down. That allows you to give you the time to essentially think about the next thing, and think about what the company should do next and lay that plan out, and then look at things not at that same level if the things were not being handled by great people.

HK

When InMobi was small, I can easily guess that it's tough to gather great people you can trust. How did you manage the human resource and gather core members?

NT

The very very initial team is typically found off people that you know, and those that know you, because somebody who doesn’t know you at a very early stage is not going to trust you. So, it’s all about as you rightly said, it’s about the trust on the core team. In the beginning the core team that came together were the people that I need. They came together and we basically found a team who then executed and showed some success. Since then we could then go out and talk to people who probably we didn’t know that well. But the reality is that in any case, for example, today I would’ve spent at least 40% to 60% of my time in hiring only, which means that I do a lot of effort and a lot of discussions in selling the idea and selling the vision. If great people are going to come and join you they’ll have very tough questions. I need to do my bit in hiring, in getting those people excited about our vision.

I think it boils down to the CEO or the founder or that core team spending a lot of time selling the vision, not only that, also letting people know that this is a professional entity, this is a global entity, our vision is large. Explaining all of those things are things that take a lot of time. I think with each passing quarter or six months or something, we have been able to show success in the positive direction, success which is very fast growing. So, with time it becomes easier to get better people. But the effort required to get great people is quite a lot, and people probably underestimate in the world what the value of getting great people on the team and how much time one CEO needs to spend on making sure that he gets the best person on the team. But once you get the best person on the team you will actually be growing much faster.

HK

This is a more general question about India. There’s tons of countries and corporations who are now interested and crazy about the Indian mobile industry. Although InMobi is already a glbal corporation, can I ask your perspective on the future of the Indian mobile industry?

NT

Well, I think the mobile industry is a function of a number of people, numbers of subscribers, etc. In this country and in China if you look at these two markets, the population is 1.2 and 1.3 billion respectively, which means 2½ billion people. A large portion of those 2½ billion people never had digital devices in their hands, and they never had it. And in Africa, a billion people in Africa. Put the three together, this is 3½ billion people. That’s 50% of the world’s population. 50% of the world’s population has never had a digital device. Mobile is going to be a platform that is going to basically give them that information access that they’ve never had in the past. And it’s already happening, 600 million or 700 million users in China, 600 million users in India, Africa is growing.

Now, with all of that the number of people that will have cell phones in this world is just really large. Then what happens once all of these have these devices in their hands, the next level of growth comes from what kind of applications you can give them. Is this only for talking? obviously not, people use it for text messaging, then people used it for checking some scores. Eventually people will use it for everything, from payments, in Japan you have little chips in mobile, which basically make payments possible. So, Japan is a fantastic example of where the world has moved to and faster, because people have seen the success of Japan and clearly know what to do. Japan figure it out, everybody else is going to copy, and the copying is obviously faster.

The thing is, if this is the only device that people have, and given the level of GDP over capital in all of these regions, which is not very high, they will only rely on these devices and not on PC. And within internet connecting everybody together and giving them services which they will never rendered in the past, it’s going to create a very different level of economy which will create a different level of entrepreneurs, different level of services, different level of whatnot. That’s why I feel excited. Like just in this emerging developing market, given that we have the advertising pipe, we would end up creating and helping create an eco system that could fuel entrepreneurship and employability which can be spread across billions of people. That’s what excites us about our own thing, and that’s probably why the emerging market is a far stronger story for mobile than probably anything else.

HK

There is also controversies about how nations are having restrictions, or intervention on the 3G connection. I think that India is much better than China, but what do you think about the battle between the national and the private sector?

NT

Well, I think that difference on region to region clearly. In India things move slow because it’s democracy. And so there is openness but then everything is open for scrutiny, it has to be done via a process. Things move slow. Things are improving, but at a slow pace. Having said that, that fight between the private and the Government always stays, and I think Governments are becoming smart enough to stay out of business, stay out of centre policy and stay away. They did that with software, in 15 years at Google, we’re like a $100 billion business industry. Similarly it will be mobile. They’re not staying away that much from it given the whole 2G and 3G fiasco that’s happening here. But you know what, these things were delayed by a year or so, but it’s not going to stop the market. Similarly in China, they’re going to do a bit here and there, but once they let it go, whether it’s slow or fast, it will flourish. Now, whether you are the right person to gain success from it or not it’s not sure, but certain people will, there will be entities that will gain from it.

HK

Cool opinion. Final question, let’s talk about success again in a general way. What would be your advice to be successful?

NT

I think a few things. One, clearly one has to take a risk, and I think a lot of people in this world who are very very smart people don’t take a risk. Now, whether it’s a risk of trying something within your own job or the risk of trying something new as an entrepreneur, building something. People don’t take risk and I think that’s the biggest factor of… here I go back to my definition of success, making an impact or not. If you have to make an impact in this world you have to take some risk. You will have to go against the traditional boundaries of what people expect you to do and say this is what I want to do, and I’m going to do it.

If you are young, you don’t have anything to lose, go for it. Until today I regret that I started my company at the age of 27 or 28, I think I should’ve started it at the age of 22 because that would’ve given me six more years to make mistakes and then learn from it. So taking that risk, making those mistakes, moving fast and thinking of questioning the traditions are things which are required to be successful and making an impact. One other point I would make is, people tend to think small. I don’t think when we started we knew that we were going to make something big. It becomes big, but if you’re not even thinking of making something big it will never be big. One of the urges that I have and I talk to people is, think big. Keep thinking big and take some risk, make some mistakes, success will hit you and you will make an impact.

Naveen Tewari is the CEO of InMobi

An Interview with Sanjukta Basu

2010-12-01T09:08:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

Let's start with your personal definition of success.

Sanjukta Basu

My personal definition of success would be, well, I really think that success is very contextual. I might think that I'm successful and other people might not feel the same way. So for me, if I am happy, I'm doing what I'm doing and I have absolutely no pressure, like why I'm doing something is because I have to earn or because I need to do this; this is my work, some kind of pressure. As long as I'm free of any kind of pressure and I'm happy doing what I'm doing and at the same time, I'm also helping someone. That would be my definition of success.

I'm happy doing something that doesn't really make a difference in the world that we live in, that is not, for me, successful, although I might earn a lot of money. But as long as I'm doing something which I like doing and, at the same time, I'm also helping in whatever little way. I'm not saying it has to be something extremely great or I have to save people and feed the hungry. But in whatever little ways I'm making some difference somewhere in the society that I live in and giving back something to the place that I was born. I'm also happy doing that. That, for me, would be successful.

HK

Why are you using social media as a tool to help others?

SB

Well, social media is something that… there has been a media revolution in the last four, five, six years. Media has always been something that has been controlled, like if it's a newspaper, there's a lot of control as to their opinion through the newspaper or who gets to have a programme on the TV. If I have something to say, it's very difficult for me to become a publisher of a book or have a TV channel or have a newspaper where people will hear me. When this whole social media thing came, when people starting blogging and people started using other social media. So everybody had suddenly become an agent of opinions. Everybody has an opinion and they can express their opinions. So that this whole media revolution thing that has happened in the past that I have noticed happened for the social good.

It's supposed to be for everybody. It has not penetrated in all sections of society, particularly if I'm thinking of India. Social media is still used in the urban sector and people with technological backgrounds and people with social backgrounds. Even the non profit industry and in rural areas have absolutely no access to technology. And they have no access to social media. It's not because they cannot take it, but because they don't know about it.

First of all, my first step would be to take social media as a tool of expression to the people who are not using it. Tell them that this is a great tool by which you can express yourself. And maybe there are great stories that we need to hear, the world needs to hear, from every individual in this world and they remain unheard because they don't have any way to express it. And social technology, social media is one way of everybody to express themselves using social media. If people cannot express, a lot of stories remain unheard, a lot of lives, like you have people living in the villages and they are the great people. They are great human beings, but we don't know about them because nobody goes or the mainstream never goes out to them and brings their stories in.

Sometimes they do, but many more people could reach out to the world by using social media, which is why I thought that using social media will be a great change. But you've got a lot of change in the way we view ourselves and the way we view society. I started using social media myself in my own life five years back. When I started expressing myself, it helped me in assembling my own personality. So I thought if can do that, others will also have the same benefit. It's just that they don't use it, they don't know about it, they're, like, what is blogging?

HK

I came here, India. So some questions about India. There are a billion people in India, and that's a huge number. But many people are still, as you said, can't afford to be on the web. What's your opinion in the long term view?

SB

When I talk about a the penetration of the Internet into the rural areas and in all sectors, I really imagine that there will be a centre in every small town or village, at least in somewhere in the vicinity or nearby there will be a centre where one will have access to a computer with internet connection.

The government of India is really making a lot of progress in the field of taking broadband into the villages. Basically the BSES, which is our BSNL, which is the service providers for telecommunications. They have a lot of ambitions and they want all the villages to be connected on broadband. In my view of the world, I want to see one day when every, if not the total villages, but at least the smaller towns we have these centres, like you have a post office, and every small place and you will have a centre that might be called a media centre, it might be called a communications centre, I don't know what it can be called. But it will have access to internet and computers. The people of the place can come and they can access this. Maybe they will pay a small fee for using it. In the cities you already have cyber cafés for people who cannot have a computer at home, they can go to a cyber café where they can pay ten rupees per hour and they can absolutely use it for whatever their purpose is. So the thing is that for just ten rupees, you get one hour of access to the entire world of information. Once you're on it and on the worldwide web and you have the whole world wide open in front of your eyes just by paying ten rupees in a cyber café. And I am imagining that as time goes by, we these things will get cheaper and people's style of living will also slightly increase. So one has to make the effort and how we make it more and more affordable.

These days mobile phone has huge penetration in India. Even a complete villager, people living in very remote; I know my housemaid who comes from a really remote village in West Bengal, she lives in a village where there is no electricity but they have mobile phones. So what they do is go a few miles on their cycles, charge their cell phones and they come back.

HK

[Laughter]

SB

They have cell phones, but they don't have electricity to charge it, so they go to the nearest place where there is electricity on a bicycle, they charge it and then they come back and live for two days.

HK

[Laughter]

SB

That's what I'm saying. The mobile penetration is there and the social media is also constantly making an effort to be more device friendly. Sometimes you never know, we might even have it accessible to your landline. My point is that a device and the availability of the device cannot be a reason why people should not be connected. I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight, it will take time, but that's what my personal effort is in my work.

HK

You said social media makes you reflect on yourself. Social media helps you to think about yourself. Do you think that if more people can be afford to be on the web, more people can find their meaning of life or anything like thtat?

SB

You know, there is a chance because I have seen it in my own life, so I am very optimistic about it. I think that, yes, access to internet and access to having a tool of expression makes a change in my life. What I'm going to do with that expression, with that tool, is very difficult to say what I'm going to do. It is like we educate everybody. We send every child to the school, we teach every child to read and write, but every child doesn't do something great, every child doesn't become the same thing. Different children takes differently the same kind of education given to them. So what I feel is that this tool of expression is freedom of expression that, just by the click of a button, I am able to take my voice to the entire world.

This knowledge, this capacity, this power brings a change in who I am. It happened to me and I'll explain to you in what sense. It was only after I started writing my blog where I was expressing a lot of my personal life. I wrote a lot about my personal life, my boyfriends and all those kinds of things, so I started writing about it. And it was something very natural, because societies don't really talk about their personal lives in public. We don't talk about sex, we don't talk about love relationships, romance in public, these are things which are always kept in private. But I was breaking a few rules there. I was writing a lot about my personal life without any inhibitions. And I realised that that actually empowered me, instead of making me feel vulnerable or making me feel ashamed of who I was or what my life is, I actually became more powerful and people also went wow, you have the courage to say all of those things.

We also feel that way but we can never say. We think that you're very brave. So I realised that I was a brave person, that's something that I realised about myself. Also about writing, I'm a good writer, people read my writing and they like it. I had the confidence in myself to blog, which was not there before this whole thing. I met more people through my blog, through all my acting with this social media, I started meeting more and more people. I became more confident in my interpersonal skills. I feel that it's something that might just change somebody's life completely. It's a tool that I give you. It's like giving a camera to 100 people and out of that 100 people, one of them would turn out to be a great photographer. They will use that camera and they will turn out to be a great photographer, so it's like that. You give the tool to everybody and then it will make a great change in somebody's life.

HK

Can you tell me why you're focusing on non profit?

SB

Because they're not using it enough. Because the people who are into the non profit industry, they are mostly coming from social backgrounds. Politics and sociology, humanities. And they say oh, my God, technology! I cannot use it. I cannot even use my computer, it's like that. So I say it's not that difficult, why don't you try? It's not at all difficult to have your own blog or have your own Twitter account and start using it. In fact, I have learned everything about the technology with trial methods. I kept trying, trying, trying and then I learned it.

HK

What is your background?

SB

My background is humanities, so I studied political science. And I was a lawyers in India so I didn't touch to any technology at all. And the other reason is, you know the non profit, they do a lot of work in the field. They go to the field and they interview people, they capture people's lives, they make studies, reports, findings, surveys and all of that. But all of these things, ultimately, sit in their offices having access to only some scholarly person who is writing some research again. It does not come out of that circle, that development circle to the corporate or the profit making people, the corporate world, this other side of the spectrum.

HK

India's IT has a great power, do you think it will be harmonized with politics and nonprofits as well? I think not only in India, but also in the world, the 21st century will be the new era of technology that used for well-being of humanity.

SB

Technology and politics, I think it is happening now. I think this century, like you said, this is the time when more and more people are trying to contribute to a good cause for the development of their country's society. It is happening. And the other thing, I see a connection between the two because, for example, very, very young people like you, the young people working in the IT sector, they have a certain job, they're very satisfied with their work. They have good money, so they are paid well. And I know that all of this young generation want to contribute. They are very concerned about their society. They are not selfish people who only want the gadgets and the car and the iPod and they're happy with that. They also want, in terms of their success, they feel successful when they have the iPod and they have that new car. And at the same time, they also want to give something back to society. And I think once we merge these two worlds, they will be able to contribute in whatever way. Maybe they will give their time free whenever they're sitting free, they'll go and do volunteering for some network, for some NGO. Or they will give some donation. So the more that we know about what's happening in the non profit world and what kind of work is going on, the more they will be interested and they will also contribute.

HK

My final question is your advice to achieve success in a general sense.

SB

I think I will not give advice because I don't see, in the sense that I don't know if I would be called a successful person by others, it feels completely mine. I think what I'm doing in life is fine and I'm happy with this and I will keep doing what makes me happy. But if I had a family to take care of, if I had to earn every month a certain amount of salary otherwise my children wouldn't go to school, then I don't know if I would afford to do what I want to do. It's around reality. I also have to take care of my family. I have to raise my children and give them a good life and an education. So when it comes to that, I don't know if I continue what I want to do. Right now I can because I'm free. I don't have a liability, I'm a single person, so I want to do that. So, basically, all I would say that whatever you're doing, you have to be happy. And that's a very common advice that anybody would give; you've got to be happy in whatever you're doing.

An Interview with Asa Kasher

2010-11-18T08:56:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

Thank you so much for your time. Firstly I would like to ask you about your personal definition of success?

Asa Kasher

To live in a certain manner. I don’t think about success as an achievement; I think about success as a way of life, a successful way of life, not a successful achievement in a pursuit of a goal. The question is what is a successful way of life, and there are several ingredients, several dimensions. If you want to live successfully, then you should find a way of life that fulfils four conditions.

First, it should reflect your views, your understanding, your knowledge, your values that you would like to embody in your life, so first of all it should be perfectly okay with your cognitive dimension. Secondly, you should be satisfied emotionally, which means you should love it. You should be happy about that way of life. It’s not self-evident that if you think that this is the right thing then you’re also happy about doing it. Sometimes there could be conflicts, so the successful way of life is where you think it is the right way of life and you’re happy about pursuing this form of life.

Thirdly, your will, which is independent of your views and your emotions, the thing you desire, should also be compatible with it, which means it’s a form of life that you think is right, that you want, and you’re happy about maintaining it. Fourthly, it must be moral. It must be done within a framework that takes into account the fact that you are not alone. There are other human beings, and they have their own ways of life, and you have to take them, to respect them, respect the human dignity, take into account the rights they have on a par with your own rights, so it should be a moral way of life, so there are four ingredients: the views, the will, the emotions and the morality.

HK

That’s a really interesting. I have some questions, at first, the point you mentioned about the views and emotions - it's quite difficult for many people to grasp emotional perspective and rational perspective at the same time. What's your opinion on this?

AK

You don’t have them automatically. They’re two separate dimensions of your life, and success means that you reach, in your career, you have reached a point where you can have both of them. It’s not automatic. It’s not that if you do the right thing they’re going to be happy about it. You can be not happy about it, not happy about it at all, so you must find a way which makes you both satisfied on the emotional side but also fitting your views.

HK

I'm wondering if there's any relationship between concept of success and what your studying - cognitive science, linguistics and philosophy.

AK

What I’m telling people is to look for areas, and look for ways of life that would be successful, look for them, create them, create your own story. You don’t have to follow in the footsteps of anybody, you don’t have to take just one profession or one social position and say this is what it means to be successful, a minister, a member of parliament, a general, a professor, that’s nonsense. You can be very successful with something that you created as your own way of life, and you can be a seemingly important person and not be successful at all because you’re not happy, because it’s immoral, because you think it’s wrong that someone should do it, things like this. So you start from scratch, you create a way of life which is yours. It could be similar to the way of life of others. It doesn’t have to be similar. It could be a novelty.

Now, if you talk about students and then professors, then for me, one of the most exciting aspects of academic life is that what you love is your profession, which means that it’s an area that has both aspects immediately, you think it’s important, you think it’s the right way to understand the human mind, to understand the society, and you love doing it. Unlike other professions I don’t work from eight to five. I read and I enjoy reading it, and it has to do with my profession, constantly, all the time, and it’s not a burden on me because I love it. It’s my profession and I love it, so here you have two dimensions, and I want to do it, I really want to do it. If I hated it I would not have done it, and then it’s moral. Most of what I’m doing is thinking about what is really moral under certain conditions.

HK

On the other hand there’s many people who can’t find what they love to do… Any advice for them?

AK

If you think in terms of the university, then many universities, all American universities have an undergraduate programme that, and the Israeli universities too have programmes within their undergraduate studies that have… it’s not the typical way of undergraduate studies but it’s a possible way in Israel. But in America, for example, you would have many topics. And you ask yourself what is interesting, and you think you’re interested in, say, history, literature, in physics, in psychology, so you listen to, you attend classes in those areas, and if you like it, go on, if you don’t like it, if it’s boring, if it’s burden on you, try something else.

So try something else until you find that equilibrium. I think that it’s important to notice that you don’t have to be an excellent agent. Excellence is not all over the place. Excellence, sometimes people are excellent and sometimes they are not, so success and excellence are different areas. A person can do something very seriously, successfully in the sense of wants it, it’s interesting, he loves doing it, it’s moral, and it’s not excellent, but it’s successful because he maintains better equilibrium between those different dimensions from his of his life. So if you can do it excellently well, as well, then that’s even better, but it’s not very, it’s not a necessary condition.

HK

I agree. As we are in Israel, I want to raise a question about Israel: is there a certain type of success in this country?

AK

Personal level, and then personal level there is a distinction between, say, there are three different groups that you have to think in terms of: there are Jews of two kinds, and non-Jews, and the Jews of two kinds are the religious ones and the non-religious ones. So there are different conceptions of success within those three different groups.

If you think about religious Jews, then there is a religious conception of what is the right way of life, and children are brought up in a certain manner, and they get accustomed to it, and most of them, not all of them, but most of them think it’s the right way, they love it, they want to live this way, and it’s moral in their view, according to their conceptions so there is the notion of successful way of life of an ultra-orthodox Jew. Now, there’re the secular Jews, that’s, you have the whole spectrum. Anything can be a focus of success.

Then the Arabs, mostly Arabs, also other non-Jews in Israel, there is always a special perspective of a minority, of being the minority, so Jews outside Israel are a minority everywhere and they experience it for many centuries. Now non-Jews in Israel have this experience of being a minority. Now part of your perception of success in, while you are a minority, is that you maintain your identity, that you are not becoming part of the majority culturally, religiously, linguistically and things like this, but you are a citizen, you participate in a civil society of the state, but you maintain your own identity which is the identity of the minority, and there are many non-Jews in Israel who are successful in this sense. They are Muslims or Christians and they do whatever they want in their lives, but they’re successful in a certain sense.

HK

Do you mean there's social tendency on success in Israel in some way? And can you tell me how to enhance individual diversity?

AK

The way I describe success is most accommodating the diversity because it’s a way of life. It’s not pointing out certain social positions and saying okay, that means success. You’re a Hollywood actor or you’re a general, you have an apartment in Beverley Hills and things like this, that’s not my view at all. People could be successful in this way and could be unsuccessful in this way.

So what I’m saying is the person should look for one’s own identity, look for what is important to you in your life, but what is important to you has to do, not just with your present way; it has to do with the way you want to live on a longer range, not what I feel like doing presently. You create a form of life, you impose on yourself principles of activity, this is what I’d like to do in the coming 30 years.

Now I can change my course. It’s not binding. I’m not obliged to take a decision and that’s it. I can change my views in the course of my activities. However, I reflect my own identity, and my own identity is my story. It’s a story I write. I’m the author and I’m the hero, so I’m writing my own story and every story can be different. People could be very successful in thousands of different areas, but there is no one way or not even a cluster, a small cluster of ways. It’s utterly open, utterly open, which means, by the way, that when you face a person, you don’t know whether this person is successful or not. You may know whether he’s socially regarded as successful but that’s not important. Whether you know what his meaning of life is - identity. Well, I don’t really know what his identity is so I cannot evaluate, let along judge another person, so it’s a very personal matter. Only you know what your identity is and what you would like to do with your life.

HK

Great opinion. As a final question, I want to ask you to provide us your advice to be successful in general life.

AK

Write the original story of your life and do it. Take into account the four dimensions that I mentioned. In your life you express your view, your values, your conceptions, you do it with your brains, in your life you express your desires, your will, in your life, you express your emotions, and you should look for those places where all those three are in harmony: your emotions, your will, your views; and do it morally; you’re not alone on an island. There are other people around you so do it in a way which is compatible with their existence, their happiness, their success, that’s the general advice.

Professor Asa Kasher is Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair In Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel Aviv University.

An Interview with Aharon Horwitz

2010-11-15T08:54:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

Thanks so much for your time. As I said, my research is on the law of success. Let’s start by asking your personal definition of success.

Aharon Horwitz

A good question. My personal definition of success is, I think, helping other people achieve… helping other people and my community achieve its potential is success for me. I think that’s the kind of thing that motivates me most to wake up in the morning is to see people with important ideas for the world and see my community, which I care about deeply, actually live up to its potential and implement and do the things that it aspires to do.

HK

Why do you help others?

AH

I feel like that’s very much a decision you make at some point in your life, whether you’re going to be a person who’s driven by some sort of outside meaning and some sort of vision of a redeemed world, or a world that’s going to be better in the future, or whether you’re just kind of carving out your survival niche. And because of the way I grew up in my family and the values that I was taught, I think helping others, or rather, helping others be inspired and motivated to work for bigger picture ideas has always been a part of who I am and my life.

HK

Is that the reason why you focus on the social entrepreneurs?

AH

Yes. I think the social entrepreneurs, for me… see my problem is I don’t know what the big idea is.

HK

(Laughter)

AH

You know, what’s the one idea Israel needs to kind of be a good society, or what’s the one idea that really will help alleviate some of the major problems that we’re facing as a globe? I have no idea what the answers are to those things. I’m not educated enough, nor am I smart enough, nor am I wise enough, but I meet people every day who believe that they know what the answers are.

HK

(Laughter) You're modest…

AH

So I figure that if I build a framework that can help enough of those people, at some point I will have gotten involved in it, and along the way I get inspired and see their answers as potentially giving me ways to impact directly. So that’s why I’ve been focused on what PresenTense does, which is helping social entrepreneurs get off the ground.

HK

So you define yourself as an accelerator for them to go further?

AH

Yes. I think of us as a jumping off point, meaning connection point with… it’s like someone who has an idea often needs to… everybody needs a place to plant their feet firmly in order to jump. You know if you’re standing in the water it’s very hard to jump because you can’t get any purchase on the water. You know the water is not stable; it’s not strong. If you’re standing on land you can jump. And I through co-creating it with Ariel Beery aspired to create a firm ground for the people in our community and our environment who want to take a jump at something. And that was what the idea was, because otherwise, you don’t know who to meet, who to talk to, where do I go to find a business plan, how do I get the financing, how do I really define what the needs are. We can help you with those things; that’s what we do.

HK

Without any intention, can I ask why you focus on the Jewish community primarily?

AH

You know you talk about business, the idea of narrowing and having your own focus, so I think that humanity often defines itself in the form of communities. You know there’s a community of skateboarders; there’s a community of a particular church, or a particular religious group of something like that. I think that throughout history the Jewish community and the Jewish people has been a strong, coherent presence that’s very fluid at its edges and interacts in many ways with different people. It’s the community I grew up in, and I believe it’s a community that has resources and potential and infrastructure to actually achieve mission that’s way beyond itself. So in terms of me looking for a place that can, you know, further values in the world… it seems like a very strong position for that. I believe that it sees itself on some level as having a mission.

So for me that’s a very good starting place and I think that that’s why the focus is there. Now, what I like to do is find the Jewish community working with people who aren’t Jewish, or bringing in Jewish entrepreneurs who are interested in working outside of the Jewish community, because I think if you’re just about yourself then you’re not really worthy of existing. And the same thing in Israel it’s a little different because in Israel it’s not just Jewish, it’s Israelis, which are Jewish, non Jewish, Arabs. You know we’re interested in all of them. In America, amongst America’s gigantic plurals we decide to focus in on the Jewish community infrastructure, but we have fellows and entrepreneurs; they’re doing things that are very much non Jewish oriented.

HK

As a social entrepreneur, I want to ask you about how you measure your success?

AH

We’ve tried a lot of measurements for success and it’s very hard to measure success, and so we have layers of things. So on one level when we look at an individual venture we try to understand what are the metrics that it set for itself. So if we have a venture that is developing a new piece of educational technology, while they’re at PresenTense in our incubator, in our accelerator, in our programme, they’re creating metrics. And so we want to understand, okay, are they hitting their metrics and are we helping them facilitate the chief end of those metrics. As PresenTense, what we’re actually looking to do is to re-shape communities, and we want to create a world where every individual - no matter what they’re about, no matter what their job is, their profession is - is spending some time of their day focusing on investing in solutions to problems that face the globe and our local Israel and the local community. So that’s, for us, where we’re going. We look at how many volunteer hours do we have going into our ventures. Is that increasing every year? How many people in the community who previously were not doing anything good for the world are now investing three hours a month in giving accounting advice to a social entrepreneur that’s trying to reduce hunger. That’s, for us, the way that we’re looking at success.

HK

This is kind of the thing of how, but I want to ask you about, as technology and the internet and other tools are developing, what is the future of social entrepreneurs, and what is the possibility of social entrepreneurs in the 21st century?

AH

What I think is going to happen is that there’s going to be global alliances and global missions, in a sense, but there’s going to be a lot of local implementation. And the local is going to be very important, because I think that no-one knows better what they need than the people living in a particular space. So what I think the technology is going to do is to create opportunities to learn and see models and connect, and here and there there will be some very big global effort. But a lot of the action is going to be just on the local level with local people with their own flavour doing their own kind of activities and their own social entrepreneurial things which is an issue because you have to think about scaling… we find many of our entrepreneurs have no interest in scaling. They’re not driven by markets; they’re not driven by business needs where they want to maximise profits. They have a target population in their local community and they want to fix that; they are not interested in going to 15 other communities. And an important thing to realise, is that, when you need to build an infrastructure of that, takes global models and global know-how, but gives local actors really the power to just do it in their own way and not expect them to kind of drive some big picture of change.

HK

You have a long history and have done many venture business with non-profit and social entrepreneurs, so I was wondering what would be the key element to be a successful social entrepreneur? Is there common feature in them?

AH

You need to have one foot in the world of idealism and one foot in the world of pragmatic operations, and it is so important to be aggressive when it comes to building a product that generates revenue. And I think that most social entrepreneurs come in with passion and with a great deal of idealism and they want to achieve something. What they’re missing is a savviness when it comes to saying, I need to generate revenue to be able to keep my mission alive. So the successful social entrepreneurs that we see are the ones who are tenacious and committed and never say die and will go to the end of… work 24/8, you know, to achieve their mission. But they also say, okay, let me take what I’m doing and let me figure out revenue sources. And that’s, I think, an important thing.

Usually old non-profits have the people give them money and then they have the beneficiaries and those are two separate people, right. Philanthropists give me money and I feed poor people. That’s the classic model. Here, we want to say, take your beneficiary and make your beneficiary also your partner and your funder, so that you create a healthy cycle of operations. And that’s the key thing is to figure out, how do I find people who want to pay me for the services that I’m offering. And it’s a challenge; it’s really hard, but if you can do that… because a lot of issues with start-ups on the non-profit space is in the mezzanine. You know, early stage, sure, you can get some seed capital, you know, get some funders, you get excited and you’re sexy, and they come in and put some cash into you, and you’re doing great and you’re flying.

HK

(Laughter)

AH

The minute you hit like three, four years, you’re normal now; you’ve been around, you’re boring. You’ve got a mission, it’s not exciting any more; it’s not the new thing. At that point you can’t find the capital to take it to the next level. And so there you need to have earned revenue and you need to have a business model that works. You need to have a good team in place, and I think that that’s where we see the success.

HK

Final question, talking about your personal thing, again, what would be your advice to be successful in general?

AH

Never refuse to meet with anyone, as a piece of advice. I think that one of the most important things that we did, myself and Ariel, in the early days was we so appreciated people being willing to meet with us when we were just random people who were calling up, saying, hey, we want to understand how you do what you do and we want to run an idea by you, and that people were willing to give us even 15, 20 minutes of time - very busy, very prominent people. That, I think, was a lesson for us that at any point in your life… you could be offering something to someone who is going to do something very important and you should never withhold that and you should always be giving. And if you’re always giving you’re going to get and the people you meet with will tell you the ways to get things done. You know, the knowledge is out there, the more you are willing to talk with people and the willingness you have to just get out there and interact with people and always be open to the new ideas and the new potentials, that I think is one of the key things it takes to be successful.

Aharon Horwitz is the co-Director of PresenTense Group.

An Interview with Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf

2010-11-10T09:00:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

What is your definition of success?

Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf

Success means different things to different people. To me personally, success is being happy. Some people derive happiness from making a difference, from amassing wealth or control, from being surrounded by people they love. I love to be challenged and then overcome these challenges – when I do that I feel success. And making the right choices in life in terms of whom to spend it with and how – that's happiness and success for me as well.

HK

What would you say as the key element to be a successful entrepreneur? and same for investor?

YAL

I don't believe there is a common list of traits among successful entrepreneurs, and among successful investors. Both professions are as much art as they are science, and just like artists – each has their own style and their own path to success. Some are very technical, some aggressive, some accommodating, some dreamers, some pragmatic, some financial, some graphical, some world travelers, some super focused… Each entrepreneur or investor is different, sometimes significantly, from the other. But if I had to pick just one element that to my knowledge exists in every successful entrepreneur and investor it would be: persistency – they never give up.

HK

I'm totally impressed by your networking skill, do you have any specific way to expand your connections?

YAL

The keys to highly-effective networking are as follows: First, distill it down to a science, automate it, leverage efficient tools (such as LinkedIn and not Facebook, Outlook and not Gmail, X1 and not 'folders', BlackBerry and not iPhone). Second, be fanatical about your return on time, your most precious resource – be very selective with industry events, webinars and other get-togethers that occupy multiple hours on your calendar and may or may not yield networking value. Finally, separate personal from professional – people burn out from high-powered professional networking because they let it creep into their personal lives and all of the sudden they find themselves going on weekend picnics with potentially 'useful' people they don't necessarily like. Don't do that to yourself – life's too short: Keep your personal life personal.

HK

Since your business is international, I would like to ask about your opinion on the differences among nations in terms of tech-business and if you have a particular country in favor, please let me know.

YAL

I see significant differences among nations in this regard. The U.S. has always been and still is the world's tech powerhouse, producing (and attracting!) by far the greatest volume of tech startups as well as mature tech companies – it is the easiest place to start, grow, finance, sell or merge a technology business. Europe has not traditionally been the early adopter of technology but has in recent times shown great advances in areas such as mobile, Internet, telecom and clean tech. Nevertheless, tech innovation in Europe is still held back by over-regulation, risk-aversion, and high costs of doing business. Therefore, in Europe tech business usually thrives within large multinationals, of which some are and some aren't actually headquartered in Europe. Israel is my favorite, though I'm clearly biased as it's where I'm from: Superb engineering talent trained mostly by its excellent army and universities, hungry and eager entrepreneurs, lean and mean cost structures, full-fledged support ecosystem which includes a government that funds dozens of startups per year, and nonstop interest from multinationals that invest, acquire and support. All of the regions above are increasingly threatened by the rise of China, India and Brazil that are increasingly exporting better and better technology.

HK

Would you give me your advice to achieve success in general?

YAL

That depends very much on how you define success. I think that a big part of achieving success is understanding what success is – for you. It doesn't make sense to go full throttle unless you know where you're steering, right? Most people do not have to be on the cover of Fortune or live in a mansion to feel successful. If you feel like me that success equals happiness, then it can be quite simple: Do more of what makes you happy, and do less of what makes you unhappy. Soon enough, you'll achieve and maintain success.

Mr. Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf has been a successful entrepreneur, investor and advisor in the technology and new media fields for the past nineteen years. He is the founder and Managing Partner of YL Ventures, a venture capital fund that he designed based on his own experiences as an entrepreneur, with a unique strategy of achieving short-term, medium-sized exits of technology companies via strategic acquisitions.

An Interview with Erez Eshel

2010-11-08T08:59:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

So, tell me about your thoughts on success.

Erez Eshel

The biggest secret of success, in my opinion, is that you are surrounded with much more successful and powerful people than you are. It’s like stars. Stars, in their heaven, in the sky, in the universe, in the galaxy, they have something that is forever, eternity, in their being. One of the main things is that each star is not jealous with the stars that surround him. Okay? Many times we relate success to competing, beating people, and doing better than others. But real success, real greatness, can be measured only by happiness and joy.

You achieve things with your reason, why do you do, why you are here in this world. Because that’s leadership. Leadership is not to be in charge of people; it’s to create your own personality, your self personality. It can be as doctor of medicine, it can be as a carpenter, it can be as an engineer or architect, a lawyer or politician or businessman. But the moment that it relates to you, you are on the way, you lead yourself. Many times we confuse success with rich people, wealthy people. People that are in high position, but I relate success to happiness, to the ability of you to feel I am here in this world and I have a meaning. And with all of the problems, with all of these troubles, with all of the difficulties in life, I enjoy life. I love life. If I will die today, the moment I will close my eyes, the second before, I would say it was good to be in this world. I can see so many people that are in very high positions, very strong, very wealthy, but they are not happy at all. How do you know that you succeed?

You are surrounded with real friends. Real deep friendships, friendships that are partnerships for life. It’s not partnership of business. It’s partnerships of idea, okay? Michael Eisenberg is one of the ones that I have. I can’t do what he does in business and I don’t want to do what he does in business. I want to do other things in my life. He does it the best. He manages so many people, so many strategic decisions in his call, and he’s good at it. And he’s good at his family and he’s good with himself. That easily interests me in life.

And if you are surrounded, a real leader in life is surrounded by other leaders, real leaders in life, it’s not that people obey his decisions but people cooperate with him. People are with him. They have an endless relationship, again, like in galaxy, the relationship between stars, every one is completed. Every one has a different size, a different color, a different energy. Everyone is interned forever. So, whenever I suggest to anyone you want to get a success, it means take life seriously. Count the 168 hours a week, put aside two days of rest, Friday, Saturday, you have 120 hours. Put aside six hours of sleep a night, you have 90 hours. Take your 90 hours seriously. First of all, develop your own character, your body, your mind, and your soul. Your body by physics, by self-confidence. Your mind, your skills by learning, reading books, listening to other people teaching yourself.

Why to develop your soul? Because we have endless people that are successful in their bodies, successful in their minds, but they are not good people. Then, to develop your soul is to develop the level of goodness, happiness, loving, futures, nature, human beings, having a very, very solid soul and then all of your energies in order to create real good in this world. That’s the first of it, then develop your own family. The family is the measure for everything. The third, develop your personality. What you are going to be good in, not what people consider as a success for all important things, because in 1998 I was the head of the student union in Israel. And I’ve done research on the five most popular subjects students go into university; medicine, law, psychology, engineering and computers. I wanted to find out if the students that are struggling, are fighting to be accepted to these studies in university, really wanted; that will be the dream in their life to do. 50%, no. They wanted to be in this, to have these studies and these degrees in order to be successful. But I told them you are so stupid because what’s your job in life? One third of your life you are asleep, the other third of your life you are a child or you senior, and the other third of your life you work. And if the work you go and it’s not the most empowering, the most enthusiastic, pushes you, pulls you, part of your dream, part of your personality, so you waste your life even though you will have the best car and you will go on great vacations, you will go with worries.

So, personality, family, profession. And then forth, your community. I don’t lock my door at home, never. I have neighbours, they are my friends. If I lock the door it means I don’t rely on them, not if they need something and have asked, so they can go inside, I’ll take. To be related to community, a community that has demands because we’ve seen so many good and successful people but suddenly they lost the course of their life. They became corrupted or spoilt, or even bad people. I think it happens because you are lonely, but if you have real buddies, real friends, they remind you what were your dreams, what were you thinking about, what was your aim in life? The last thing, the fifth, is your nationality. Know how to respect your nation, be related to your nation. Learn about greatness in the whole nation. I believe the moment every nation won’t be struggling with other nations but only thinking about the inside greatness because you want to be a flood of great people. They say you want to be a flood of great nations. Real friendship with great people if there’s no jealousy. Real friendships with great nation is with no jealousy and wars. But it demands you to continue developing your greatness.

HK

Ok, I have some questions. The first thing is about education. As you mentioned, finding purpose of life is one of the most important things for human lives and I definitely agree with it. But today it seems many young people are losing their purpose of life, struggling to find out meaning of life. Do you have some advice for them?

EE

First of all, everyone is looking for a meaningful life, okay? Everyone is looking all of the time. Youngsters still have the dream that they can get a meaningful life. Others, sometimes are already struggling on surviving and living and paying for the living, they forgot their ability to get a meaningful life. There’s nothing in life besides a meaningful life, otherwise you are like an animal. In this generation, 20% of population can get a meaningful life, only 20%, only people that live in democracies, okay? Only people that live in free countries, that is free education, free ability to build your economic; 20% you will say it’s only a few but it’s a lot. It’s the biggest amount ever in human history, of people that have the opportunity. Most of the people are wasting their life. Even though we are so rich, look, a young guy like you, 21 years old, you can travel all around the world. If it's 300 years ago, only people with a certificate from a queen or a king, with a box of gold, could travel around the world. Now a 21 year old boy, anyone!

HK

(Laughter) I was born in right time then.

EE

We have endless opportunities but then we have to learn about the basic of human nature and in the basic of human nature we are lazy. On one hand we want to get dignity and pride and on the other hand we are lazy. We don’t wake up early in the morning. We waste a lot of time in front of television. We go around the internet wasting, doing nothing. We kill our time and we kill our ability. We ruin this generous creature that is a human being and it’s us. When I work with my students, I have more than 1,000 students, study every day from seven o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night, we speak about greatness. We work about developing your body, your soul and your mind. We create them as a community that will go for a long time together and the demands won’t stop because they will create them themselves.

It affects not only my students, it affects their families. I can see it happening over the last 40 years. The demand, not going aside, going direct, speaking about what’s going to be, what’s this one-time opportunity to be in this world. There isn’t another world. This is the only world.

HK

I want to ask about the relationship between nationality and success, which you mentioned as one of the secrets of success more deeply. We are now living in the age of globalization and it's quite difficult to grasp the scent of nationality today - does it mean that it's getting difficult to be successful in that aspect?

EE

First of all, this globalisation, the way it’s described and was developing in the 60s from United States to Europe is collapsing. It’s collapsing in the crash of civilisation. There’s no globe, there’s no one world. There is a world with nations, with communities, with families, with individuals and so everyone needs his identity. We can see what happens to Europe. Europe is going to vanish if it’s not going to change their attitude of an endless culture country in the year 2050 and it’s very close. In 2050 you are going to be only 60 years old and this time it’s not a very old person. Europe is going to vanish, no Europe, unless they change their attitude.

The moment you forget your identity, the moment you are confused with your sexual identity, I’m a man, I’m a female, whatever I am; the moment you are confused with your family identity. What is family and what are the obligations and what the demands? The moment you forget your national relationship and what’s the unique thing about your nation, and every nation has a unique thing, the same that every individual has the potential of a unique thing. The moment you leave it, then people come back to be slaves and machines in the hands of a very few people, and we go back to old times and we go back into real wars. Globalisation, that’s one of the biggest lies, that very rich people wanted in order that they can cross one side to another and buy their own world and to become the masters of the world.

HK

Does that mean making community should be with the nationality? I mean, like I do, I believe we can break the border and create own communities based on value regardless of nationalities.

EE

If you have one community, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have relationship, a good relationship, a friendly relationship, with other communities. The moment you are solid with yourself, you can relate to another community and woman. The moment your family is sold you can relate to another community, which means neighbours. The moment you are solid with your neighbours, or one community, one village, the nation relates. The moment your nation relates you can relate to other nations and then families can meet with families but then there is respect. When I see you as someone else, and I don’t want you to be me, and I have no struggle. You are interesting, I would be happy to know you. I can invite you to know me. That’s life.

HK

So every individual should be independent to "invite" others and to find their meaning of life.

EE

Yes, it will take 1,000 years.

HK

A thousand years?

EE

1,000 years until the whole world will be independent and free, it will take at least 1,000 years, not less.

HK

How do you measure that?

EE

I simply look along history and I see things because again only 1.5 billion people are really free. Most of the women in the world are not treated as equally as men. Most of the countries in the world, even if they call themselves democracies, they are not democracies at all. The world is not free yet but it takes time because you have to educate people to free them. You have to fight against the forces that are against freedom and that’s a long-term process.

HK

Wow, 1,000 years…

EE

One thousand years is not a lot from the perspective of all the history of human beings. If you would work out on the next 100 years so on the next 100 years maybe half a billion more people will become free. And then another 100 years, another half. And then in 1,000 years, if you divide it, 1,000 years is not a long time.

HK

I will think about how to free the people, thank you so much for your time.

Erez Eshel is a mentor at the Israeli Academy for Leadership.

An Interview with Richard Stallman

2010-11-04T08:51:00.000Z

Haegwan Kim

First, you mentioned that discussing success is not useful for you and that’s really interesting to me. In this interview mainly I want to talk about freedom and related issue. But before that, could you tell me the reason that talking about success is not useful to you?

Richard Stallman

Because some activities are good for society and some are harmful for society. Of course, many are neutral. If person A knows how to aim for success, that may be good or bad for the rest of us. And I didn’t set out to be a success. I didn’t set out to make a lot of money or become famous. I set out to give software users freedom, which is a goal that deserves to be done. It’s a goal that’s important in its own right and I just happened to be the person trying to achieve it.

And to a certain extent I have succeeded. It didn’t make me rich but it’s success, to an extent, because at least there is now a large community of people who use and contribute to free software, so in that sense it’s a success. But when I look at it I don’t ask, am I a success? I ask, do users have freedom?

HK

Great to hear that. Can you tell me why you are so in favour of the freedom?

RS

Partly it’s because I resent being pushed around. I resent anyone giving me orders. Partly because I grew up in the US, where people were taught to think about freedom – or at least were. I don’t know if any of the children are taught any of these things any more. Partly because not long before I was born, there was a World War against some horrible dictators and partly because I had the experience of having freedom in my use of computers when I worked at the MIT artificial intelligence lab in the 70s.

And so I was sensitised to notice the difference between free software, freedom-respecting software and user-subjugating software. So for ten years or so, my work was done on improving a free operating system, most of the parts of which had been developed at MIT by the group I was part of.

So working, improving that system meant taking advantage of freedom all the time, so I came to appreciate freedom.

HK

Okay, I see.

RS

But that’s not quite the end.

HK

Okay.

RS

Because the community fell apart in the early 80s and it was no longer possible to have the freedom. So I saw the contrast between living in freedom and losing freedom, and I found non-freedom disgusting. So I decided to do something to bring freedom back.

HK

Can you tell me how…? You are now trying to bring freedom back, which conversely means there's no freedom at the moment.

RS

Yes. With regard to software. First of all, this is a big question. In regard to software, proprietary software does not respect users’ freedom because the program controls the users. If the users aren’t free to change a program and do so either individually or in groups cooperating, then the program controls the users.

Now, with typical proprietary software there is even a licence that says what users are allowed to do with the program and what they’re not allowed to do and it can be as restrictive as the developer chooses to make it. For instance, there is a Microsoft program for managing webpages, websites, and its licence says it can’t be used to publish anything that criticises Microsoft. So here, non-free software takes away your freedom of speech.

This is obviously intolerable. If you can’t use your copy freely you can’t control your computing. You can only do what you’re told. But then the second level of control, through the source, through writing the code of the program; if you use a program whose code was written by somebody else and you can’t see it or change it then that somebody controls what you do. He could make the program do nasty things to you, and even if you happen to find out, you still can’t change it.

Finding out is difficult because you don’t have the source code. Sometimes you will notice some sign that it’s doing a nasty thing. Other times you won’t notice. For instance, Windows has spy features which send information about the use of the machine to Microsoft and users can’t see that this is happening. It was not easy to find out that these spy features are there, but people found out. They had to be somewhat clever, in some cases, to discover these spy features.

And then there is a back door in Windows which allows Microsoft to forcibly install software changes. It doesn’t have to ask permission, it can just sneak them in. So this is what I mean when I say a program controls the users. But even if there’s no back door to allow the developer to install changes, it’s still the case that the program does what the developer chose to make it do, and if you don’t like that, you can’t change it. So you’re stuck with it.

So the back door is sort of icing on the cake for his power, because it means that even if he forgot to do something nasty, he can put it in retroactively. Without that kind of back door, he’s limited to the nasty things that he thought of in advance.

There are many proprietary programs that are widely used, that do surveillance; there are many that are specifically designed to restrict what users could do. Those restrictions which limit what users could do on the data in their machines are known as digital restrictions management or DRM, also sometimes referred to as digital handcuffs. So the point is, using those programs is like being handcuffed because you can’t just move your hands around anywhere you like, the program is stopping you.

And these are intentional features. Of course, programs also have bugs, and if you don't have the source code you can't fix the bugs. So the users, in order to be free, must have the source code, and they must be able to run their own modified versions of the source code in place of the original. And they have to be free also to distribute their modified versions. Because if you don't have that freedom then you could fix a problem for yourself but you couldn't fix it for anyone else, which means that each individual user would have to fix the problem. It would have to be fixed over and over and over.

Also with the freedom to distribute your modified version, the people who don’t know how to program can benefit.

HK

I understand a bit about freedom for software now.

RS

So if I’m using the free program and I make a change in it, which I know how to do, then I could publish my modified version and then you. Perhaps you’re not a programmer; you would still be able to get the benefit of the change I make. Not only that, you could pay somebody to change the program for you, or you could join an organisation whose goal is to change a certain program in a certain way, and all the members would put in their money, and that’s how they would hire a programmer to change it.

So the definition of free software is the four freedoms that are needed for the users to have control of their computing. Freedom zero is the freedom to run the program. Freedom one is the freedom to study the source code and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Freedom two is the freedom to help others, which is the freedom to redistribute exact copies. And freedom three is the freedom to contribute to your community, which is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions. So these four freedoms ensure that the users, both individually and collectively, control the program. If the users don’t control the program then the program controls the users. That’s proprietary software and that is what makes it evil.

HK

Sounds similar to Creative Commons - verifying the types of copyrights.

RS

Yes. Creative commons publishes various licences.

HK

Yes. Do you agree with all those kind of activities on freedom?

RS

They don’t have a position on that.

HK

Position?

RS

Creative commons licences grant the users varying amounts of freedom. Two of their licences qualify as free by our criteria. Those are the creative commons attribution licence and the attribution share-alike licence, those. And I think maybe there’s also the CC zero licence, which I usually don’t think about. But I think those three are all free licences.

The other creative commons licences do not go far enough to make the work free. However, I wouldn’t say that all published works must be free. I think the published works that must be free are the ones that you use to do practical jobs. So that means software, recipes for cooking - and recipes for cooking are a good examples because, as I’m sure you know, cooks frequently share and modify recipes.

HK

Sure, yes.

RS

And it would be a tremendous outrage to stop them. So in effect, cooks treat recipes as free. But let’s look at some more works that are used for practical jobs. Educational works are used for practical jobs; to teach yourself or teach others. Reference works are used for practical jobs; to look up some information. And then there are text fonts, which we use to display or print text so it can be read. These are examples of works of practical use. These are not the only examples. I m sure you can find some more. Anyway, works of practical use are the ones that I believe must be free.

However there are other kinds of works. For instance, there are essays of opinion and scientific papers and there are artistic works, and their contributions to society are of a different kind. They don’t contribute through helping you do practical jobs. They are useful in other ways. So I draw different conclusions about them. I think the crucial conclusion for those other works is the freedom to non-commercially redistribute exact copies, in other words the freedom to share.

HK

I’m interested in what you’re doing. You’re travelling around the world, like me, and you’re contributing to others, not for yourself. And I love that way you live and I respect it so much. So I was just wondering, how you describe yourself?

RS

I describe myself as a free software activist.

HK

Activist?

RS

Yes.

HK

Activists means the ones who change the world?

RS

First of all, we haven’t changed the whole world, not even in this regard, we’ve only changed a part of it.

HK

Ok.

RS

As you can see, most computer users are still running proprietary systems such as Windows and Macintosh. And then if they have smartphones, those smartphones are running proprietary software and it typically has malicious features too. We have a long way to go to achieve victory. And the other thing is that what we have achieved, I did not achieve by myself. But I did start this movement.

HK

Your activities have lasted for a long time, what would be your advice for being an activist?

RS

I was rather lucky, in a sense. I was in a position to do something that would forward my cause just working by myself. As other people showed up who were interested they could join. So it’s generally good to look for a way to do things that way, in other words don’t set out at first to make a large organisation and then begin to achieve something. Start doing things such that you alone, or a small group of people who support you, can achieve something, and by achieving something you can attract the attention of others who might want to join.

HK

Great idea.

RS

In fact, I've read that advice in a book. I don't remember where, because that was a long time ago, but it fit what I had alreasy done. I can't say I thought of this as a general principle, but it did work well in my case.

And the other thing is, don't design your activism with the idea that first you will raise a lot of money and then with the money you'll be able to do such-and-such, because on that path you almost never get anywhere. It's so unlikely you will succeed in raising that money that chances are you'll spend all your time trying and failing, and never start doing anything about your cause.

So design your plans so that you can start doing things for the cause soon and that way you’ll spend your time getting a certain amount done for your cause, which is better than nothing.

HK

Fair enough.

RS

And of the ones who follow the raise-money-first path, those few that succeed in raising the money will find that their years of focusing on making that money have changed their goals. By the time they have that money they will be used to trying to do everything to get money. Few people have the ability to turn around and start directing their efforts toward something other than getting and keeping a lot of money.

HK

Indeed. Can you tell me how did you gather great people when you launched the Free Software Foundation?

RS

I don’t know if I always gathered great people. Some who came to us were good and some were not but I couldn’t tell very well in advance, I didn’t know how to judge that. But enough of them were good that they’ve managed to achieve a lot.

HK

So did you gather people or did people automatically come to your place?

RS

Mostly people had seen what we had already done and found it interesting, and they would either help or, in some cases, come back when the FSF was hiring and we would say we were looking for someone to hire. Maybe we knew them already--who was a good programmer--by their contributing as a volunteer, so we knew if we hired them, they would be good.

HK

I see. Thank you so much for your time. As a final question, I want to ask you about what we should do to spread the freedom.

RS

The big enemy of freedom is governments taking too much power over society. They do that with two excuses: the excuse is terrorists or child pornographers. But we have to realise that anti-freedom is a bigger danger than either of those. For instance, censoring the internet. We must not accept laws allowing punishment without a fair trial.

The US set a horrible example when it started grabbing people from all around the world without a trial. Even now, Obama is continuing pushing military commissions, which are simply trials that don't live up to the standards for trials. They're not fair trials.

We know a lot of the prisoners were in Guantanamo because somebody told a malicious rumour about them, and we can't rely on military tribunals to distinguish between real evidence and malicious rumour or the fact that somebody was tortured and eventually said whatever his torturer wanted.

Right now, I’m told the Iraqi Government is still committing torture and I was told 30,000 prisoners who are without trial. This is a monster that the US created. Governments around the world keep looking for more power. The problem is, they have too much already.

HK

That’s true. How can we get the power back from the governments?

RS

I wish I knew.

HK

(Laughter)

RS

I do know something about how we can teach people the need for this. Governments get their power by focusing people’s attention on some secondary problem.

For instance, in the US, how did the Government get its power to torture and imprison people and even just bomb them? The US practises targeted killing. There’s a list of people who are marked for death and the US Government will drop bombs on them rather than try to arrest them. Now, how did all this get started? It’s because the US focused people’s attention on the secondary danger of terrorists carrying out the September 11th attacks in the US.

Now, Bush didn't want an investigation of those attacks. Eventually he was forced to allow an investigation, but he weakened it and corrupted the investigators, so we canâ t trust the results. There has never been a proper investigation of how those attacks were carried out and who was responsible. So maybe it was planned by a bunch of terrorists as the Government says, or maybe Cheney was involved, as some other people say. Without a real investigation, we'll never know.

But given that excuse, George Bush went on to demonstrate that tyranny is worse than terrorism, because those terrorist attacks killed under 3,000 people, and they were used as the excuse for the conquest of Iraq, in which 4500 or so Americans were killed. So even if we only consider who's more dangerous to Americans, the answer is Bush.

HK

(Laughter) People can't judge what's right or wrong when the condition is getting complex and excited too much…

RS

And that ignored the million or so Iraqis that Bush killed and that Bush prevented us from counting. But by preventing them from being accurately counted, Bush made it possible for low estimates such as that of Iraq Body Count to seem plausible.

I read recently some journalists went to look for oil buried just below the beach in Florida, and some sort of Federal agents ordered them not to, because they donâ t want news that the oil is there. They're hoping to cover up the effects so as to get it out of people's minds. And whether they're doing that for BP or for Obama or both, it's offensive to try to stop the public from knowing.

HK

Do you believe that the internet has the possibility to change this phenomenon?

RS

That’s a different question. The internet is useful for various things like sharing valuable information. But it’s also useful for surveillance. So the internet can be used for good things and bad things. So how do we make sure that we are free to share? How do we limit the surveillance? It’s a matter of stopping the Government from doing things that are unjust.

Richard Stallman is a software freedom activist and the president of the Free Software Foundation.

An Interview with Michael Eisenberg

2010-11-03T08:49:00.001Z

Haegwan Kim

I am talking about success with prominent people around the world - like you. Some people say, oh, I don’t give a shit, or some people say success is blah, blah, blah, but I just want to ask you about your personal thought on success. Let's start with your definition of success.

Michael Eisenberg

I never thought about it.

HK

… Okay.

ME

I don’t know that I qualify as successful in anything, other than my marriage and my kids. I think that’s the most important thing.

HK

Okay.

ME

A happy marriage, happy kids.

HK

Do you connect happiness and success?

ME

A successful marriage, successful kids, you know. Do I equate happy and success? No, not necessarily. I don’t think you can be successful without being happy, but you could be happy without being successful, potentially.

HK

That’s interesting. Do you think all human beings have the potential to be successful?

ME

Again, that would depend on your definition of success, but I think more importantly I believe in the vibrancy in the human spirit and that it’s not true that if I try very hard I definitely will be successful; it is true that if I don’t try very hard, I won’t be successful. Some people are born into better circumstances than others, by virtue of the families that they’re born into, the countries they’re born into, the genetic make up they have, their religious beliefs, you know that might select for success better. But somebody born into any circumstance provided they can break free from it… you know break free from their circumstances, can be successful. You look around the world, it’s not true that people – whatever success means – people born into successful families, countries, nations, homes, necessarily have children who are successful.

It is often true that children born in unhelpful surroundings end up scratching their way to incredible success. There was a family in New Jersey of holocaust survivors, two brothers, one today is, I think, 90; the other passed away a couple of years ago. They landed in America with nothing; when I say nothing, NOTHING.

HK

Sure.

ME

They rented out and lived in, like, an ice factory in The Bronx, in New York making ice and soon they figured out that making ice was not much of a business, but renting out their warehouse, that was a business. Over 60 years they became one of, if not the biggest, home builder and renter in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. You know, billionaires.

And so that would be successful financially. More importantly though, they created a tremendous number of educational institutions with their money which are not only successful, they continue today continue to grow. So their legacy, you know, continues, and will continue in these educational institutions long after they’ve passed on, and many generations of kids will benefit from that. These people came in the worst circumstances possible; their families were wiped out in the holocaust. They landed with nothing when they came to the United States in a tough neighborhood with no business. It was pretty amazing I think and they’ll have a legacy that continues forever.

HK

At first you said that you never thought about success that much, and if that is your kind of policy to live, just like, your life, can you tell me about your policy or your dogma or creed or anything like that?

ME

In life?

HK

Yes.

ME

Well, life is a little complicated to crunch down into one dogma or creed.

HK

(Laughter) that’s true. Then tell me about what you want to achieve in your life.

ME

Three things: If I have to condense it and it’s hard to condense it would be three things.

HK

(Laughter) fair enough.

ME

Progeny, wife/children who are respectful of others and each other, loving and kind, that’s the most important thing because kindness and respect starts at home before it extends beyond the barriers of home. Two is to do things for other before we, as a family, do things for ourselves. So, one of my goals in that regard is to try to create 10,000 jobs for other people.

HK

That’s great, indeed.

ME

And, you know, then to be remembered at some point in time that we were honest to a fault. I don’t think there’s anything more important than that.

HK

I’d just like to talk more broadly. So moving our conversation from an individual to a nation; is there a specific recipe of success in Israel?

ME

I’m glad you asked the question. So Israel fits into the category of what I described earlier as a country that was set up with not great odds of success. 22 hostile nations around us, we dropped here, a few hundred thousand Jews in a desert with no water, no food or agriculture to speak of, no, anything. But originally a few thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundred of thousands of Zionist pioneers who decided that in the middle of this wasteland between, kind of, Afghanistani Ron in the North and the Sahara in the South, that they were going to build a modern democracy and thriving economy and society. When you think about it in that context it sounds crazy. The odds were stacked against us, but the early Zionist pioneers had an incredible human spirit. They kind of realized that the situation for Jews in Europe wasn’t great. They moved here, it wasn’t great either but at least they could build it and make it theirs; there was no-one domineering over them.

And over time, through force of will, brains, hard work and I think, most importantly, teamwork, we’ve built a country. I mean in 62 years what’s been accomplished here - and I take no credit for it, I happen to live here - in 62 years, they’ve built a society on par with the most advanced societies in The West; however, I think, partially because of the army and the fact that everyone serves in the army here, and partially because of the fact that the founding of the State and the early Zionist spirit is only 60 years old. There is an ethos of teamwork here which is infectious and important for the success of Israel. People want the country to succeed. It’s not about me, me, me, me, me, it’s about us, us, us, us, us. And I think that’s what makes people successful ultimately, is there’s no such thing as an individually successful person. It doesn’t exist. It’s groups of people who are successful, countries are successful when people decide to work together towards a greater goal. That’s what makes people successful.

HK

Really interesting.

ME

I look at Bill Gates as an incredibly successful guy. He’s made a lot of money; he’s given a lot of charity away, which I think makes him more successful. He’s changed an industry; he’s changed the world, both in terms of his business, his software, his investment in malaria research, a maze of things. I think he’s perhaps the most impactful person in the world. But you’ll notice something pretty interesting about Bill Gates, he started Microsoft, he went to go find a guy named Steve Ballmer who would be his partner, because individuals aren’t successful, teams are successful. He hired the best people around him, and he had incredible management at Microsoft, over time. Sure he was the founder, but he built a great team. You’ll note that his foundation was originally run by his father and it’s called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and if you read what he writes, his wife is an equal partner in that, because individuals aren’t successful; teams are successful; groups are successful. And when you realize it’s not about you, you can be successful.

HK

It’s quite hard to ask but I think there should be kind of rivals and opponents if you make teams, of course when you define success as an individual as well; what do you think about that?

ME

Teamwork doesn't mean to be yes-men. I’m not looking for yes-men on a team. We’re looking for people who argue with you, disagree with you…

HK

There's people outside of the team, let’s say, Bill Gates made Microsoft and Steve Jobs made Apple and there's been, like, conflicts. What do you think about their kind of conflicts, is making a team still legitimate to defeat others?

ME

Competition between companies, between countries is a positive thing. I don’t think it’s a negative thing. Competition makes everyone better. That’s why capitalist societies…

HK

…rule the world.

ME

Yes, rule the world today, and, you know, communist and socialist societies are slowly disappearing, except for Mr Chavez in Venezuela and I think competition is a positive thing.

HK

Talking a little bit about business, you’ve achieve many success and as I introduced, you’re one of the most prominent people in terms of business and technology in Israel and entitled to talk about this.

ME

I don’t think I am. I think you got here by accident because you met a friend of mine.

HK

(Laughter) What was the biggest lesson from your career?

ME

It’s all about people.

HK

I'm asking about the business though?

ME

It's all about people. Who do you business with is more important than the area you do business in. You want to do business with people with integrity, people who work hard, people who are honest, people who are innovative, people who are creative, people who share the same goals and values. That’s much more important than everything else. You know technology is a tough business. You need to make hard decisions and put a lot of risk on the line and it’s gut wrenching. It’s all about the people.

HK

Great opinion. Final question. What would be your advice to achieve success?

ME

I don’t think I’m in a position to give anybody advice on how to be successful. The one piece of advice I’ll give is marry well; it’s the single most important decision you’ll make in your life. And marry early.

HK

Wow, really (laughter)?

ME

Your wife can save you from a lot of mistakes. Or your husband in the case if you’re a woman. I can’t speak from that perspective.

HK

(Laughter) Thanks a lot.

Michael Eisenberg is a Partner at Benchmark Capital.

An Interview with Saul Kaplan

2010-10-29T22:44:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

At first my research is on the law of success, so I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Saul Kaplan

My personal definition of success is having an impact and creating a better way to deliver value. For me it’s always about the ability to have an impact on whatever problem it is you’re trying to solve or whatever social issue that you’re trying to work on. Are you having a direct and measurable impact and making a real difference.

HK

Is that the reason you founded the Business Innovation Factory?

SK

Yes, absolutely. We want to create real world laboratories where innovators can explore and test new ways to deliver value. And we focus on areas of high social impact, including healthcare, education, energy and entrepreneurship. All of these are systems level challenges that we believe require systems level solutions. So my mantra is how do you do R & D for business models and systems, the same way organisations do R & D today for new products and technologies. We believe all leaders now have to do ongoing experimentation for potential new business models, even those that might disrupt the current way they do business. The Business Innovation Factory is a community of innovators and a platform to do real world experimentation.

HK

That’s really interesting. You're doing this as a non-profit, can I ask why?

SK

We created it as a non-profit because we wanted to be a neutral platform focused on mobilising systems level transformation in areas of high social importance. That's our mission, and we’re very passionate about it. We’re trying to create a movement and connect innovators in very purposeful ways.

HK

Do you still believe a non-profit organisation has the possibility to make the impact that you mentioned?

SK

I really do; I think it’s the innovators day. It's during these very difficult economic times that innovators really have a voice. I think this is our opportunity to make a difference and to have an impact and there’s a sense of urgency around that. We're beginning to recognise as a society that tweaking our current systems is not going to work. We need to design, prototype and test potential new systems, and the tricky part is how do you do that while you’re still pedalling the bicycle of the current set of models. BIF is a platform to experiment while the current systems still exist. Creating the future by innovating through connected adjacencies.

HK

Sorry, connected adjacencies?

SK

Yes, connected adjacencies. Don't go to war with current models. You will lose if you try to go to war with current models. Create an innovation sandbox connected to your organization, an adjacency where you can experiment with potential new models. Connect your innovation sandbox to the current model so that innovators within the current system can dip their toes in the water, participate in innovation experiments, and see that exciting new ways to deliver value are possible.

HK

That’s a really interesting point. Can I ask why you are focusing on business models through your organisation?

SK

Because we have to expand our definition of innovation. Too many people confuse innovation and invention. The best opportunities to create value are not by inventing new technologies but by learning how to deploy existing technologies in new and different ways to deliver better value to an end user. Business model innovation is the new strategic imperative. A business model is the way organizations create, deliver, and capture value. To me it’s not an innovation until we actually deliver value in the real world. Innovation is simply a better way to deliver value. We need to focus more on the outputs of innovation which is solving the problem and less on whether we can create a new technology. We have more technology than we need today; it's humans that are the problem. We’re stubborn and we resist change. We need to get more comfortable with ongoing experimentation.

HK

Wow, that’s a really interesting point. Many people are just now focusing on technology, but you’re focusing on a system itself, cool. Today many people are saying about innovation and it became a buzzword, so I was wondering how you personally define the term innovation?

SK

My simple definition is innovation is a better way to deliver value. It’s not an innovation until it actually delivers. And I agree with the premise in your question, we have turned innovation into a buzzword. We need to get underneath the buzzword to actually roll up our sleeves and try more stuff to work on new solutions that can deliver value in the real world. Of course if everybody is an innovator and every thing is an innovation then no-one is and nothing is, so we have to get below the buzzword and really work on how to get ideas off of the whiteboard and into the real world. That’s why we created BIF to create real world laboratories where we could do more business model and system level experimentation.

HK

As you’re the founder of Business Innovation Factory, I was wondering what is the best environment to be innovative?

SK

To me, it’s about connecting innovators together in purposeful ways. There are innovators in every single sector of our economy, but a lot of people are stuck in their silos; they’re stuck within an industry, within a function, within a discipline. We believe the right answer is to connect innovators horizontally across silos. Real value is in the grey area between us, between the silos that we’re stuck in. BIF is creating purposeful networks of innovators that cut across silos and disciplines. We provide innovators with a platform and a set of tools to go from concept to a working prototype that can be tested in the real world. We must get better at experimentation and collaborating outside of our organizations and silos.

HK

In terms of connecting innovative people what is the key element to connect people? I’m asking this because today we have the power of the internet and compared with ten years ago, 20 years ago it’s much easier to connect the people and so what do you think about these kinds of transformation of technology from the view point of connecting people.

SK

I think technology has really helped us in this regard. The evolution of social media platforms allows us to connect to what I often call the unusual suspects, because that’s what we need to do. We know how to connect with the usual suspects, the people we meet with and talk to every day. If innovation is really about the grey areas between our silos we need to get better at connecting the unusual suspects. Social media has really helped us to do that and we’re all going up the learning curve of how to leverage social media platforms to connect with unusual suspects. We need to take the next step to create actionable networks, not only to exchange information, but to roll up our sleeves and make the networks more purposeful. BIF is bringing innovators together who want to experiment and work together on potential new ways to deliver value.

HK

The final question, talking back about success, could you give me your advice to achieve success in general, not in terms of innovation or business, just in general?

SK

I’m a huge believer that you need to stay on a very steep learning curve. I think in the 21st century the imperative is to get better, faster. We have to be learning every day, so we have to put ourselves in environments where we’re challenged, where we’re stretched and meeting more unusual suspects, so we can learn something new. We tend to hang around people that we’re comfortable with and I think if we’re going to learn every day we’ve got to put ourselves in environments where we’re uncomfortable, where we can stretch ourselves and be part of a more significant knowledge flow so that we can get better, faster.

Saul Kaplan is the founder of the Business Innovation Factory.

An Interview with Amanda Hesser

2010-10-29T22:42:00.000+01:00

HK

What is your definition of success?

AH

Getting to do the things I want to do, the way I want to do them. I think I was surprised to find that a lot of one’s career is spent working to get permission to take on projects you want, earning the trust of others to allow you to pursue your own course. So, often, I feel I’ve succeeded when I’ve gained that access and permission – because once I’m doing what I want, I’m usually pretty happy and confident it will turn out ok.

HK

You are a food writer, can I ask - in writing, cooking and eating - which is the most important to you?

AH

They’re inseparable. This question reminds me of a well-known MFK Fisher quote that always spoke to me. She wrote, “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one.”

HK

What do you most care about when you write about food? Especially I want to ask you about how you try to express your sense of taste as an article.

AH

I enjoy writing about people most – my first two books were about people (the first, a gardener in France; the second, my husband), and some of the New York Times stories I value most were profiles. I’m thinking of a story I wrote about Fergus Henderson, the owner of St. John restaurant in London and the author of the immensely influential “Nose to Tail Cookery.” He’s a fascinating person – a father, the leader of a movement to get people back to cooking “off cuts” of meat, and also a victim of Parkinson’s disease. His days are filled with struggle, yet he carries on uninhibited. Another person I enjoyed writing about was Julie Powell, the woman now known as Julie in “Julie & Julia.” She was a hero to so many twentysomethings who were stuck in awful jobs, wandering and lost. She used the challenge of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year’s time as a way to climb out of her rut and find her way. The food was engaging, but it was her year of angst, documented hilariously on her blog The Julie/Julia Project, that was a terrific story.

HK

This is really strange question, but do you think there's "successful cooking"? If so, what kind of cooking is that?

AH

There are two forms of potential success in cooking. The first is when you master a dish or technique. This often takes a lot of practice and repetition and when you’ve finally managed to fully comprehend the challenges and become expert, there’s a thrilling feeling of personal triumph.

The other success comes when you’ve viscerally pleased someone with your cooking. This is the most ephemeral and unpredictable form of success but when it comes, it gives you the cooking bug.

HK

What do you think about American obesity? Do you think we should be more careful about what we eat? I've been surprised so many people are overweight since I came to the US.

AH

Michael Pollan conveyed it best when he wrote: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” That’s the secret to a good diet. I tend to think of obesity, however, as not about eating too much food or too much bad food but about depression. This connection is rarely addressed.

HK

I personally think the word "eating (or cooking) food" has a connotation of "family" or "kin". Having your children, was there any improvement of understanding for food?

AH

A lot of parenting is selecting what you will and will not expose your children to. Once our kids began eating solid foods, I became aware of the opportunity to introduce them to all of the amazing flavors and foods in the world. I feel a responsibility to show them that food is an adventure and a chance to understand so much more about the world around them. You can gain certain knowledge by going to a place or talking to people, but you make a deeper connection when you eat the food. I don’t understand parents who allow their children to eat a narrow diet – it instills a parochial and self-centered view of the world, and limits their ability to embrace other cultures and experiences. It’s a form of xenophobia. If you’ll only eat pasta, what are you going to do when a family in India serves you the curry recipe that’s been in their family for generations? Are you going to make them cater to you, or are you going to openly taste the food they've made for you?

HK

Could you tell me your advice to achieve success in general sense?

AH

Learn to quash -- or at least manage -- your doubt. You live once: don’t be boring.

Amanda Hesser is a food columnist at the New York Times and a founder of food52.com Her latest book, "The Essential New York Times Cookbook," was published this month.

An Interview with Manu Kumar

2010-10-26T22:39:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

What is your definition of success?

Manu Kumar

My definition of success is being able to achieve what you set out to do, and to be able to raise the bar for the next goal. Success is not a final destination, but it is a milestone. Each time you cross one milestone, you set yourself up for the next milestone. Defining success as based on just monetary or ego-driven metrics is an inadequate definition of success. Success is something personal as if you're not personally happy with what you have achieve, you will never feel successful and never be satisfied. We each should define what we want to achieve -- not as pie in the sky goals, but small, yet incremental goals so that we can achieve the little successes, look back and be happy at what we have achieved, yet always have something to strive for.

HK

What would be the key element to build successful ventures?

MK

If we're talking about startups and business ventures, then for me it comes down to people, people, and people. You can always fix the technology, but if you start out with the wrong team, that's a recipe for disaster. I'd rather work with a stellar team with a mediocre concept than a mediocre team with a stellar concept and that's because the good people will always figure it out. Good people will hire good people and will have the ability to execute. People may say that you need money, a good idea, a good market etc etc in order to build a successful venture, but it takes good people to get the money, to come up with the idea and to find the right product-market fit -- it distills down to having the right people.

HK

Entrepreneurship and Investmanship - what's the crucial difference between them?

MK

Entrepreneurship requires a singular purpose and focus -- to execute on the vision for the company. As investors we have a little more flexibility in terms of being able to work with multiple companies at the same time. That to me is the biggest difference. But there are a lot of similarities too. As an investor, you're still running a startup, but a meta-level startup. You still have to find the best entrepreneurs to work with, you still have to raise money from Limited Partners, you still have to grow your own team and manage operations. So in a lot of ways being an entrepreneur and being an investor is similar. For me that is especially so since I have transitioned over to investing after having done my own startups. I think of K9 Ventures as my next startup, except it is the meta-startup.

HK

What does money mean to you? Tool? Success? or anything else?

For an entrepreneur, money is both a enabler and a way of keeping score. It is an enabler in the sense that you need some amount of capital to start, build, and grow a company. It is a way of keeping score in terms of did you do well in your venture.

MK

Could you give us your advice to achieve success?

A professor and mentor of mine gave me the following definition of entrepreneurship: "Insane perseverance in the face of complete resistance." I always share that with any entrepreneurs I work with. To that I add that entrepreneurship is not just about blind perseverance, but about smart perseverance. It is about learning from your mistakes and adjusting course to make sure you're always making reasonable progress. So that, and always work with good, smart and ethical people.

HK

I reckon that you emphasize the importance of people more than anything not only in terms of business but in terms of general life. How did you make connection with good people and build your own community and company?

MK

Judging who is a good person (which I define as someone who has impeccable integrity, the highest ability and a good personality to match) is not easy. Most of the time it's simply a gut call at the beginning. Over time as you work with people, either as founders, co-investors, board members, partners and in other roles, you get to refine that gut call one way or the other -- whether you were right or wrong. In my first company we made several mistakes in hiring, but over time as we learned, the team we had was phenomenal. These are people who I am still friends with to this day, over a decade later.

Dr. Manu Kumar is the Chief Firestarter at K9 Ventures.

An Interview with Jeff Rosenthal

2010-10-25T22:37:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

Thank you so much for your time and inviting me here today. My research is on the law of success, so I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Jeff Rosenthal

Personal definition of success? Satisfaction with the way I’ve treated people; the relationships that I’ve built, and the way that I leave the world. I think success has to do with when you look back on the things that you’ve built or the people that you’ve affected, are you happy with it? I don’t think that there’s a dollar value. It’s not like you reach a certain point in your life, like, okay, I’m successful. An abundance of love is success. When you have beautiful friends and family, and when you have the privilege of providing value to the people around you, that’s really the mark of a successful person; is when you do not have to focus on yourself or your goals or your perception of the world, and you get to focus on improving the lives of people around you.

HK

Cool. Tell me what you want to do through the Summit Series.

JR

Through Summit Series – there are a couple of things. First and foremost we need to connect and inspire our generation’s top young leaders, the dreamers and doers of our generation to effectively do more. You create friendships and you provide knowledge that makes us all stronger. What we also want to do is… basically change the definition of cool. We want to affect zeitgeist and affect culture to celebrate things like public service, community building, entrepreneurship specifically, and forget about all of the fireworks and bells and whistles that go along with it. There’s a great Alan Watts quote. He’s talking about Buddhism, and some people say that Buddhism is the finger pointing at the moon; the moon being enlightenment, Buddhism being the finger. Too many people focus on that finger and not on the moon, and you get stuck on all the garbage. So you think about the house and the cars and all the bullshit, and you forget that this is the point.

So we want to really promote creating satisfaction in your life through helping other people, through building a business, through having self-agency and being your own man, versus being able to afford a pair of sneakers. The perception of others and being self-conscious is what throws a lot of people off. When you’re thinking about how other people are perceiving you, you’re really cutting yourself short and you’re not able to flower as a person.

HK

Through your Summit Series, you’ve been travelling around the world and you’ve already achieved so much success, but I just wanted to ask you about what was the biggest lesson from your travelling?

JR

We’re all the same. That’s really it. Once you leave the United States and you start meeting people from different countries around the world, you recognise that we all want to be happy and healthy; we all want to take care of our family; we all want a better life for our kids than what we had. That’s all. In the expansion of knowledge, that’s really what’s lead to our success for Summit Series, is that we’re always pursuing knowledge. We’re voraciously pursuing knowledge. We love meeting all these amazing, brilliant people, just because we get to learn from them. So by travelling, it’s really expanded our minds and our pallet in a way that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. It leads to exponential growth.

It’s pretty much the most important thing. I think if you’re a high school kid in the United States or anywhere else in the world, just going and travelling and exploring and throwing off the bowlines, just through osmosis, by being around people from different places with different belief systems and value systems - you just learn more and more and more.

HK

What would be your advice to overcome the barrier between cultures? How do you communicate with other cultures or people from other cultures well?

JR

Have a drink, smile, fart, play soccer together. Do anything except focus on those cultural barriers. If you’re in the US and your English isn’t very good, then go surf with somebody. Who gives a shit? Just do things that are local to that culture with the people that you’re trying to bond with. It’s one of the secrets of Summit Series. We believe that relationships are like muscles; the more you exercise them the stronger they get. We also believe that the more dynamic the shared experience with someone new, the stickier that relationship is. And the same is true if you’re in a new culture. If you and I sit here and we hang out and we have this discussion, we’ll become friends. But if you and I went sky-diving today, or if we had gone out on a ship in a torrential crazy storm and had 80 foot waves crashing over the boat; if we went through something unique together, our relationship would forever be stronger and stickier. So creativity and doing interesting things together is the easiest way to bond with another human being.

HK

You described yourself as an entrepreneur. And I was just wondering about the key element to be a successful entrepreneur.

JR

Hubris; I think work ethic and respect; you don’t know anything; none of us know anything. The more that you learn, the more you know that you don’t know. So you’re never expected to know everything. I think that, if you’re going to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to recognise that from the start and ask the questions. That’s the mark of a successful entrepreneur. If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re not. You never are. There are rare geniuses out there like that, but that’s 99% of the time not the case. The ones that you see who succeed are the ones that are willing to ask people questions and accept help. That’s by far the most important thing.

But even before that, it’s getting off the couch and not accepting life as it is. It’s the desire to change your situation.

HK

As final question, what would be your advice to achieve success?

JR

It starts with examining the predetermined patterns of behaviour that you’re following. So if you’re a lawyer because your dad was a lawyer and you don’t enjoy law, you need to stop practicing law. You will never be successful if you do not enjoy what you do. If you’re life isn’t congruent, if you really care about the environment and you run a McDonald’s, you’re probably not going to be happy with yourself. So examining the things that you really extract a lot of value from in your life, the things that make you happiest, and multiplying those things while reducing the things that make you feel shitty about yourself.

It’s a very difficult question. It’s interesting that you’re going out and asking this. How do you achieve success? It’s like asking, how do you achieve Zen?

HK

Interesting.

JR

It’s a different metric for everyone involved.

HK

That’s exactly what I want to prove. People tend to form one type success; earning loads of money, being millionaires, billionaires, having good cars, having huge mansions, those kind of things. But I don’t think that’s always right.

JR

If your kids don’t speak to you and your wife divorced you and you have a mansion and a nice car, you’re not successful.

HK

Exactly, that’s not successful, well still depend though. This diversity is what I want to prove. Personally I’m not interested in success itself, but success is really a good point to start our conversation; start our understanding each other at an individual level. We’re all different, right? We are all different, that’s why we all have to be equal, and that’s why we can understand, because we are all different. That’s why I pick up the term success.

JR

I guess as the simplest definition you could find, success would be setting a goal and then achieving that goal. Very A, B. But to think of yourself as a successful human being, there’s a business component, there’s a spiritual component, there’s a community component, there’s a family component. There are so many things that go into play. If I’m a consumer and I go into a bookstore and I’m purchasing something on the topic of success, that means I’m probably not fulfilled in my life. Successful people generally don’t read books on success, right?

HK

(Laughter) That’s true.

JR

Another great Alan Watts quote – Emperors never dream of being emperors. That is not rational. Only peasants dream of being emperors, because an emperor just is an emperor. With people that aren’t fulfilled, and they’re pursuing success and they want to find success, and they probably have a very obtuse and walled definition of what success means; probably the first problem is that I want to make $100,000 and that’s success. Or I want to find a husband that will love me, and that’s success. Why can’t I find this exact thing? It goes back to allowing life to just flow, and not focussing so much on that final goal, but focussing on the path, and focussing on your character and your integrity and your rules for operating and making sure when you go to sleep every night, if you can look in the mirror and be… all right, am I happy with myself today? Did I do what I set out to do today? Did I eat the way I wanted to? Did I exercise the way I wanted to? Did I interact with people in a positive manner? Did I wave at people when I walked down the street or was I an asshole? If you can look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day when you go to sleep and you can say, yes, I’m happy with myself today – that’s success. My friend Carson likes to say, you’re born every morning and you die every night. You can measure each day individually in that fashion.

Another piece that we always say internally is that you set a huge goal. We consistently with Summit Series… our next event is on a cruise ship, man. We rented the Celebrity Century. We’re a bunch of 25 year olds. Nobody’s ever done anything like this. We throw the stick way out in front of us, and rationally if you’re saying, on a linear path, we will not be able to get there, but the world works exponentially. If you’re in the flow and if you’re moving forward in the right way. So you set that goal, and then you take small positive steps to see that goal. And it’s every day, in and out, you just take the small little steps every single day; you just do and do and do and do and do. And then eventually you’re there.

The issue can be, when you see a definition of success which includes a mansion and cars and being able to pay for your kids’ college and a happy family and all this stuff, it is overwhelming. But if you’re taking the small positive steps every day to love yourself more and to create a better person internally, that radiates.

Jeff Rosenthal is the Co-founder of the Summit Series.

An Interview with Daniel Ha

2010-10-22T22:35:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

I want to ask you about your personal definition of success at first?

Daniel Ha

I don’t know if I have a personal definition. I think what people would generally think of when they think of success, is they’re able to either work on things or accomplish certain goals that make them happy personally. And I think that’s what success is for most people, on an individual level. People look at success differently from an individual to a company, to a service. I think they all have their own sets of goals that they want to achieve, that makes them very satisfied with what they do.

HK

What is your personal goal then?

DH

My personal goal is to have and work on either individually or as part of a team, on something that makes a tremendous worldwide impact. That’s my goal because I’m very impressed by the very impactful things that people are accustomed to today, and it’s a very exciting world to be part of, when you have a hand in some of these things. I think all the different, life-changing technologies, all the different tools that shape people’s behaviors; it’s ultimately super-exciting to be part of that movement. Just be in there behind the scenes, and that’s why I’m also interested in just a behind-the-scenes look at movies or music, or pop culture, just having had something that so many people find important.

HK

Is that why you became an entrepreneur?

DH

I’m not sure if that’s the primary reason, it’s very much related, but I think the reason that I am an entrepreneur is because I have a very good idea of what I like doing. The structure that I’m currently doing it in, and I think that’s what a lot of entrepreneurs feel as well. They have their freedom and they have a lot of drive to create a structure where they can thrive very successfully, versus trying to excel in an existing environment, where it’s a little more unsure. It’s because I’m not as smart as a lot of people. So I have to create my own structure to see what I do well.

HK

What is the key element to be a successful entrepreneur?

DH

I think there’s one big one, and it’s purely hard work and ambition. You don’t have to be very smart, and I don’t think you have to have a lot of good ideas, but I think that the common trait along a lot of successful people, including entrepreneurs or anyone else, is that they believe in themselves. They have the drive to continue working at it, or start different goals, because they want to succeed in some way. That’s the main trait that makes a successful entrepreneur a success.

HK

That’s very interesting. Could you tell me why did you found the Disqus, and what do you want to do through your company?

DH

Sure, very briefly, what we think Disqus is, is that it’s a community platform that is networked and connected to a number of communities all across the web. And what we do is, we help enable the sort of engagement that you see on a lot of tech sites and also a lot of new sites like Fox News, CNN, The Telegraph, Al Jazeera, just a lot of different communities, and we connect those together.

The reason that we founded Disqus is that it’s not because I was a particularly big blogger, or I loved blogs in general. To be honest, I was not a blogger at all. I read a lot of different bloggers and websites, but I never had the discipline to maintain them, and I think that was a big problem. But one thing that was very true about me is that I love to participate in message boards. I love forums, I love IRC, I love news groups, and I like building up some sort of, implicit authenticity and reputation around my name, just by pretending that I know about something, and pretending that I’m an expert by giving advices.

HK

(Laughter) Interesting.

DH

And I would participate in forums about videogames or cars, or technology and these are all different, very different communities. But you end up making a name for yourself, by the amount of participation you have. And me and my co-founder, we realised all this stuff, and we realised that when you build a big persona on a certain community, it’s very hard for you to take that along with you.

No one knows how much of a badass you are if you join a good community and it’s very hard for you to port that around. So we started building software to make communities a little more updated. I think that there are so many isolated silos of activity around the web, and I think they’re there for good reason, but I think there’s a lot of value for most people to get more engaged, and feel more rewarded by participating, if they were able to carry around the same activity and reputation that they already have. So that’s basically the genesis of Disqus, and one of the first features that we developed was the ability to embed our software into a website, for example, a blog. It did very well as far as people were interested in that.

So we got to learn about the whole world of online publication blogs. We knew it very well after the next six months, just by studying it and learning a lot about it from our users. That’s definitely who we’re serving now, we’re serving publications who wanted to create a community that otherwise would be very difficult to do. Our goals with Disqus today and in the long run are that we think that communities in general online are very new. We want Disqus to be that brand, that name that’s always associated with everything that is web communities, whether it be comments, or any other sort of engagement on a publication. And we’re very much on that now. We want to continue to be associated with those communities, and be the number one way for people to make that happen. As far as business goes, we’re very happy to offer the tools and even the software to make that happen.

HK

Today more and more people are using the internet through a blog or Facebook, Twitter or whatever. Do you believe the way to achieve success is changing?

DH

I don’t know if it’s changed very much in the last hundreds of years. The way of achieving success is to really discover what you’re trying to do, and continually optimise it. The unsuccessful people are the people who don’t know exactly what they’re doing

HK

Then the internet is just a tool?

DH

Right, so the internet is not a special world or anything, yes I think people behave differently on the internet, but also, it is very much a tool. It’s a mistake to consider the internet separately from the rest of the world. You have to take the world of the web and all the connectivity, and apply it to how people live their lives, and that’s where the most successful companies will come from. You take existing behaviors and you take existing businesses, and you make more appealing and more efficient by using the technology available. It’s very true, I think the web has created new businesses through the ability to do stuff that you would not even think about without this medium. That’s perfectly acceptable; I think a lot of stuff is happening there, just like Disqus.

Disqus would not exist outside the internet; you can’t do the sorts of things, and I think all these new industries are being created for a good reason. At the same time, the internet should be just an opaque layer of technology that helps people run their businesses and get on with their lives.

HK

That’s a cool opinion. As a final question, can you provide your advice to achieve success in general sense?

DH

My personal take, I think one of the biggest things I’ve overcome is, you can’t put things off; procrastination and distraction are the biggest things that hold people back. A lot of people are very ambitious, but there are so many distractions out in the world, whether it be in your personal life, or just trivial distractions, when you’re playing videogames or playing flash games. These stuff is what’s keeping a lot of people back from doing what they feel is important. You have to replicate the feelings and rewards of doing things that you find fun, but associating them with things that you think are long-term valuable.

Daniel Ha is the Founder and CEO of Disqus.

An Interview with Douglas Rushkoff

2010-10-22T22:30:00.001+01:00

Haegwan Kim

I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Douglas Rushkoff

My definition of success? I don’t really think about it.

HK

Many people would say so (laughter).

DR

And I guess I don’t think about it because, for me, it would imply that there’s two states of being – an "unsuccessful" state of being and a "successful" state of being. That's a pretty dualistic conception. I don't think success is something that you can measure : when you die, have you succeeded, or not? But in a casual way, I suppose I would judge success more in terms of "do I feel that I’m continuing to make progress towards my greater goals?"

HK

What is your greater goal?

DR

My greater goals? To help alleviate unnecessary pain and suffering in the world. I do this, more specifically, by trying to help people recognise that a lot of what they take for granted or see as given circumstances, as reality, are really things that can be changed. People look at many things as if God put them here, just the way they are - when most things are not pre-existing conditions at all. Most things, most systems, have been put here by people with agendas. I want people to see the world as less permanent, not set in stone. It’s up for discussion.

HK

You’ve been a new media journalist for a long time, so I was just wondering what is the key element, if that exits, to be a great journalist?

DR

Well, right now, I think it’s pretty simple: is the person willing to find out something new? Most people who think of themselves as journalists today just want to read what’s on the internet, and then make some comment on it. There are very few people who are willing to pick up the phone and talk to somebody, much les go and investigate something. There are very few journalists willing to do what I used to be called "legwork," which is actually working - that’s what makes a good journalist. What would make a great one, I guess, is the ability to tell something in a way new, to find ways of seeing things and connecting things. Great journalists get access to people, places, and things that the rest of us can’t get to – whether they risk their lives to get to a war place, or risk their brain to get to a certain way of thinking, or their time, to spend a whole lot of time to get to some difficult intellectual place.

HK

That’s a really interesting point. Do you think with the rise of social media, the key element of being a journalist, the meaning of being a journalist, is changing now?

DR

Yes, I guess the biggest impact of the media on journalism is that it has convinced many people that they’re journalists when they may not be. Today to a lot of people that there’s no difference between an amateur journalist and a professional. Between someone who works all day and develops a craft, and someone who just wings it.

HK

So it’s become easier to become a journalist?

DR

It’s become easier for people to think of themselves as journalists. There’s a difference.

HK

Okay.

DR

It’s dangerous, because the net has not simply elevated the amateur, it has de-professionalised the professional. So people no longer see the value in a professional journalist, and I think there is value in the profession. I think that there are some people - and I’m not even counting myself among them - who are trained and talented in uncovering the truth. They can only do the work if we support them, and that means making them professional.

If you have governments and corporations who are spending millions of dollars to hide the truth, then you should have some people around who are trained in uncovering the truth, and you should give them the money they need to actually do this, with some purpose and with some time.

HK

So you are disagreeing with the opinion that amateur journalists will take over from the professional journalists? Today we can get many information for free; but some people say we should pay some money for The New York Times, The Washington Post, or Wall Street Journal – do you think we have to still pay some money for the professional journalists?

DR

I think that there are some good reasons to keep a few very qualified people alive, who do professional journalism. And I think they should be paid - whether they are paid by those who buy newspapers, or whether they’re paid by free governments who believe that these things should be funded by taxpayers, that’s not for me to say. I’m just going so far as to say that just as it is a smart idea to have some professional doctors, who have the time and energy, who are paid to learn about how the body works, and learn about how to cure it; I think it’s good to have some professional police officers, who are paid to use guns and know how to shoot people and know how to identify a criminal; I think it’s a smart idea to have some people who are trained and who dedicate their working lives to be journalists.

It’s considered controversial to say that, because people want to believe that the freedom to express ourselves on the internet is the same thing as saying everyone is a professional journalist now, or everyone has equal ability. I don't agree. Everyone may have the equal ability to get online, but not everyone has the equal ability to make sense of the world. I am not a correspondent in the White House, and the people who are there are better than I am at that; and just because I could go there with a blog and type, doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing, right?

HK

True. As a final question I want to ask you your advice to achieve success in general?

DR

I suppose there’s two ways to achieve success: one would be to work hard, to be passionate about whatever it is that you’ve defined as a goal. If you create a goal about something that you’re not actually passionate about, it’s going to be very hard to get the energy to go for it. But I think the easiest way to achieve success is to define what you’re in right now as your path to success. Then you do whatever you want.

Douglas Rushkoff is a media journalist, author, teacher, and documentarian. His website

An Interview with Douglas Rushkoff

2010-10-22T22:30:00.000+01:00

An Interview with Jerry Michalski

2010-10-21T22:26:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

Thank you so much for your time. I want to stat the interview by asking your personal definition of success.

Jerry Michalski

I think a big piece of it is being happy with yourself and not so much being judged by outside values, by outside people, by outside norms, which is very, very hard not to do. Most people have two questions in their mind and then everybody has some opinion about what the world is like, and this is my opinion about what people would like to answer – it’s not is there a God, that’s a very abstract question that some people are very interested in and other people don’t care about.

For me the two questions are what should I do with myself? What should I do and who will love me? Who will I love? Who will be my partner? But I think when you have those two questions answered, and if you’re moving forward on those two questions you feel very successful because the pieces sort of work together and you’re moving towards something. You may not have achieved the thing you were meant to do, but if you’re moving towards it that feels very good, and usually the process of moving towards it is almost more exciting and more fulfilling than once you achieve it.

HK

So it doesn’t mean that you have already achieved those two, but you’re now on the way to achieve those two?

JM

Exactly. And then if all you do – and then this is, again, a personal thing – but if all you do is think of interesting things but they never communicate and it never helps anybody else, and your thinking is not available to anybody, and then you die, and then whatever you did your whole life – maybe you solved a lot of very important questions but they all stayed up here – to me that’s not success. To me the success is in taking what you make or what you create and putting it in the world in a way that other people can use it and benefit from it.

HK

That’s important; yes.

JM

So to me that’s success as well. As part of a process it might not mean just publishing a terrific book or something like that, the process means that it might also be about bringing people together, having meetings. It might be social, it might be about the relationships that you build and the trust that flows and the ideas that flow within that network of relationships – that, to me, is as important as physical products like a movie or a book or a building or an organisation or a big company.

HK

So your success is towards the outside, not inside?

JM

Yes, or at least I feel like success is less useful if it hasn’t been made manifest outside; if it isn’t visible, tangible, useful to other people.

HK

Who do you want to contribute to? Family? Friends? or else?

JM

Everybody; well, like you, for whoever, really; very seriously. You never know who you’re going to affect or who will listen to what you’re going to say, right?

HK

[Laugh] I don't care.

JM

The very interesting thing is that before the year 2000, before the internet shows up, it is impossible for an ordinary person like you or me to leave something in the world that anybody might bump into. In 1800 you could publish a book but good luck, right – you had to be wealthy, you had to find somebody with a press, you had to print on paper and distribute it, which was very expensive. Even later, even 50 years ago it was difficult to say something or put something in the world that everybody would hear. Now, it’s very inexpensive, half the people on earth can see it – they may never find it – but potentially they can find it and it costs nothing to do. You just need to know that it exists and that you can do it. That is huge because if you’re trying to influence people or help improve the world suddenly we can reach each other.

HK

I’m really impressed by your relationship economy.

JM

Thank you.

HK

Relationship economy – I’ve never heard and at the moment it’s really interesting to me because I’m really interested in the relationship itself as the term relationship itself is now changing because of technology, because of the internet. Would you be able to explain what is the relationship economy itself? And then why is it so important?

JM

Well, many different kinds of relationships some of which are new. Like on Facebook – you can go on Facebook and you can see many of my relationships. You can see who I know and they are linked back to me and you can wander through this, and that is a bunch of information. It’s also about the relationship between free information and private information – so the Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia for the whole world for free, and it doesn’t cost that much money to do. While through the Encyclopedia Britannica or any other private encyclopedia that was trying to sell yourself, you’ve just got put out of business, right? There’s no business model left for them, but the rest of the world benefits because all of a sudden there’s a resource that everybody can use for free, but that’s a different kind of relationship.

I’m not only interested in human relationships but also relationships between people and companies, between private property and public property, between companies and the earth, every one of these is a kind of relationship that I’m interested in. It’s sort of as if I took Confucius’ five cardinal relationships and moved it into the current millennium – his were father, son, siblings, I don’t remember what they are.

HK

[Laugh]

JM

But if I’m taking something like that but bringing it way forward and saying that it’s not just about people but ideas, the earth, all these things, which means then that we can talk about sustainability, we can talk about marketing, we can talk about actual human relations and families – all those things are legitimate subjects for conversation, and how they’re changing because of all this new connectivity is the starting point for the conversation.

HK

What was the beginning of motivation to establish the relationship economy?

JM

This has been cooking for a long time. So a long time ago I spent ten years as a technology analyst, the last five years of that with a woman named Ester Dyson who is very well known in the technology field. But she helped teach me how to analyse and everybody wanted to show her what they were doing, so they had to show me because I was her editor, I was writing her newsletter.

Somewhere around the time that the internet showed up, so 1993 or 1994, I suddenly realized that the word consumer was bothering me, a lot; I didn’t know why but when I would talk to people and they would talk about the consumer is this, I noticed that it really made me feel bad and I started paying attention to that.

Then I realized that there were two different kinds of people I was talking to – a lot of people that came to me were trying to show me their cool new company, or their cool new product, so some of those people were showing up with something that was just useful and they wanted to know how it should be used in the world. They might use the word consumer but pointed out that it wasn’t a great word, they would understand and agree and they would change and say customer or citizen, member, participant. There are a lot of other great words that don’t sound like the end point, the dumb end point of the food chain.

The other people were busy for consumers and send them advertising and derive or infer from them what they should sell to the next, even if those consumers didn’t need that thing – that was a completely different group of people. And if I mentioned that the word consumer was kind of not that great they would go, oh, everybody uses it, it’s okay, and they’d go right back to using it.

I discovered that bringing up discomfort with the word was a very interesting way of separating people who were interested in building a business, or not a business. But they had a very different attitude about their relationship with the person who was going to use their product or service from these other people whose relationship was going to be, I’m just going to try to sell you more stuff. This all about the consumer economy and consumerism, which in the United States has gone crazily overboard, and the rest of the world very often wants to be like the United States so they’re following in these footsteps where they shouldn’t be.

In many places around the world they have much better judgement about what is success, what is happiness, how to live a peaceful life, how to live a successful life, how to have close relationships with friends and family. So the start of all my relationship economy journey was the word consumer, and then I followed that for a very long time and I ended up realizing that what I cared about was something I called a relationship economy, and I intentionally put those two words together.

That was intentional because some people want to buy and sell the relationships but really it’s about how do you show it authentically, and how do you build trustworthiness over time? Instead of advertising and saying come trust me, how do you behave in a way that means you can be trusted? And that means transparency, that means authenticity, that means a series of things that companies are not accustomed to doing, but I think that that’s the trend, that’s where we’re going.

HK

Then money is not important to you?

JM

Well, money is important because our society makes it so that you can’t really move in a comfortable place without money mostly. I think when you started talking you were saying what is success and what does it mean to be successful, and it isn’t often to have like a huge salary. Interesting to me, for many people now it’s beginning to be what is my lifestyle, how many friends do I have, do I have time off – they’re disconnecting wealth from money. It used to be that if you were wealthy that meant you had a big bank account. Now a lot of people are beginning to rethink wealth more towards what you were saying about what is success, where personal wealth might mean I have a series of very deep, very wonderful, trustworthiness relationships that I can draw on, and I have a lot of leisure activities and I can be with my family a lot – and that would be wealth.

HK

Back to success again, do you think that success should be connected with some sort of relationship with others? Or success can be achieved alone?

JM

Well, I don’t want to dictate what success is.

HK

Sure.

JM

Success is very personal, right, and when I said earlier that if you solved all the world’s problems but they only stayed inside your head and you die, that to me was not successful, to someone else it could be, right. And if you go into Hindu philosophy or Buddhist philosophy that might be a fine thing to do, to break free of the cycle of life and achieve that – so I think it’s a very personal thing.

I am saying that there is tremendous wealth that isn’t about money wealth that we’re slowly beginning to realize exists. If you go back 500 years that’s how we lived, that is what we took for granted – so this isn’t a new idea, this is sort of an old idea being made modern again. The money economy, the thing we now take for granted, took over the world around 1700 when the Industrial Revolution showed up – that’s when everybody got pushed into a money economy and before that we didn’t have that.

HK

So now we are rediscovering what wealth is?

JM

Yes.

HK

And as we talked the Internet has a huge potential to help people to find that discovery I guess?

JM

Yes. The internet is immensely important because it suddenly lets us all connect to each other, and find each other, and publish to each other. It also makes it inexpensive to get together and do very productive things; it used to be very hard and expensive to do it, or impossible to do. One of the people who writes about this very, very well is Clay Shirky. His writings are very clear and very lucid about this phenomenon that it’s suddenly possible for people to get together and complain about bad service or build open source software, and then keep making it better and better and better.

This changes a lot of dynamics. A lot of these things can be done for free or for almost no money. This is very contrary to the money economy and this makes no sense to people who think that everything should be a market and everything should have a price – so that’s another way in which the internet is changing our perceptions and our ability to do things. So technology is very important.

What we haven’t learnt yet – I was joking with somebody the other day; I was saying I have an iPhone and there’s lots of phones out there – somebody should invest in a new phone company and sell the Buddha phone.

HK

[Laugh] The Buddha phone?

JM

The Buddha phone, but it only has two buttons on it – one button is, okay, I’ll take the call; and the other button is I need some peace and quiet for two hours. When you press that button it turns everything off for two hours and nothing is going to ring unless it really is an emergency, and then somebody can still meet you. It makes everything go quiet because these things now connect us, and even when you go out into nature now, if you have a cell you’re never lost because it has GPS, and that sense of solitude and of actually just being in nature goes away because we have these things too. We haven’t learnt yet, this whole phenomenon is so new that we haven’t figured out how to manage it properly, so we need to learn that. I joke about the Buddha phone but that would be a very interesting thing to offer as a service.

HK

[Laugh] Sure, I look forward to the Buddha phone comes to real. Final question. What would be your advice to achieve success?

JM

I have a website that I bought a couple of years ago but I haven’t really put much on it, but it’s the place where I would put this kind of advice – it’s called dearkid.org. The reason I put it up there is what do I wish I had known when I was 14 years old.

HK

14?

JM

Yes. What would I have told myself at that age, and also before; what would I tell any young person. I put up this website to let anybody say what do you wish you had known earlier that would have helped you live a more happy and more successful life. I haven’t done very much with the site; it’s there but there isn’t that much there. I’m saying that because I’m interested in this question – how do you help people understand this.

I think part of it is to have a lot of self awareness, to understand yourself pretty well, and we do that by doing things and achieving mastery in something. I’m a big fan of going deep into something and I don’t care if it’s the manufacturing of pens, or writing essays, or making clay pots, it could be anything at all in the world, but to take something very deep and master it. Then, at the same time, to be very curious about a lot of things because I think curiosity is also really important. Thirdly compassion - that’s to understand, to put yourself in other people’s shoes and understand other people’s lives, to listen to them and to try to do something that will be helpful to them.

When you start thinking in this roundabout way about relationships, new business ideas show up that nobody has done yet, that somebody could make a good business around. But this new business would be aligned with people’s values and would create something positive in the world, which a lot of businesses today don’t do. There’s a lot of things we get sold that really nobody needs, but they put a lot of money behind it, it looks exciting. There’s very new perspectives that are very human and are really good for us that will be very productive for society.

The problem is, and this goes right back to the start of our conversation, is that we now measure the success of our society through gross domestic product, GDP. And if you’re doing that it causes all sorts of problems because it puts everybody on a growth path and then we’re addicted to growth, we must grow the economy, and if we’re not growing then something bad must be happening.

But we have other things to screw up the GDP number. A small example. Craig’s List is a free classified service, Yellow Pages, personals, it sort of takes over the function of a lot of other services that used to cost a lot of money to do, in particular the classified advertisements which a lot of newspapers relied on for their income – Craig’s List does it for almost no money. And Craig’s List decided to not make a lot of money doing this, so they’re not trying to maximise profits, they have a very interesting social conscience about what they’re doing.

Well, the end result is that GDP goes down because the three industries that Craig’s List now replaces, it kills, don’t exist, so that comes out of GDP. A lot of interesting things happen and get traded and sold and bought through Craig’s List, but that doesn’t show up in GDP so maybe people are happier. But if you’re a symbol for success, if the measure you’re looking at is GDP that’s a big problem.

That’s why I agree with you entirely – we have to reset what it means to be successful. We have to think differently about what social success is, and what personal success is so that when those kinds of things happen we’re okay because we see that our community is healthy, we see that the world is doing better, whatever things we might care about, and there’s plenty of places to go to do something productive and creative that would help the world.

Jerry Michalski is the Founder of REXpedition.

An Interview with Kevin Kelly

2010-10-19T22:25:00.001+01:00

Haegwan Kim

Ok, let's start an interview. Today I'm going to talk with Kevin Kelly - famously known as the co-founder of Wired magazine. Thank you so much for your time.

Kevin Kelly

You're welcome.

HK

I have so many questions but the time is limited, so let me ask about your definition of success at first.

KK

That's a good question. My definition of success would be to discover who you are. If you can discover who you are, you're successful.

HK

That's very interesting. Then can I ask how you discover yourself?

KK

I think everybody has a process, everybody's on a journey to discover themselves. That journey looks different and that's why everybody's life is different and by definition, the journey to discover yourself has to be different. That's why I think a lot of people don't discover themselves because they are trying be someone else that they admire, to follow their path instead of their own path which is very unknown. So how did I discover... well, like you I was very bored by college (*before interview I told KK that I get bored by my university and am thinking that I will drop out) so I dropped out and I went to Asia. I went to Japan and Korea, the reverse!

HK

(Laughter) You went to the East and I went to the West.

KK

The first country I went to was Taiwan, Japan was the second. I went there for two reasons; One was my father who had a friend who was in the military and was one of the first American to land in Japan after the war, and he fell in love with the country and he was so impressed with this country that he married a Japanese woman. He came back and he was always telling us stories about Japan when I was growing up and it was really fascinating. Secondly, by best friend from High School went to become a missionary in Taiwan and he spoke Mandarin and Taiwanese, and he invited me to come over to visit him. I'd never been out of New England, so I went to visit him to see Taiwan and Japan and it changed my life.

HK

I noticed that you don't have an university degree. Did that fact affect your career, or your way to achieve success?

KK

Well, most people just assume that I have a degree and none of the things that I wanted to do really required it, and I think because, like you, I read books on my own, looked at all the books, it didn't really make much difference. It didn't have any negative impact. I think the positive impact was that I had a very good sense of the world as a whole and a perspective that maybe people who only went to college did not have and I think in this world difference can be the most important value that you have. Differences propel everything. Differences don't guarantee that you have any value, but to have value, you have to have difference.

HK

That's true. I think that the one of the biggest achievements of your career is cofounding the Wired Magazine. Can you tell me why did you found it?

KK

Well I had been producing a magazine up here that was like Wired. It was about new ideas. It was about thinking differently. It was about personal experience and looking at the world that was coming, that was changing. The first magazine was from the Whole Earth Catalog and it was called CoEvolution Quarterly. It had no advertising. It had a very small circulation and it was completely supported by the readers without ads. It was very much like the web and blogging. It was people who were interested and they were writing about things that they knew a lot about, were passionate about, and they were recommending things and the people who were reading it were the same people who were writing it. But the whole thing was done without computers. It was done on newsprint, very cheap. The number of people who were interested in that was very small, so the magazine had a very small but very influential readership, maybe 30,000, 40,000 and that's all.

When Wired came along, it was an opportunity to do the same thing, but in color, at a larger scale, and there was a little bit more of an emphasis on the people, rather than just ideas. In many ways this was an opportunity to do what I was doing, but doing it kind of in the spotlight, and when we started, was it again very much on the edge of the culture, the digital culture, very much not mainstream, but we were very lucky because at the right moment, it suddenly became mainstream and everybody started to adopt it. In the beginning people made fun of having email, then within five or six years, ten years, everybody had email. Of course, we started before the web. There was no web when Wired started.

That was the main thing. It became very visual. Originally the internet was just little words on a screen and you had to know programming to get around. Then once the web came, you just had to drag your mouse around, you just had to click. You didn't have to type if you didn't want to. It was all very visual, like a movie, and it was that change that made it very accessible. So in some senses I was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

HK

I think that's one aspect of innovation. Do you think to make innovation, you have to be lucky?

KK

Yes. If you mean by lucky that you have to in the right time at the right place, yes, but I think anybody who knows what lucky is knows that some people are luckier than others because they are prepared for luck. You can prepare yourself for luck and so you can constantly put yourself in places where you are likely to be lucky. The most useful innovation is something is exactly the next step that's necessary. If innovation is too far ahead, then people can't get there. If it's not far enough, then it doesn't really change very much. So there's a real art to choosing the smallest possible step that will produce the most change, that's the next step. Being too early is as bad as being too late and the art is really just finding the right next step.

HK

Can I ask your opinion on how you can be prepared for the movement of human history? For example, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, I think they didn't necessarily be prepared for making the revolution and I think they didn't think that the search engine will change everything in the world of web. It's too difficult to be prepared for a particular thing today. How can we be prepared for the next big change?

KK

One thing is to read history. I think to have a sense of history helps you be prepared for the future. Secondly, you have to take risks. I think you have to be ready to fail and not to see failure as failure, but to see failure as a means to become successful. Failure is a tool. Failure is something that you should not flee from, but you should welcome, you should manage. You should have small failures constantly. Failure is a place that's a way of learning. That's one thing and that also does not guarantee success for your innovation. I think something that you do is you try lots of things. Some people are lucky and they will get it on the first try. Larry and Sergey, they had it on the first try. Not everybody gets it on the first try. Some people may try over and over again before they get it, but they don't give up.

The other thing about innovation is that it's a constant balancing act. Google was not the first search engine; it was fairly late. They did some things correctly and they managed to balance it. Sometimes people will have the right idea, but they just have the wrong business partner through no fault of their own. Google could have been an economic disaster, but it didn't happen. So, in many senses, most ideas, most innovations, happen more than once at the same time. It's very clear that if Google had not done what they were doing, someone would have done it. If Jeff Bezos did not do Amazon, someone else would do it. Whatever innovation you have, someone else would do it, and so, in a certain sense, it's kind of lucky who it happens to. The ideas are always there and they will come and it's very hard to predict who will be successful with that particular idea.

HK

I notice that you're focusing on non-profit works such as All Species Foundation. Can I ask why you're doing nonprofit works?

KK

Well, because often times there are many cool things in the world, many good things to do that are useful or beautiful or true and good, where there's no economic model for them, an economic model in terms of a business. But because of the wealth in this country and all the other countries, there's an excess of money that's looking to do good things that are not inside the markets... they don't make economic sense. They make cultural sense. They make meaningful sense. And actually the portion of the economy with the non profit is continuing to grow faster than the economy as a whole, so more and more of the activity is non economic. I think the motivation of money is not the strongest motivation. Dan Pink has a book called Drive, which is about what really motivates people and he's made it very clear that ultimately people are not driven by whether they've made money. They are driven my making sense.

So I think what the non profit is recognizing is that the motivation for many things is not money and if that's true, then one of the ways in which you can get things done is through non profit organizations.

HK

Having said that, they need living expense at least. Do you think there are enough financial institutions to provide opportunities for them?

KK

There are. There can always be more and, in fact, one of the things I think we hope to see, we should see, is the habit of giving to non profits has not yet really entered deep into Asia, so there's a lot of wealth being generated in China and India and, of course, in Japan as well, and the habit of philanthropy is new there. But that has tremendous room to grow and so if Asia begins to give away money in terms of philanthropic non profit things, there will be a lot more available for people to do projects. In the Middle East, it's the same thing with the oil money and stuff. Not very much of that has gone to philanthropy, although that is changing. So I think that people will... over the long term, cultures will see the huge benefit that everybody derives, both the giver and the receiver, for diverting money into those things where the market doesn't usually operate.

HK

As more and more people are connecting to the web, the presence of government for individuals is decreasing since they are disconnecting with the government. Now we make communities on the web around the world, across borders, without difficulties. So I'm just wondering what is your opinion on the future of the government and the nation states? Will they disappear?

KK

Well, there's a saying that I didn't make up, but which other people have made up, which is that national governments are too big for the small problems and individuals are too small for the big problems, and that we really want to have a different level of governance. We need more global governance happening. At the same time we need to continue to empower local communities and neighborhoods and regions to also have real democratic power to make change. So I think the nation state will not go away, but it will decrease in relative power with other rising powers, at global and local. So we still will deal with national laws, but the actual influence will continue to diminish and, as we have a more global world. I think immigration will continue to increase - voluntary immigration, not the forced kind of refugees, but people deciding, there's a better life there, I'm going to move there and I'm going to live in that country. They have a better tax regime. They have better education. And then that forces a competition so countries will be, oh, we have to offer better services or else people will leave. I think that's kind of where we headed towards.

It used to be that people would always just stay where they were because of friends and language and culture, but Europe is showing that that's less true. People might have more than one home, they might go back, they'll go and work somewhere, so they have more of a mobile citizenship and that's put pressure on the nation states to adapt and to be relevant.

HK

That's really interesting. And that's one thing I want to talk about, government; another thing is individual. It's a kind of comparison between them. In the 21st century more and more individuals will be empowered. One individual has power to move one community, let's say, twitter. If you have five million followers, by definition, he or she can influence or speak to five million people at a time. That's much larger power than that of national president in terms of spreading idea. Do you think this type of empowerment of individual will continue and eventually surpass that of government?

KK

No. There's a relationship between the power of the individual and the power of the group as a whole. I think both are becoming more powerful, but individuals certainly have more autonomy than they had before. At the same time, the power of groups is greater than before so in a curious way, the system is making both individuals more powerful and the group more powerful. It just seems paradoxical, but I think that's happening.

HK

Really interesting. Well, going back to the conversation about success, do you believe that all human beings can achieve success?

KK

Yes, I think that they all have the potential for success and I think that potential is not maximised right now. So while every individual is born inherently capable, often times their surroundings prevent that. If you're born in Africa, I think it becomes much more difficult to discover who you are and I think even today there's people born in different parts of the world that have more challenges of having enough to eat or drinking water or education. And I think even in the most fortunate countries, in the most developed countries, we are still not capable of reaching our ultimate success because we still don't have all the technologies that we would need. I'm a progressive. I think there is progress and that as we go on, we become more powerful and able to discover who we are, although nobody really does.

HK

I agree.

KK

And so I think what technology gives us possibilities ... it gives us clean water, excess food and so on. Instead of having to focus on survival, we can focus on this other quest, which is to discover who we are. If you're surviving it's hard to spend time on that. You can get some answers, but in actually learning how to survive, it can give you some answers and I think people who have really come the furthest in discovering who they are often spend time in survival mode. Voluntarily, they go on a hike or they live in the woods or they renounce things. That's their kind of reliving that experience of not having enough, because that will teach you a lot. But, unfortunately, if that's all that you learn, you won't learn sufficient. And so you want to be able to do that voluntarily and not, like, be forced.

What technology gives us is the many different options, a larger bubble, in which to explore who we are and we're looking for the technologies that are most suited to us in our personality that will be a doorway, a window, into who we are, that can answer that question. So if we're blessed with musical abilities, then we need to have the instruments, we need to have the technology to really let that be expressed. If it's science or mathematics, we have to born into a culture where that's present and I think that's what technology in the modern world gives us. It gives us more and more choices to express ourselves, find out who we are. If we still want to be a farmer and live like the Amish, we can do that; we still have that choice. And so for those people for whom the answer to who they are is somebody who lives very simply, that's still possible.

HK

I am very, very impatient. Can you tell me about how many years it will take to find this?

KK

Oh, I know the answer to that! It will take your whole life. That's the answer for everybody. It will take your whole life to discover who you are.

HK

I want to ask one more thing. You said basic needs or basic technology will be needed to find who you are, right?

KK

For most people, right. So the more you have your food and water and different needs taken care of, the more time you can spend on your quest.

HK

You know, like many African people are still struggling to have just clean water or their food for a day, so my question is how long does it take to make those infrastructure around the world?

KK

Well, it does take a long time and I think every culture will take a different amount of time. One of the things we saw in Asia that surprised everybody, although that didn't surprise me because I've been to Asia, but how fast progress can come. Because India and China, even 30 years ago, people said it's like this is never going to change, this is a culture that doesn't like to change, blah, blah, blah, and within one lifetime, they've completed changed. When I was growing up they talked about the starving children in China, you have to send them money and stuff like that, so it's in one lifetime they can change. And even Africa, I think, can change in a lifetime although it's not going to change in our lifetime.

It's very clear to me that a lot of this is all internal. It's the same thing as changing a person. There are lots of things you can do, interventions and to help someone, but really that change has to come from within or else it doesn't stick. I think there is a lot we can do in terms of aid from outside, I mean, it really has to come from within. I think the thing about China was that it wasn't the West that changed China; the West didn't come in. It was something that turned completely inside of China -- self made change -- and in Japan too. It was an inside thing that came out. I think, yes, you want to accelerate that and do things, but I think it can only really happen from within.

Can we do something to help? Yes, but I think sometimes there are attempts to help that actually hurt. I think some of our aid policies are not actually helping at all and are even negative. I think sometimes the way to help is kind of intuitive, just like the way to help a person if they're down and... you know, the homeless people. How do you help them?Well, it's sometime kind of intuitive assistance. Also what works for one person doesn't work for necessarily all of them. It's long and difficult and not guaranteed success. I don't think there's a formula. It's just the same thing with countries. I think it's case by case and I don't think it's money. It's sort of like those homeless guys. Give them money and that's not going to solve their problem. I think it's the same thing with countries. It's not just a matter of just giving them money.

So, how long will that take? I don't know.

HK

I'm asking this to all interviewees as a final question. What would be your advice to achieve success?

KK

My advice to individuals? Well, I would say, keep trying things. What works may not continue to work, so you have to try new things. What works may not be the best, so you need to try new things. If what you're doing is failing, you need to try new things. Keep trying stuff, I think is the answer, so trying is hard. If your health is not good, it's difficult so I think it's challenging for many people. They get discouraged, they want to give up and around them, it's conspired against them in foreign countries or else their own family background. So I think keep trying stuff. It can be very challenging, but I think that's really my advice.

Kevin Kelly is the co-founder of Wired Magazine. He recently published "What Technology Wants". Check out here.

An Interview with Terry McBride

2010-10-19T22:22:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

Let me start by asking your personal definition of success.

Terry McBride

Well, I mean success is abundance.

HK

Abundance?

TM

Yes, And it really depends upon how you want to define abundance. You know, abundance does not necessarily mean money.

HK

What is your personal abundance?

TM

Just wellbeing.

HK

Is that why you’re doing yoga?

TM

Yoga is obviously part of it. For me abundance is just wellbeing and happiness. You know I’m happy, and a lot of people that have a lot of abundant money, they’re not happy. They’re all grouchy. I don’t really want to be that. So, to me success equals abundance, and abundance is happiness.

HK

That really does make sense. Can you tell me how do you become happy?

TM

Happiness is a choice, isn’t it? Because you choose to be angry. You can choose to be happy.

HK

Sure.

TM

It’s a clear choice.

HK

Ok, a bit different question. Why did you become an entrepreneur?

TM

Because I wanted to do things that I loved. I wanted to do things that I really believed in, that I had a passion for. With that just came a belief that if that’s what I did, I would be successful at it. Now, obviously, it wasn’t necessarily a unique path; it was a fun path. I mean, out there was many, many challenges, and many times you sit and think, why am I doing this, and then you realise that you’re doing it because you love it.

HK

Now many people regard you as a successful person. Can you tell me what is the key element to achieve success as an entrepreneur?

TM

You know what, follow your intuition. You know because it’s usually being an entrepreneur you have a lot of people who would love to espouse you on how you should be doing it, and when you should be doing it and all those sorts of things. There’s lot of advice around it.

I think you’ve got to follow your intuition. If someone said something that resonates with you, you go, you know what, that really does make sense to me, and I can relate to that, and that’s a very clear signal that that’s something that you should pay attention to. So intuition is key. A lot of people try to ignore their intuition because it doesn’t necessarily fit where their mind wants to go. Some very good lessons for us here, whereas you would sign an artist who you think can sell a line of records, but you didn’t love that artist. Funny enough, it wasn’t very successful. Then you would sign someone that you absolutely loved knowing that the chances of it being successful were very, very slim, and then it becomes successful. So your intuition was always 100% correct, so get the mind out of the way and listen to your intuition.

HK

Fair enough. You achieved success in the music industry, and I was wondering is there any difference between the music industry and other industries?

TM

Well, I think the only difference is the music industry has been in recession for 12 years.

HK

(Laugh) Sure.

TM

I mean it has been a declining business since 1999. It has actually been in recession; it has been shrinking. I don’t think there are too many businesses that have been in recession for that long; it tends to go in waves. It is going to come out of that cycle, probably, in the next couple of years, but it’s a unique business in that it’s had an awful lot of challenges for an awfully long time. The introduction of the internet and the digital age has not necessarily been, to date, been kind to the current business model.

HK

You found future superstars like Avril Lavigne and Coldplay. What was your particular way or your skill to find those stars?

TM

Well, just understanding what a song is, understanding how an artist works, and understanding when you meet a young artist, that you can see the potential of what they could be. And that’s all intuition.

HK

So 100% subjective judgement?

TM

I mean everyone has their own points of view, you know. I listen to mine; I don’t want to listen to any others.

HK

You started YYOGA in 2004, what was the first motivation to start?

TM

YYOGA didn’t start until really 2007. It didn’t do it’s first studio until basically 2008, but I started practicing yoga in 2004. It’s really, really simple; I came out of a long-term relationship; I was all of a suddenly single. I asked the girls in my office, where can I go to meet girls without going to a bar or people that had nothing to do with the music business. That weekend they took me to a yoga class and that was the most humbling event in my life. I thought I was in really good shape, and it showed that maybe that wasn’t necessarily true.

HK

Cool. It’s quite a funny question, but is there any relationship music and yoga?

TM

Absolutely.

HK

Wow, really?

TM

Well, there’s relationships upon many different levels. One, music is sometimes used inside yoga but it’s, kind of, more of a chant based, but I was just having a class today where there was a bunch of Indie rock. If you think of what is music, music really when it’s played is nothing but sound waves, and your body is 90% water. Sound waves affect water; yoga is all about moving the body consciously. So all of a suddenly you’ve got sound waves, water and your consciousness. That’s a very powerful yoga.

HK

Interesting point.

TM

Especially when you get… when you begin to understand what that is. If you go to watch any of the monks or any of the people that use chanting and use sound and understand what a powerful thing it is, then you begin to understand both the Eastern and Western science of how music with inside yoga is a very powerful medium. Silence with inside yoga is a very powerful medium too.

HK

The final two questions. First I want to ask you about as you’re base of Vancouver, is there specific models of enterprise in Vancouver?

TM

Not necessarily. I would say simply it’s a beautiful city that’s clean… you know it sits in a rainforest, so it rains a lot. But there’s mountains and there’s ocean and there’s something that is incredibly humbling about it. As big as your ego might be the mountains are always bigger. Not being in the middle of the music business, whether it’s LA, New York or Nashville, it’s good not to be in the middle of it, so that you have a different perspective on it.

HK

That’s really interesting.

TM

But it does mean that I have to travel a lot. You know that’s the only downside, but you know what, it’s always great coming home.

HK

As a final question I want to ask you about your advice to achieve success in general?

TM

The advice that I give everyone is listen to your heart and follow your intuition. Get your ego out of the way.

Terry McBride is the CEO and Cofounder of Nettwerk Music Group.

An Interview with Kamal Quadir

2010-09-25T22:21:00.000+01:00

Haegwan Kim

Let’s start the interview. Firstly I want to ask you about your personal definition of success.

Kamal Quadir

My definition of success lies in leaving a lasting footprints; I would like to know that the person who sees my footprint finds the world a little better place, or a place which is a little bit more thoughtful, where a little bit more thinking has been given. That’s the way I see the world as a better place, or the world as a richer place, so if I can do that, bigger or smaller, that I would consider a success, because otherwise we are not making any difference…whatever we do should have lasting impact that other people could get a benefit out of...

HK

Do you mean the impact that changes people’s minds, or people’s lives?

KQ

Lives and minds, both.

HK

That’s very revealing, so that’s why you started CellBazaar, right?

KQ

Yes. I think, in developing countries where people don’t have a very transparent way of buying and selling, or doing trade, in those places people have mobile phones and if such device is used efficiently, it can improve people’s lives there significantly...that would be the main reason, for me, to start CellBazaar.

HK

What is the biggest lesson from the business?

KQ

We don’t have to come up with the most revolutionary ideas. If it’s a very simple idea and you pursue it, and if you stick to it, you can make a difference.

HK

Were there any difficulties for doing mobile business in Bangladesh?

KQ

Of course, and that’s the point, there are difficulties, there would are challenges, and if you stick to it you can overcome them. Even a very simple idea can make a difference. It doesn’t have to always be a big idea. It doesn’t have to be changing the world idea; it doesn’t have to be discovering gravity, so even a very simple thing can make a difference.

HK
Can you tell me, what is the biggest misunderstanding, from the developed countries to a developing country, in terms of business, or in terms of mobile marketing?

KQ

Misunderstanding on developing countries and mobile industry are quite different, so let me answer them one by one. The developed countries are changing drastically. It has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and it will change even more in the next decades with tremendous force.

Before I elaborate it further let me share an observation that one of the largest companies in the world right now is Microsoft. All the things that Microsoft has developed, all of the software it has developed, all of them could be saved in a small flash drive, or in a laptop. Do you agree?

HK

Yes, sure.

KQ

But all the software is developed by what? By the human brain. Okay?

HK

Yes.

KQ

And the human brain is, almost 100%, democratically distributed all over the world.

HK

Is that in terms of intelligence, or…?

KQ

In terms of raw material. Just an example that the raw material that is required to develop all the Microsoft applications is brainpower. Do you agree with that?

HK

Yes, sure.

KQ

Okay, and therefore, the raw material in Bangladesh, where I come from, is equally available, to what you have in the US, my adopted homeland. Do you agree with that?

HK

Yes. But there's massive differences of basic education. So-called "higher ranked" schools and universities.

KQ

That’s a different issue. That’s only when you train the brain properly, but in terms of the raw material it’s the same. It has the same capacity to think. A person in Bangladesh, if he is educated, will be better off in many ways, he will be using his brain better, using the raw material better, but in terms of the raw material itself, it’s the same quality of material that you find in Uganda as you find in Bangladesh.

HK

Asian and African - in terms of the raw material of brain power, are they same?

KQ

Yes, all over the world.

HK

Okay.

KQ

And a guy in Korea is no dumber than a guy in the US.

HK

I definitely agree with that.

KQ
Okay, so we are just talking about the very basic raw ingredients. I’m not talking about training, or anything, but very fundamentally, the basic raw material, which is the brain, is equally distributed all over the world, so what Microsoft did can actually be developed in Bangladesh which has half of the US raw materials as is has half of the US population.

HK

Sure, I agree. Go for it.

KQ

And the world is becoming more and more a brain driven world, is it not, and it will no longer be an oil driven world. In that world, where you have more people they have more resource.

HK

You point is really impressive, yes, sure.

KQ

So, in that way, a poor country should not really be considered as poor it’s just poorly trained, and as you’re pointing out, there is no proper school, no proper training, and that’s a different issue altogether. Therefore, that is one major misunderstanding the developed and developing countries have, that they have less resource, but the point is that their resource is not fully capitalised, not fully trained or educated, and that’s a different challenge.

That is one major difference we have, and then the other question is how is the mobile marketing different in the developed and developing world? They basically developed the phone so a mobile phone is an additional convenience tool, but in developing countries people don’t have a regular phone, so a mobile phone is basically an essential tool of communication. That’s the major basic difference.

HK

Why did you choose mobile phones to make the impact?

KQ

Because it’s a very powerful tool. It has all the abilities, and it is distributed all over the world in a very cheap way, so it will not only be used by rich people it will be used by everyone. That’s the reason I used mobile phones, because computers only belong to the rich people, and mobile phones belong to everybody.

HK

Do you think the notion of success is different in different countries? For example, in Bangladesh and in America, is there any difference between them?

KQ

Definition of success would definitely differ; I define success differently from someone else, so therefore, of course, it varies from person to person. But fundamentally, if people are happy and people achieve happiness, I think that is a fundamental way to define success, and I think that is very much equal in the US and in Bangladesh. If somebody is happy then that is success in the US, and if somebody is happy in Bangladesh that is also success in Bangladesh, so I think fundamentally they are the same.

HK

Great. As a final question, what would be your advice to achieve success, in general?

KQ

Pursue what you really believe in, and don’t try to be someone else.

Kamal Quadir is the Founder and CEO of CellBazaar.