Name: Tips on making your own luck
Uploaded: 2022-09-23T12:57:01.116Z
Duration: 687.14
Description: Joi Ito is a venture capitalist who talks about his luck and what aspects he looks for when making an investment.

Fei Tv  Joi Ito - Mit Media Lab-1.m4v

Fei Tv  Joi Ito - Mit Media Lab-1.vtt

English

{{00:00:06}}
Your're a man who's worn many hats over your career from
entrepreneur, to angel investor and venture capitalist.

{{00:00:13}}
You were also an early stage investor and incredibly
successful companies like flicker, Twitter and Kickstarter.

{{00:00:20}}
I'm curious to know if, as an investor, how do you recognize
if a company is going to hit that major success factor?

{{00:00:27}}
Is it just mainly luck or are there clear indicators
as to a company's potential to disrupt and innovate?

{{00:00:34}}
So, first of all I think it's mostly luck and I
think any venture capitalist that says that they knew

{{00:00:41}}
the ones that were going to be successful as lying.

{{00:00:43}}
I mean, I think you go for a portfolio
and if you're lucky, some of them hit.

{{00:00:50}}
But I think they're definitely things that you look for and I
think different people look for different things depending on

{{00:00:55}}
both their preference and what they're good at looking for and
I tend to one look for products that I intuitively understand.

{{00:01:03}}
I'm a very hands-on person.

{{00:01:06}}
I also look to the other investors who invest in, who are good
at looking at deals in different ways than I do, and I'm very

{{00:01:14}}
particular about the entrepreneurs and I tend to invest in
entrepreneurs that I know are, who are close to people that I know.

{{00:01:23}}
But I think most companies personally, have failed because of bad
investors, more than the bad entrepreneurs, because I think investors

{{00:01:31}}
can give really bad advice and they have a lot of power and so I
also look a lot at the other people who are investing in a company.

{{00:01:37}}
Really interesting and you know, you're going to talk later
on today about your book, you co authored a whiplash, how to

{{00:01:43}}
survive our faster future and I also recently watched your 2014
Ted talk where you said to not be a futurist, but rather nowist.

{{00:01:52}}
So being in an age where rapid technology advancements are
reshaping our world with more momentum than ever before.

{{00:02:00}}
I'm curious to know if you still think this
approach of focusing on what's around us now,

{{00:02:05}}
rather than trying to predict ahead still holds up.

{{00:02:07}}
Yeah, I think so it's important to look ahead and I think
it's important to be prepared for anything and also to have

{{00:02:14}}
scenarios in your head about possible things that might happen.

{{00:02:18}}
But I think the problem with people who plan or companies who
plan they get so, attached to their plan, that they ignore

{{00:02:26}}
signals and they ignore their awareness and they get heads down.

{{00:02:29}}
I mean, I know some people who spend their whole lives in regular
meetings, just tracking a plan and I think what you want to do

{{00:02:35}}
is spend your energy paying attention to signals, looking for
competition or opportunities in places that are peripheral or

{{00:02:42}}
other, otherwise you wouldn't notice if you were too focused on
a plan and so, so when I say being a nowist, it's about being

{{00:02:48}}
present and being aware, it's kind of like, you know, when you're
with somebody who's like looking at their phone and worrying about

{{00:02:53}}
what's happening next, isn't like paying attention to you, then
they're always kind of in the future and never in the present.

{{00:02:59}}
And then they won't notice if there's some opportunity around.

{{00:03:02}}
So to me, the majority and there's, there's some, actually
some studies that show the majority of interesting

{{00:03:07}}
things are discovered by looking for something else
and you can't get lucky if you plan everything.

{{00:03:13}}
Okay, that makes sense.

{{00:03:15}}
So if we were to look 10 years down the line, what do you predict
being one of the biggest technology game-changers to shape the future?

{{00:03:23}}
You know, apropos of my last, question, I don't like to predict the
future, but I feel there are trends and so one, which I don't like to

{{00:03:34}}
use the word blockchain because it's over-hyped and we had ICO's and
all there are these FinTech companies that I not that excited about.

{{00:03:42}}
But I do think that decentralized digital currency
and photography will start to change the way.

{{00:03:47}}
Things work just like the internet did, but I think there's a
there's a law called Amara's law, which says that we always over

{{00:03:53}}
anticipate the short-term impact and under anticipate the longterm.

{{00:03:57}}
So I think in the short run, I think a lot of this stuff is hyped.

{{00:04:00}}
I think in the long run, I think it will have significant impact.

{{00:04:03}}
So I think that's one piece, that'll be like the internet.

{{00:04:06}}
I think that.

{{00:04:08}}
I think bio is a new digital, I think it's going to be part of
everything, whether we're talking about construction materials

{{00:04:15}}
or computation, or you know electronics companies, everybody
will be in some relationship with biological  systems or health.

{{00:04:26}}
So I think that's going to be part of everything, just like all
the companies used to think digital isn't part of my business.

{{00:04:32}}
I think bio is going to be part of everything.

{{00:04:36}}
So as a professor and director of the MIT labs, how do you foster
creativity and innovative thinking, you know what are some of the

{{00:04:44}}
ways and ideas, that you share and implement things within your
classes and organizations to ensure meaningful goals are achieved?

{{00:04:53}}
So I think, one of the key things is to create
an environment where people are generative and

{{00:04:58}}
so that was the great thing about the internet.

{{00:05:01}}
It lowered the cost of trying things so that students,
that anybody could try things you didn't need permission.

{{00:05:06}}
We called it permissionless innovation and so at the
media lab, no one has to ask me permission and I try to

{{00:05:12}}
create an environment where people feel okay taking risks
and they have the resources that they need to do that.

{{00:05:17}}
I also support what I call disobedience.

{{00:05:21}}
So we have a $250,000 prize that's not just for media
lab, but a global prize for the most interesting acts of

{{00:05:29}}
social disobedience and I call it disobedience robustness.

{{00:05:32}}
It's it's.

{{00:05:33}}
How do you make a system that the more
disobedient people are,the stronger we get?

{{00:05:38}}
You know, my Timothy Leary, who was one of my mentors
said, question authority and think for yourself.

{{00:05:44}}
So I think it's this constant questioning authority and coming up
with new ideas is really important and so you know, it's really

{{00:05:51}}
about tuning the culture rather than telling people what to do.

{{00:05:53}}
I think is really important.

{{00:05:55}}
I definitely agree with that.

{{00:05:57}}
So you just touched a bit on a mentor that you had, and I, my
next question was going to be, if you think that mentorship

{{00:06:04}}
is important to developing new leaders and strong leaders and
innovators and if you have, had a mentor before, as you mentioned,

{{00:06:13}}
if you could give us a little brief anecdote about kind of
something impactful that you learned from that experience.

{{00:06:17}}
So, I met Timothy Leary, who, you can Google him.

{{00:06:22}}
I met him in the summer of 1990 and I had been kind of on this weird
spiritual path and I wouldn't tell you all the things I believe.

{{00:06:29}}
But I believed a lot of things and I read in books
and when I met Tim, he said all of that's a lie.

{{00:06:35}}
None of that's true and he sort of destroyed everything that
I believed and I had been on this path and he was the guru.

{{00:06:42}}
So, so I was like, oh wow, this is really weird.

{{00:06:44}}
My whole life is shattered and I started hanging
around with him and I started writing a book with him.

{{00:06:49}}
Going on like, speaking gigs and stuff like that and, and first
of all, I realized that not everything was not true, but he wanted

{{00:06:56}}
to knock me off this path of like having worshiping and guru and
then believing all these things and to be questioning everything.

{{00:07:03}}
And what he'd do is he would get, you know, we were on stage together.

{{00:07:07}}
He would have all these new age people
coming and saying, what should I do, Tim?

{{00:07:10}}
What should I do?

{{00:07:11}}
And he said question of total authority and think for
yourself and that was sort of his message was that, you

{{00:07:17}}
know, you sh you know, one is so amazing that they should
be worshiped, you know, and that and as a mentor, what

{{00:07:25}}
you're trying to do is get people to think for themselves.

{{00:07:27}}
And that's stuck with me.

{{00:07:29}}
I've had a number of mentors, but that, that phrase, a question
authority thing for  yourself, was a key thing that I learned in,

{{00:07:35}}
in that sort of one comment from him that it was all about joke
well, that's what kind of knocked me off that original bleak.

{{00:07:41}}
That's really interesting and so just to sort of
reiterate, so do you do feel that, I guess that

{{00:07:47}}
mentorship is an important part of developing.

{{00:07:50}}
Yes sorry.

{{00:07:50}}
Yeah, absolutely.

{{00:07:51}}
I think, I think that you know in an earlier question I
said that you know, how do I find companies it's usually

{{00:08:00}}
through people and the relationship between people  and
you know it's not that there's any like best or not best.

{{00:08:08}}
I think there are different styles and I think what you want to
do is find somebody that understands you, that resonates with you,

{{00:08:15}}
that can help you and if you look at, for instance, the history of
science some of the most important discoveries, by scientists,  you

{{00:08:24}}
look in their lives and there's always somebody who nudges them.

{{00:08:28}}
It's not always there, it's usually not their parents.

{{00:08:30}}
It's usually the hardware person or one of their
teachers that kind of nudges them in a direction.

{{00:08:34}}
Maybe it gives them confidence, or it gives them the ability
to pursue some weird arcane thing with, with resolve.

{{00:08:42}}
And that that's usually pretty important and
it can happen sort of anywhere in your life.

{{00:08:47}}
But I think that, now these days with kids being
protected and from sort of multi-generational environments

{{00:08:54}}
and things like that it's harder to find a mentor.

{{00:08:56}}
But I think creating opportunities to mentor both on the adult
side and on the, on the parenting side is really important.

{{00:09:02}}
That's interesting.

{{00:09:03}}
So for those who are looking for a mentor, do you
have any advice as to sort of how to seek that out?

{{00:09:09}}
Because I know sometimes it happens organically
but often people kind of feel a bit stuck there.

{{00:09:15}}
You know, I myself am one of those types of people
that I'm wondering, you know, how do you find a mentor?

{{00:09:20}}
It really depends on your personality because I just met a
young Indian woman who learned English when she was 13 watching

{{00:09:28}}
YouTube videos and just started cold emailing and cold messaging
people on Quora and then people just found her fascinating.

{{00:09:36}}
And then professors have invited her in she's.

{{00:09:38}}
Kind of in the network.

{{00:09:39}}
And so there's people who just kind of like power through like that.

{{00:09:42}}
I think other people produce code or things and
people pay attention and meet them through that.

{{00:09:49}}
You know, and sometimes it's just really random and serendipitous.

{{00:09:52}}
And so, but, but I think, I think the key thing is to
sort of figure out what it is about you that is different.

{{00:10:00}}
And then when you meet somebody, look for somebody that has and
look for that peculiar thing, because I think there's, everybody

{{00:10:09}}
is just trying to get more rich and famous and if you're just
trying to find the most influential person in the crowd and

{{00:10:15}}
give them your business card, that doesn't work, it's usually
about finding what's weird about you and weird about them.

{{00:10:21}}
Yeah.

{{00:10:21}}
Hmm.

{{00:10:21}}
Very interesting.

{{00:10:23}}
And just to finish off, could you tell me a moment in your career
where you felt really proud to be a leader in this industry?

{{00:10:31}}
Yeah, I, you know I don't like to, think too
much about myself as like a leader leader.

{{00:10:43}}
I used to be a disc jockey and the distract is
kind of the leader, but there it's not about them.

{{00:10:48}}
Right.

{{00:10:48}}
And so I tend to like to focus on the environment, you know?

{{00:10:52}}
And so for me, I think what makes me the most proud
is when I feel the energy of the lab, I'm doing well.

{{00:11:00}}
You know, when we have a class or an
event where everybody's really excited.

{{00:11:05}}
And so for me, you know, I think that the, that when
I, when I feel the best is when sort of people are

{{00:11:12}}
excited and they don't really notice that I'm there.

{{00:11:14}}
I think that's when I feel the best.

{{00:11:16}}
That's great.

{{00:11:17}}
Well, thank you so much for joining us.

{{00:11:18}}
It's been great talking to you.

{{00:11:19}}
Thank you.

Your're a man who's worn many hats over your career from
entrepreneur, to angel investor and venture capitalist.

You were also an early stage investor and incredibly
successful companies like flicker, Twitter and Kickstarter.

I'm curious to know if, as an investor, how do you recognize
if a company is going to hit that major success factor?

Is it just mainly luck or are there clear indicators
as to a company's potential to disrupt and innovate?

So, first of all I think it's mostly luck and I
think any venture capitalist that says that they knew

the ones that were going to be successful as lying.

I mean, I think you go for a portfolio
and if you're lucky, some of them hit.

But I think they're definitely things that you look for and I
think different people look for different things depending on

both their preference and what they're good at looking for and
I tend to one look for products that I intuitively understand.

I also look to the other investors who invest in, who are good
at looking at deals in different ways than I do, and I'm very

particular about the entrepreneurs and I tend to invest in
entrepreneurs that I know are, who are close to people that I know.

But I think most companies personally, have failed because of bad
investors, more than the bad entrepreneurs, because I think investors

can give really bad advice and they have a lot of power and so I
also look a lot at the other people who are investing in a company.

Really interesting and you know, you're going to talk later
on today about your book, you co authored a whiplash, how to

survive our faster future and I also recently watched your 2014
Ted talk where you said to not be a futurist, but rather nowist.

So being in an age where rapid technology advancements are
reshaping our world with more momentum than ever before.

I'm curious to know if you still think this
approach of focusing on what's around us now,

rather than trying to predict ahead still holds up.

Yeah, I think so it's important to look ahead and I think
it's important to be prepared for anything and also to have

scenarios in your head about possible things that might happen.

But I think the problem with people who plan or companies who
plan they get so, attached to their plan, that they ignore

signals and they ignore their awareness and they get heads down.

I mean, I know some people who spend their whole lives in regular
meetings, just tracking a plan and I think what you want to do

is spend your energy paying attention to signals, looking for
competition or opportunities in places that are peripheral or

other, otherwise you wouldn't notice if you were too focused on
a plan and so, so when I say being a nowist, it's about being

present and being aware, it's kind of like, you know, when you're
with somebody who's like looking at their phone and worrying about

what's happening next, isn't like paying attention to you, then
they're always kind of in the future and never in the present.

And then they won't notice if there's some opportunity around.

So to me, the majority and there's, there's some, actually
some studies that show the majority of interesting

things are discovered by looking for something else
and you can't get lucky if you plan everything.

So if we were to look 10 years down the line, what do you predict
being one of the biggest technology game-changers to shape the future?

You know, apropos of my last, question, I don't like to predict the
future, but I feel there are trends and so one, which I don't like to

use the word blockchain because it's over-hyped and we had ICO's and
all there are these FinTech companies that I not that excited about.

But I do think that decentralized digital currency
and photography will start to change the way.

Things work just like the internet did, but I think there's a
there's a law called Amara's law, which says that we always over

anticipate the short-term impact and under anticipate the longterm.

So I think in the short run, I think a lot of this stuff is hyped.

I think in the long run, I think it will have significant impact.

So I think that's one piece, that'll be like the internet.

I think bio is a new digital, I think it's going to be part of
everything, whether we're talking about construction materials

or computation, or you know electronics companies, everybody
will be in some relationship with biological  systems or health.

So I think that's going to be part of everything, just like all
the companies used to think digital isn't part of my business.

I think bio is going to be part of everything.

So as a professor and director of the MIT labs, how do you foster
creativity and innovative thinking, you know what are some of the

ways and ideas, that you share and implement things within your
classes and organizations to ensure meaningful goals are achieved?

So I think, one of the key things is to create
an environment where people are generative and

so that was the great thing about the internet.

It lowered the cost of trying things so that students,
that anybody could try things you didn't need permission.

We called it permissionless innovation and so at the
media lab, no one has to ask me permission and I try to

create an environment where people feel okay taking risks
and they have the resources that they need to do that.

So we have a $250,000 prize that's not just for media
lab, but a global prize for the most interesting acts of

social disobedience and I call it disobedience robustness.

How do you make a system that the more
disobedient people are,the stronger we get?

You know, my Timothy Leary, who was one of my mentors
said, question authority and think for yourself.

So I think it's this constant questioning authority and coming up
with new ideas is really important and so you know, it's really

about tuning the culture rather than telling people what to do.

So you just touched a bit on a mentor that you had, and I, my
next question was going to be, if you think that mentorship

is important to developing new leaders and strong leaders and
innovators and if you have, had a mentor before, as you mentioned,

if you could give us a little brief anecdote about kind of
something impactful that you learned from that experience.

So, I met Timothy Leary, who, you can Google him.

I met him in the summer of 1990 and I had been kind of on this weird
spiritual path and I wouldn't tell you all the things I believe.

But I believed a lot of things and I read in books
and when I met Tim, he said all of that's a lie.

None of that's true and he sort of destroyed everything that
I believed and I had been on this path and he was the guru.

So, so I was like, oh wow, this is really weird.

My whole life is shattered and I started hanging
around with him and I started writing a book with him.

Going on like, speaking gigs and stuff like that and, and first
of all, I realized that not everything was not true, but he wanted

to knock me off this path of like having worshiping and guru and
then believing all these things and to be questioning everything.

And what he'd do is he would get, you know, we were on stage together.

He would have all these new age people
coming and saying, what should I do, Tim?

And he said question of total authority and think for
yourself and that was sort of his message was that, you

know, you sh you know, one is so amazing that they should
be worshiped, you know, and that and as a mentor, what

you're trying to do is get people to think for themselves.

I've had a number of mentors, but that, that phrase, a question
authority thing for  yourself, was a key thing that I learned in,

in that sort of one comment from him that it was all about joke
well, that's what kind of knocked me off that original bleak.

That's really interesting and so just to sort of
reiterate, so do you do feel that, I guess that

mentorship is an important part of developing.

I think, I think that you know in an earlier question I
said that you know, how do I find companies it's usually

through people and the relationship between people  and
you know it's not that there's any like best or not best.

I think there are different styles and I think what you want to
do is find somebody that understands you, that resonates with you,

that can help you and if you look at, for instance, the history of
science some of the most important discoveries, by scientists,  you

look in their lives and there's always somebody who nudges them.

It's not always there, it's usually not their parents.

It's usually the hardware person or one of their
teachers that kind of nudges them in a direction.

Maybe it gives them confidence, or it gives them the ability
to pursue some weird arcane thing with, with resolve.

And that that's usually pretty important and
it can happen sort of anywhere in your life.

But I think that, now these days with kids being
protected and from sort of multi-generational environments

and things like that it's harder to find a mentor.

But I think creating opportunities to mentor both on the adult
side and on the, on the parenting side is really important.

Joi Ito is a venture capitalist who talks about his luck and what aspects he looks for when making an investment.

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Joi Ito

Former Director

Joi explains what factors he would look into when investing in a new venture.

Chapter 1: Success Factor within innovation

Joi thinks it is important to look and live ahead but also as important to be a 'nowist'.

Chapter 2:  Looking at the now and not the future?

Joi gives his thoughts on what trends he thinks could be a big technology game-changer 10 years down the line.

Chapter 3: The future

Joi explains at MIT in his lab he likes creating an environment that is generative and permissionless. He also explains how his company offers $250K for a prize for the most interesting 'act of social disobedience. He also explains disobedient robustness which he encourages within his team. 

Chapter 4: Creativity and Innovation within an organization

Joi talks about his mentor Timothy Leary and how he influenced and taught him how people should think for themselves. He also talks about the importance of being mentored and how this can help give people the nudge they may have needed in their careers.