#25 || BEYOND GOLIATH
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Transcripts may contain errors, and audio should be checked before quoting in print.
[00:00:00]
STEPHANIE
This episode is dedicated to Howard Rheingold. Thank you Howard, for helping me think critically about new information and communication technologies, for being my expert learner, and for being my friend.
And just to give a heads up: the guest you're about to hear from and I will be speaking together in Palo Alto in September.
You'll hear more about that at the end of the episode.
Here we go.
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TIM
During the whole time where I was in the Venture world. I sort of watch Google sort of come of age and develop and I always thought God would have been so cool to work at Google. And there was probably a mild Obsession here. I became pretty obsessed with sort of finding the next Google and sort of trying to understand what were the characteristics the generalized characteristics of Google that maybe existed in a new and emerging company at the time.
And there were there were a series of criteria that that Facebook met [00:01:00] that were that that had similarities and they were looking for someone they were looking for someone to help them figure out the business model. And so that was the job. So when I when I graduated from business school in a few weeks later, I showed up and showed up a Facebook.
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STEPHANIE
That's Tim Kendall. He graduated from Stanford Business School, and when he showed up at Facebook, their office was actually across the street from Google's first office on University Avenue in Palo Alto. I'm Stephanie Lepp and this is Reckonings, an exploration of how we change our hearts and minds.
When Tim got to Facebook he started off by meeting with a bunch of people his boss told him to meet with
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TIM
and one of the people that I met with she was a product manager and she said, you [00:02:00] know, you really should get marks book. And his notebook and make a copy of that and go home and read it. So I went up to Mark's executive assistant Anika and I said Hey kid, could I get a copy of marks?
Notebook? Naomi told me that there's this there's this notebook and and she said yeah, just ask Mark for it. So I went up to Mark and I introduced myself and I said hey Naomi told me about this notebook. Could you do you think I could use it and make a quick copy of it so I can read it just sort of understand what's going on in your mind about you know the company and what's what you're planning to build and everything.
He said yeah sure. He said we should also just grab we should grab lunch and we can kind of talk about that and and you know the other stuff you're working on and so. I made a copy of his book which ended up being this 65 page handwritten incredible [00:03:00] Vision document that really laid out what Facebook.
Became over the course of the next five plus years
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STEPHANIE
The Mark who wrote those 65 handwritten Pages was yes, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark ended up asking to move Tim's desk right next to his so they could talk more often as Tim began the process of building Facebook's business model.
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TIM
We had a couple criteria We were we were evaluating one was just this the rate at which we could you know, how quickly could you grow? A big business from you know, model X versus Y versus Z and advertising, you know scored very high. There was also another criteria which was what sort of margins could you make on on you know business X versus y verses Z and it turns out that advertising is a very good business because you're sort of selling are right.
There's no sort of cost of goods sold [00:04:00] in advertising or not manufacturing anything. I had a real bias towards advertising. the reason that people. At the time that the Skeptics at the company and even outside the company felt like advertising was not going to work at Facebook. Was that look on Google and the reason Google works.
So well is that when I go to Google searched and I searched for digital camera. I get a bunch of organic results, but then I also get ads for Nikon and Sony cameras and the. The reason that works is because people have commercial intent when they go to Google they have this intention of looking for something commercial.
They don't have that the argument went on Facebook on Facebook. You don't have commercial intent. You've really really high degrees of social intent in the sense that you come there to learn about what your friends and family are up to. [00:05:00] and. What we figured out was a way to make the ads have more of a social been to it.
We figured out that if Stephanie interacted with you know, the Nikon camera page on Facebook and decided that she liked it. We could use that piece of data in an advertisement to Stephanie's friends. And then the the ad that Stephanie's friends would get would be hey Nikon makes a great camera and Stephanie your friend likes them too.
And that's why it was called a social ad.
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I had a lot of personal excitement. I mean, I remember I remember learning years before I went to Facebook about a guy named Salar who was an early [00:06:00] Google employee who's really credited with conceiving of Google AdWords, which is the it's the business that they built around search.
And I remember hearing of this guy was like a twenty something guy who came up with the idea and all of a sudden a few years later. He was he was looking after a multibillion-dollar business and I remember hearing the story about this guy and thinking God, I would love to figure out a way to get that kind of trajectory or path at a different company and. Member pretty regularly thinking. Oh, maybe this is maybe this is like the Salar Moment, you know, maybe maybe what we've all figured out is like kind of what Salar figured out at Google and we're going to look back and this is going to be the seminal Moment Like.
Yep. We figured out the system that the end up ends [00:07:00] up yielding this be, you know, billions are tens of billions of Dollar business.
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You know probably four or five months after we launched the product we were doing billions of dollars in Revenue. I think 2010 it did we did over two billion dollars in Revenue.
Sheryl Sandberg becomes the becomes the CEO and I remember being in meanings with David Fisher and Sheryl Sandberg and they would ask me well, why is this number this week down a quarter of one percent? And I felt like it was too early to spend my time. Figuring out answers to that question. It seemed like we should instead be figuring out where we're going to get the next five billion dollars in revenue and it wasn't as exciting as those early days when we were, you know, when I was sitting 8 feet away from Mark and [00:08:00] talking at night about what we know what this could become it was becoming a real company was several thousand people and that stage just was less was just less energizing to me.
So I left Tim left
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STEPHANIE
Facebook and went over to Pinterest to help them build their business model pictures case. It was a lot more straightforward and easier to think about and build the elegant business model because what people do on Pinterest has very distinct from what they do on Facebook and Pinterest they are really looking for things to discover that.
And then go out and take action on those things and they go on Pinterest to discover recipes and they go off and cook them. They go on Pinterest to discover, you know different hobbies and then they go actualize those in the world so you can see how it would be easy to just put advertising, you know in alignment [00:09:00] with that organic content and it would work well.
If you do a search for treehouses because you want to discover different tree houses that you can build for your kids and we show you a bunch of pins on Pinterest so pictures of different treehouses configurations, and there's an ad for a treehouse that's kind of as good as advertising can be.
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So 2017. The business is growing, you know, more than fifty percent a year, you know on a path to get to a billion billion dollars in Revenue over the next several years. The user base is continuing to grow at a really nice clip. And right around that time Forbes Forbes Magazine put the founders on the cover and you know, I think with their arms crossed in the in the you know in big letters was the title which was move over Zuck.
[00:10:00] It was a sensational headline. We were nowhere close to getting Zuck to move over, but it did make me feel like you know, I had. Found and helped grow a company that was now being considered, you know in the same solar system as Facebook and what and what Mark created and that felt good. There was like a there was a.
Yeah, I feel good. When you are a part of something like Facebook and you contribute in in the way that I contributed and then you leave you you don't want to be viewed as a one-trick pony. You don't want to be viewed as the person who got lucky once. Sarah Lacy, who's this great journalist [00:11:00] in Silicon Valley wrote this book called once you're lucky twice.
You're good. And I don't know I think at that moment. I felt like well, maybe it's going to be for me twice.
You're good.
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Pinterest's office was in San Francisco was in so my area right by the right by the the ballpark and we lived down in San Mateo, which is probably a half an hour away. So I'm living in Suburbia. I have two kids have a two year old and a actually one and a half year old and like a newborn and I. And making a point to get home, you know to reasonable time so I can see my kids and Pinterest was very intense the time and and I would really make a point to break off and leave and be home.
[00:12:00] And what I started to notice was that I would get home and then I would be on my phone. And not with my kids. I would. Fine. I was so sure catch myself in my pantry and I would be in there scrolling through Instagram or looking at videos on YouTube frivolous videos on YouTube. I wouldn't think was weren't like beneficial how-to's.
The excuse for going there was so easy. It was like I'm going to grab a I'm going to grab a snack. But I would go I would say I'm going to go grab a snack and you go and I would go into the pantry and maybe I would get a snack and I eat it and then I stay in the pantry and pull out my phone as I was eating my snack and then you know, 30 minutes pass.
[00:13:00] I do remember my kids doing something for the first time like outside of the pantry while I was home and missing the moment because I was in the pantry. You know hit me my kid is saying her first word. Who knows? My wife would say hey, what are you what are you up to? What are you up to in? There?
You your snack is taking a long time and my kids might get my oldest started to call me out. She would say, Dadda get off your phone.
I was behaving in ways that were fundamentally in congruent with my values, but I couldn't resist.
I started to research. How do you stop using your like if you have a problem with your phone? What do you do? I started to [00:14:00] research this in
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STEPHANIE
you were like in the pantry on your phone researching how to stop using your phone.
[LAUGHTER]
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TIM
It's like what what is what is wrong with me? And how do I stop and the thing that I came across it was originally designed for.
Basically what it is it's a plastic container with a top and the top has like a lock on it and a diagram. And you can turn the dial to a certain time so you can say so for dieting you can say I've got these muffins but I don't want to eat them. So I'm going to put them in here and set the dial for 24 hours so that I don't eat these things until tomorrow and I think the folks at kitchen saved started to realize that will yeah this works for dieting but also would work for other things that I want to make a commitment to not use for the next hour.
Or three hours and so they started simultaneously marketing this [00:15:00] as a way to protect yourself from your phone. And so I ended up I ended up ordering one and using it and started to get into you know, somewhat obsessive habit of putting my phone into this kitchen safe, you know when I got home and saying, okay, I'm not going to be I'm not gonna open this thing for the next three hours.
And it was really effective because this thing once you once you turn the dial and Press Start, you can't get into this thing. Short of shook sort of Smashing it with a hammer. I started seeing people at work on their phones and meetings. And by the way, I also noticed that I was getting on my phone in meetings and not paying attention and missing important information and [00:16:00] meanings or you know, that that experience that we have where you're talking to someone maybe it's not in a meeting.
Maybe it's in a one-on-one conversation. Someone pulls up the phone and just starts looking at it while you're talking to them. These things are making us sick.
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STEPHANIE
Tim had become the president of Pinterest and right around then he was invited to give a keynote at the biggest advertising conference in the world in the south of France.
He decided to talk about his struggle with. Phone and how it was getting in the way of being the kind of dad. He wanted to be so he's at the conference he gets up on stage. It's the opening keynote and as a technology executive, he tells a roomful of other technology Executives including Executives from Facebook and Google and other major tech companies how those very Technologies are harming our mental and emotional well-being.
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TIM
What has happened [00:17:00] since the introduction of the smartphone and then all these services that sit on top of that are often used in really unhealthy ways is epidemic increases in self-harm. Among teenagers huge increases in suicide rates since 2007 to today. Oh, by the way, if you double click and look at teenage women that suicide rate has doubled in that period of time. I think as I was wrapping this up, I just felt like gosh I'm talking about something that I really care about. I was so energized by trying to articulate the problem. That was really the first time where I thought God I really probably should go work on this
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STEPHANIE
and so he did. Tim left Pinterest to start a [00:18:00] company that would tackle technology addiction.
Imagine to building a piece of software that could show us how much we use our phones and coaches to use them in ways that are more aligned with our values
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TIM
in my preliminary research. I you know, I was just doing I'm sure I was just doing a search in the Apple App Store for phone addiction and I came across Moment.
So I download this app. It asks me how old I am and what my goals were and then it drops me into the main view which showed how much time I was spending on my phone. I thought. Oh my God, I spent a lot of time on my phone.
I sort of had this moment of. [00:19:00] frustration excitement. frustration because moment was what I had imagined building and it had already been built and so I started researching the company and it was one. One guy, I think he was 26 27. His name is Kevin Holesh and he had built this app all on his own.
He had built this app from scratch and had been had it had grown to millions of users. I said hi Kevin. I love I'm a user of your app and I love what you're doing. I wonder if their ways that I could be helpful. Are you interested in a conversation? and he responded and [00:20:00] we we quickly got to the.
Because the Crux of what I was trying to get to which was Hey, how do we is there a way we can partner up. I didn't know by the way at this point that he lived in a in an RV, but I remember thinking when I first did a video conference with him. I just thought I'd the background behind. That window is gorgeous.
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STEPHANIE
Tim ended up acquiring moment. Kevin became head of product and Tim became CEO.
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TIM
When I left Pinterest there was an article about it. And then you know, like comment on Twitter. Lots of people weighed in about the article about my my leaving and in the article it said that I was leaving to go start a company.
That was going to address technology [00:21:00] addiction and. there was a tweet that someone sent me and the quote and the Tweet was basically: guy who helped create two of the most addictive services out there is now going to help unaddict you. Brilliant.
And.
it was a joke, but it was also true.
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I thought I was I think I read it online and I'm in a newspaper I read about. The question being posed to Mark. Do you think your [00:22:00] platform had any do you think Facebook had any role in Shifting the outcome of the election and he he kind of laughed it off and was pretty to it was dismissive and I had the same reaction.
I thought. yeah, that's that's absurd. That doesn't make any sense.
Overtime right in the in the in the ensuing months. It became very clear that. In fact, the platform had been absolutely utilized to manipulate the election. And Facebook had no idea. At some point Facebook acknowledged. Yeah. Our platform was manipulated. We might have we might have tipped the election.
And we screwed up.
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I think [00:23:00] one of the
things that I leaned on very heavily. For why advertising was a sound business model was that it's been the business model for media for the last hundred plus years. Like I just there isn't like a single Catalyst. I think I started to really realize that unchecked these business models and unchecked in conjunction with the power of artificial intelligence, which is now the ability to look into the hearts and minds of people and.
And pray on their prefrontal cortex such that they become absolutely consumed. [00:24:00] That's part of why you saw Facebook really used to just be about friends and family and Sensational news and and viral and really controversial content and video started to take over the platform. That was the natural byproduct of telling a piece of technology that has control over how the system works and what content gets shown to whom president.
That is the byproduct of telling that technology. Hey get as much time and attention out of that person as. Because the goal that you have artificial intelligence is to get this person to spend more and more and more time on this platform because when they spend more time, we make more money the nature of the business model is such that.
[00:25:00] These Services have to grow user attention unabated for their businesses to stay. Viable, you know, there was no end to engagement. Apart from the number of hours and minutes in a day when Netflix on their earnings calls talks about risk factors or who they compete with. They say with a straight face to sleep and your close relationships.
That's what we compete with.
And that illustrate that illustrates the same thing that's happening with Facebook. Right, which is that they're just eating they're eating all of our time and attention. It has eroded our sleep. It has eroded the time [00:26:00] that we used to spend nurturing relationships.
Free is a lie.
I think then I just was seeing the world through a land of achievement and accumulation of wealth and I really was convinced that if I built a business that was meaningful and really helped Facebook become a franchise company. And I made money in the process. Well, I'd be happy and I feel successful and my life will would have been complete.
What I regret from my time at Facebook is not understanding that the business model that we put in place [00:27:00] necessitate in order to grow it necessitated. Increasing the amount of attention we got from our users. And I regret not. Taking that to its natural extension and imagining what the outcome might be.
You know I screwed up.
I had a role in this I had a role in where we are today. and. as I grow and learn I hopefully will have a role in getting us to a better place.
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STEPHANIE
Part of getting us to a better place meant [00:28:00] deliberately not giving moment an ad based business model instead moments business model offers the basic service for free, but then charges users themselves to access additional services so that the incentives of the company stay aligned with those of its users.
It's a big deal for Tim Kendall architect of the now classic internet ad based business model to not make his company advertising base. And going further to not even take Venture Capital because in the same way that he doesn't want to be beholden to advertisers over users. Tim doesn't want to be beholden to venture capitalists with the expectation of precipitous growth that they have.
But Tim didn't stop at his realization, 's about the ad based business model and Venture Capital. He went further.
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TIM
My old model was whenever I went [00:29:00] back to First principles of like, okay, why is this an issue? I never went below capitalism in terms of like building building back up from first principles.
I always like well, of course, of course you need capitalism. But then what what what what on top of that should change?
Facebook's not the first company to. Pray on the impulses and weaknesses of consumer in order to drive inordinate amount of Revenue and profits. Coca-Cola does this. before that cigarette companies did this. McDonald's does this. And so I'm pointing out the structurally capitalism as its as it exists today allows for [00:30:00] significant amount of harm.
In the name of prophets. and I'm shocked to be saying this because the Tim of three years ago would be I think surprised to hear me say this today, but I think there's some structural flaws in capitalism.
I wouldn't have been caught dead saying that 3 4 5 years ago. Well, it's a it's a pretty darn big shift for me.
So I think there's been a I think there's been a backdrop of a realization around the flaw and capitalism and then a specific realization that. wow. Facebook and these other online advertising businesses are. In that same bucket.
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[00:31:00] Will we give people a set of tools for free so anyone can sign up today and develop that initial understanding and awareness of just how much they use their? And then the second part of the experience is we have what we call a coach, which is really just a program a series of exercises that really help people sort of begin to understand.
Why am I using my phone so much what are the underlying thoughts and feelings that create this behavior that I don't like those examples of those thoughts and feelings is maybe I'm maybe I'm feeling bored. Maybe I'm feeling lonely. Maybe I'm feeling sad and when those triggers arise my default is to get on my phone.
[00:32:00] And so we coach people on how to come up with Alternatives so that when those triggers come up my pavlovian reaction is not okay get on my phone. Escape it's go outside. Go for a walk call my. Do something more in the interest of my psychological well-being than this this false antidote that the phone provides which actually tends to make that bad feeling worse.
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STEPHANIE
So Tim and I met at an event hosted by the center for Humane technology. The center for Humane technology is at the Forefront of reversing the digital attention crisis. And a lot of people at the organization including its Brave founder and my dear friend Tristan Harris were technology insiders and a lot of people at the event where Tim and I met still our [00:33:00] technology insiders who have contributed to the state of the world that were in Steve Wozniak founder of Apple was there.
Justin Rosenstein who I worked with closely at Facebook and is the inventor of the like button Evan Sharp the founder of Pinterest was there. The the inventor the inventor of the hashtag. I think they all feel a sense of. I think they're concerned. I feel think they feel a sense of obligation. I think they feel like they in some way need to be on this Leading Edge of change
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when you start a company you are the underdog you are on every measure in the David and Goliath Parable.
[00:34:00] You are David and you feel that every day. And so what it leads to is a drive and it in a conviction in trying to win especially for a bunch of type A people. Who want to want to have impact and want to win and I think one of the things that you see happened and I think this happened at Facebook, I think by the way, I think it happened in stays that boober is that when you are David and you're in his shoes?
And you're coming to work every day as the underdog it's really hard to. Realize the point in time where you become Goliath. That point in time when you become Goliath in your industry your [00:35:00] responsibility changes. And your disposition should change and your societal responsibilities change. You are no longer the scrappy underdogs.
You're the dominant and come back. I think what's missing from a lot of these companies is taking stock of where they are on that Continuum and there was a point at which Facebook did start to become more dominant. And I think that's when it's it's appropriate for it to change. And I think what you see in their behavior and how the company's being lad is that it
[00:36:00] didn't.
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STEPHANIE
Something people struggle with in this moment of Reckoning with technology is the intention of Technology entrepreneur. Are their intentions good or evil for those of us who don't believe they have evil intentions. What do we do with the fact that non malicious intentions have led to such malicious outcomes.
What do we do with the fact that consequences may have been unintended but may have also been predictable. My favorite piece of philosophy of technology is an article by Langdon winner called do artifacts have politics. It starts like this "in controversies about technology and Society. There is no idea more provocative than the notion that technical things have political qualities. At issue is the claim [00:37:00] that the machines structures and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions of efficiency and productivity, not merely for their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power And Authority."
do artifacts have politics is a beautiful piece of writing and still prescient even though it was written in 1980 and it speaks to the fact that look, we are surrounded by claims that artifacts the internet social media Facebook inherently have politics. Facebook itself is destroying democracy.
It's destroying our families. It's destroying our mental and emotional well-being. That's called technological determinism. The flipside is of course the notion that a Technology's impact is entirely driven [00:38:00] by the social system didn't. That Facebook is just a neutral tool that's being exploited by that actors whether they be Venture capitalists or the Kremlin.
That's called social determinism. And what Langdon winner invites us to see is that in most cases neither technological determinism nor social determinism is very helpful For understanding how artifacts how technologies have politics. so how do we understand the politics of Facebook and social media and the internet?
Well, you'll just have to read the article but I will leave you with this: the context in which Technologies are developed does contribute to the political impact they have. Which is why so many conversations about technology these [00:39:00] days end up at the structural flaws in capitalism. Some people would say that the structural flaws in capitalism has so much bearing on how Technologies develop that it almost doesn't even matter what the intentions of Technology leaders are because they are so constrained.
It is their fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value at all cost. which for many of these companies means maximizing engagement. But to that I'd say to Jack Dorsey and Evan Spiegel and Susan Wojcicki And of course Mark Zuckerberg, I'd Echo Tim in saying: you are Goliath and not just in the US tech industry.
You are Goliath in our global economy. You have the power to change the context in which your Technologies develop you could change the system [00:40:00] that prevents you from having the kind of impact. Do you say you want to have. I understand no industry has ever initiated its own evolution in this way.
But that's precisely why using your power to change the context in which you operate so that you don't have to compete with sleep and our closest relationships would be truly disruptive. And that would be going Way Beyond Goliath.
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TIM
you know over the past year or so I have.
I've been playing in the back. I've just been these moments where I've been playing in the backyard with my kids and just experiencing a moment of joy, and I've had these moments where I thought God. Maybe this is just what it's all about.
I think they're probably people who hear that and say [00:41:00] yeah, like obviously this is what it's all about, but wasn't so obvious to me. Rewind four years ago three years ago when I'm in the backyard with with with my kids in the same. You know vignette. and I'm thinking. God this is a waste of time. I really should be.
Working on my email. so different.
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STEPHANIE
Tim Kendall is the CEO of moment. Yes an app but one that helps you use your phone less and live your life more Americans spend an average of four hours a day on their phone. And so far Moment is given an average of one hour a [00:42:00] day back to millions of people. Tim and I are going to be speaking together at The Institute for the future.
Her in Palo Alto on Thursday, September 26. For more information go to Facebook. Just getting go to reckonings.show/episodes/25, and yes, the event will also be on the reckonings Facebook page
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big thank yous go to David Roswell for your generous support
to the Center for Humane technology for your Monumental work to realign technology with humanity and for being my connection to Tim.
Howard Rheingold for your unending inspiration
to those of you who shared your editorial insight: Helena de Groot, Allie Wollner, Patricia Adler, and Phil Groman
and to some of our friends on patreon you too can join this list of esteem supporters at patreon.com/reckonings: Abigail Farrell, Greg Berguig, Trevor Stutz, Tibet Sprague, Kenny, Allston, Kyle Studstill, P Foster, Laffrey Witbrod, Jordan A Patterson, and Christoffer
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I'm Stephanie Lepp and if you made it all the way here, let me give one more Thank you to you for listening to Reckonings.
Note: Transcripts may contain errors, and audio should be checked before quoting in print.
[00:00:00]
STEPHANIE
This episode is dedicated to Howard Rheingold. Thank you Howard, for helping me think critically about new information and communication technologies, for being my expert learner, and for being my friend.
And just to give a heads up: the guest you're about to hear from and I will be speaking together in Palo Alto in September.
You'll hear more about that at the end of the episode.
Here we go.
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TIM
During the whole time where I was in the Venture world. I sort of watch Google sort of come of age and develop and I always thought God would have been so cool to work at Google. And there was probably a mild Obsession here. I became pretty obsessed with sort of finding the next Google and sort of trying to understand what were the characteristics the generalized characteristics of Google that maybe existed in a new and emerging company at the time.
And there were there were a series of criteria that that Facebook met [00:01:00] that were that that had similarities and they were looking for someone they were looking for someone to help them figure out the business model. And so that was the job. So when I when I graduated from business school in a few weeks later, I showed up and showed up a Facebook.
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STEPHANIE
That's Tim Kendall. He graduated from Stanford Business School, and when he showed up at Facebook, their office was actually across the street from Google's first office on University Avenue in Palo Alto. I'm Stephanie Lepp and this is Reckonings, an exploration of how we change our hearts and minds.
When Tim got to Facebook he started off by meeting with a bunch of people his boss told him to meet with
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TIM
and one of the people that I met with she was a product manager and she said, you [00:02:00] know, you really should get marks book. And his notebook and make a copy of that and go home and read it. So I went up to Mark's executive assistant Anika and I said Hey kid, could I get a copy of marks?
Notebook? Naomi told me that there's this there's this notebook and and she said yeah, just ask Mark for it. So I went up to Mark and I introduced myself and I said hey Naomi told me about this notebook. Could you do you think I could use it and make a quick copy of it so I can read it just sort of understand what's going on in your mind about you know the company and what's what you're planning to build and everything.
He said yeah sure. He said we should also just grab we should grab lunch and we can kind of talk about that and and you know the other stuff you're working on and so. I made a copy of his book which ended up being this 65 page handwritten incredible [00:03:00] Vision document that really laid out what Facebook.
Became over the course of the next five plus years
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STEPHANIE
The Mark who wrote those 65 handwritten Pages was yes, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark ended up asking to move Tim's desk right next to his so they could talk more often as Tim began the process of building Facebook's business model.
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TIM
We had a couple criteria We were we were evaluating one was just this the rate at which we could you know, how quickly could you grow? A big business from you know, model X versus Y versus Z and advertising, you know scored very high. There was also another criteria which was what sort of margins could you make on on you know business X versus y verses Z and it turns out that advertising is a very good business because you're sort of selling are right.
There's no sort of cost of goods sold [00:04:00] in advertising or not manufacturing anything. I had a real bias towards advertising. the reason that people. At the time that the Skeptics at the company and even outside the company felt like advertising was not going to work at Facebook. Was that look on Google and the reason Google works.
So well is that when I go to Google searched and I searched for digital camera. I get a bunch of organic results, but then I also get ads for Nikon and Sony cameras and the. The reason that works is because people have commercial intent when they go to Google they have this intention of looking for something commercial.
They don't have that the argument went on Facebook on Facebook. You don't have commercial intent. You've really really high degrees of social intent in the sense that you come there to learn about what your friends and family are up to. [00:05:00] and. What we figured out was a way to make the ads have more of a social been to it.
We figured out that if Stephanie interacted with you know, the Nikon camera page on Facebook and decided that she liked it. We could use that piece of data in an advertisement to Stephanie's friends. And then the the ad that Stephanie's friends would get would be hey Nikon makes a great camera and Stephanie your friend likes them too.
And that's why it was called a social ad.
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I had a lot of personal excitement. I mean, I remember I remember learning years before I went to Facebook about a guy named Salar who was an early [00:06:00] Google employee who's really credited with conceiving of Google AdWords, which is the it's the business that they built around search.
And I remember hearing of this guy was like a twenty something guy who came up with the idea and all of a sudden a few years later. He was he was looking after a multibillion-dollar business and I remember hearing the story about this guy and thinking God, I would love to figure out a way to get that kind of trajectory or path at a different company and. Member pretty regularly thinking. Oh, maybe this is maybe this is like the Salar Moment, you know, maybe maybe what we've all figured out is like kind of what Salar figured out at Google and we're going to look back and this is going to be the seminal Moment Like.
Yep. We figured out the system that the end up ends [00:07:00] up yielding this be, you know, billions are tens of billions of Dollar business.
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You know probably four or five months after we launched the product we were doing billions of dollars in Revenue. I think 2010 it did we did over two billion dollars in Revenue.
Sheryl Sandberg becomes the becomes the CEO and I remember being in meanings with David Fisher and Sheryl Sandberg and they would ask me well, why is this number this week down a quarter of one percent? And I felt like it was too early to spend my time. Figuring out answers to that question. It seemed like we should instead be figuring out where we're going to get the next five billion dollars in revenue and it wasn't as exciting as those early days when we were, you know, when I was sitting 8 feet away from Mark and [00:08:00] talking at night about what we know what this could become it was becoming a real company was several thousand people and that stage just was less was just less energizing to me.
So I left Tim left
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STEPHANIE
Facebook and went over to Pinterest to help them build their business model pictures case. It was a lot more straightforward and easier to think about and build the elegant business model because what people do on Pinterest has very distinct from what they do on Facebook and Pinterest they are really looking for things to discover that.
And then go out and take action on those things and they go on Pinterest to discover recipes and they go off and cook them. They go on Pinterest to discover, you know different hobbies and then they go actualize those in the world so you can see how it would be easy to just put advertising, you know in alignment [00:09:00] with that organic content and it would work well.
If you do a search for treehouses because you want to discover different tree houses that you can build for your kids and we show you a bunch of pins on Pinterest so pictures of different treehouses configurations, and there's an ad for a treehouse that's kind of as good as advertising can be.
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So 2017. The business is growing, you know, more than fifty percent a year, you know on a path to get to a billion billion dollars in Revenue over the next several years. The user base is continuing to grow at a really nice clip. And right around that time Forbes Forbes Magazine put the founders on the cover and you know, I think with their arms crossed in the in the you know in big letters was the title which was move over Zuck.
[00:10:00] It was a sensational headline. We were nowhere close to getting Zuck to move over, but it did make me feel like you know, I had. Found and helped grow a company that was now being considered, you know in the same solar system as Facebook and what and what Mark created and that felt good. There was like a there was a.
Yeah, I feel good. When you are a part of something like Facebook and you contribute in in the way that I contributed and then you leave you you don't want to be viewed as a one-trick pony. You don't want to be viewed as the person who got lucky once. Sarah Lacy, who's this great journalist [00:11:00] in Silicon Valley wrote this book called once you're lucky twice.
You're good. And I don't know I think at that moment. I felt like well, maybe it's going to be for me twice.
You're good.
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Pinterest's office was in San Francisco was in so my area right by the right by the the ballpark and we lived down in San Mateo, which is probably a half an hour away. So I'm living in Suburbia. I have two kids have a two year old and a actually one and a half year old and like a newborn and I. And making a point to get home, you know to reasonable time so I can see my kids and Pinterest was very intense the time and and I would really make a point to break off and leave and be home.
[00:12:00] And what I started to notice was that I would get home and then I would be on my phone. And not with my kids. I would. Fine. I was so sure catch myself in my pantry and I would be in there scrolling through Instagram or looking at videos on YouTube frivolous videos on YouTube. I wouldn't think was weren't like beneficial how-to's.
The excuse for going there was so easy. It was like I'm going to grab a I'm going to grab a snack. But I would go I would say I'm going to go grab a snack and you go and I would go into the pantry and maybe I would get a snack and I eat it and then I stay in the pantry and pull out my phone as I was eating my snack and then you know, 30 minutes pass.
[00:13:00] I do remember my kids doing something for the first time like outside of the pantry while I was home and missing the moment because I was in the pantry. You know hit me my kid is saying her first word. Who knows? My wife would say hey, what are you what are you up to? What are you up to in? There?
You your snack is taking a long time and my kids might get my oldest started to call me out. She would say, Dadda get off your phone.
I was behaving in ways that were fundamentally in congruent with my values, but I couldn't resist.
I started to research. How do you stop using your like if you have a problem with your phone? What do you do? I started to [00:14:00] research this in
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STEPHANIE
you were like in the pantry on your phone researching how to stop using your phone.
[LAUGHTER]
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TIM
It's like what what is what is wrong with me? And how do I stop and the thing that I came across it was originally designed for.
Basically what it is it's a plastic container with a top and the top has like a lock on it and a diagram. And you can turn the dial to a certain time so you can say so for dieting you can say I've got these muffins but I don't want to eat them. So I'm going to put them in here and set the dial for 24 hours so that I don't eat these things until tomorrow and I think the folks at kitchen saved started to realize that will yeah this works for dieting but also would work for other things that I want to make a commitment to not use for the next hour.
Or three hours and so they started simultaneously marketing this [00:15:00] as a way to protect yourself from your phone. And so I ended up I ended up ordering one and using it and started to get into you know, somewhat obsessive habit of putting my phone into this kitchen safe, you know when I got home and saying, okay, I'm not going to be I'm not gonna open this thing for the next three hours.
And it was really effective because this thing once you once you turn the dial and Press Start, you can't get into this thing. Short of shook sort of Smashing it with a hammer. I started seeing people at work on their phones and meetings. And by the way, I also noticed that I was getting on my phone in meetings and not paying attention and missing important information and [00:16:00] meanings or you know, that that experience that we have where you're talking to someone maybe it's not in a meeting.
Maybe it's in a one-on-one conversation. Someone pulls up the phone and just starts looking at it while you're talking to them. These things are making us sick.
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STEPHANIE
Tim had become the president of Pinterest and right around then he was invited to give a keynote at the biggest advertising conference in the world in the south of France.
He decided to talk about his struggle with. Phone and how it was getting in the way of being the kind of dad. He wanted to be so he's at the conference he gets up on stage. It's the opening keynote and as a technology executive, he tells a roomful of other technology Executives including Executives from Facebook and Google and other major tech companies how those very Technologies are harming our mental and emotional well-being.
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TIM
What has happened [00:17:00] since the introduction of the smartphone and then all these services that sit on top of that are often used in really unhealthy ways is epidemic increases in self-harm. Among teenagers huge increases in suicide rates since 2007 to today. Oh, by the way, if you double click and look at teenage women that suicide rate has doubled in that period of time. I think as I was wrapping this up, I just felt like gosh I'm talking about something that I really care about. I was so energized by trying to articulate the problem. That was really the first time where I thought God I really probably should go work on this
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STEPHANIE
and so he did. Tim left Pinterest to start a [00:18:00] company that would tackle technology addiction.
Imagine to building a piece of software that could show us how much we use our phones and coaches to use them in ways that are more aligned with our values
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TIM
in my preliminary research. I you know, I was just doing I'm sure I was just doing a search in the Apple App Store for phone addiction and I came across Moment.
So I download this app. It asks me how old I am and what my goals were and then it drops me into the main view which showed how much time I was spending on my phone. I thought. Oh my God, I spent a lot of time on my phone.
I sort of had this moment of. [00:19:00] frustration excitement. frustration because moment was what I had imagined building and it had already been built and so I started researching the company and it was one. One guy, I think he was 26 27. His name is Kevin Holesh and he had built this app all on his own.
He had built this app from scratch and had been had it had grown to millions of users. I said hi Kevin. I love I'm a user of your app and I love what you're doing. I wonder if their ways that I could be helpful. Are you interested in a conversation? and he responded and [00:20:00] we we quickly got to the.
Because the Crux of what I was trying to get to which was Hey, how do we is there a way we can partner up. I didn't know by the way at this point that he lived in a in an RV, but I remember thinking when I first did a video conference with him. I just thought I'd the background behind. That window is gorgeous.
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STEPHANIE
Tim ended up acquiring moment. Kevin became head of product and Tim became CEO.
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TIM
When I left Pinterest there was an article about it. And then you know, like comment on Twitter. Lots of people weighed in about the article about my my leaving and in the article it said that I was leaving to go start a company.
That was going to address technology [00:21:00] addiction and. there was a tweet that someone sent me and the quote and the Tweet was basically: guy who helped create two of the most addictive services out there is now going to help unaddict you. Brilliant.
And.
it was a joke, but it was also true.
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I thought I was I think I read it online and I'm in a newspaper I read about. The question being posed to Mark. Do you think your [00:22:00] platform had any do you think Facebook had any role in Shifting the outcome of the election and he he kind of laughed it off and was pretty to it was dismissive and I had the same reaction.
I thought. yeah, that's that's absurd. That doesn't make any sense.
Overtime right in the in the in the ensuing months. It became very clear that. In fact, the platform had been absolutely utilized to manipulate the election. And Facebook had no idea. At some point Facebook acknowledged. Yeah. Our platform was manipulated. We might have we might have tipped the election.
And we screwed up.
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I think [00:23:00] one of the
things that I leaned on very heavily. For why advertising was a sound business model was that it's been the business model for media for the last hundred plus years. Like I just there isn't like a single Catalyst. I think I started to really realize that unchecked these business models and unchecked in conjunction with the power of artificial intelligence, which is now the ability to look into the hearts and minds of people and.
And pray on their prefrontal cortex such that they become absolutely consumed. [00:24:00] That's part of why you saw Facebook really used to just be about friends and family and Sensational news and and viral and really controversial content and video started to take over the platform. That was the natural byproduct of telling a piece of technology that has control over how the system works and what content gets shown to whom president.
That is the byproduct of telling that technology. Hey get as much time and attention out of that person as. Because the goal that you have artificial intelligence is to get this person to spend more and more and more time on this platform because when they spend more time, we make more money the nature of the business model is such that.
[00:25:00] These Services have to grow user attention unabated for their businesses to stay. Viable, you know, there was no end to engagement. Apart from the number of hours and minutes in a day when Netflix on their earnings calls talks about risk factors or who they compete with. They say with a straight face to sleep and your close relationships.
That's what we compete with.
And that illustrate that illustrates the same thing that's happening with Facebook. Right, which is that they're just eating they're eating all of our time and attention. It has eroded our sleep. It has eroded the time [00:26:00] that we used to spend nurturing relationships.
Free is a lie.
I think then I just was seeing the world through a land of achievement and accumulation of wealth and I really was convinced that if I built a business that was meaningful and really helped Facebook become a franchise company. And I made money in the process. Well, I'd be happy and I feel successful and my life will would have been complete.
What I regret from my time at Facebook is not understanding that the business model that we put in place [00:27:00] necessitate in order to grow it necessitated. Increasing the amount of attention we got from our users. And I regret not. Taking that to its natural extension and imagining what the outcome might be.
You know I screwed up.
I had a role in this I had a role in where we are today. and. as I grow and learn I hopefully will have a role in getting us to a better place.
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STEPHANIE
Part of getting us to a better place meant [00:28:00] deliberately not giving moment an ad based business model instead moments business model offers the basic service for free, but then charges users themselves to access additional services so that the incentives of the company stay aligned with those of its users.
It's a big deal for Tim Kendall architect of the now classic internet ad based business model to not make his company advertising base. And going further to not even take Venture Capital because in the same way that he doesn't want to be beholden to advertisers over users. Tim doesn't want to be beholden to venture capitalists with the expectation of precipitous growth that they have.
But Tim didn't stop at his realization, 's about the ad based business model and Venture Capital. He went further.
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TIM
My old model was whenever I went [00:29:00] back to First principles of like, okay, why is this an issue? I never went below capitalism in terms of like building building back up from first principles.
I always like well, of course, of course you need capitalism. But then what what what what on top of that should change?
Facebook's not the first company to. Pray on the impulses and weaknesses of consumer in order to drive inordinate amount of Revenue and profits. Coca-Cola does this. before that cigarette companies did this. McDonald's does this. And so I'm pointing out the structurally capitalism as its as it exists today allows for [00:30:00] significant amount of harm.
In the name of prophets. and I'm shocked to be saying this because the Tim of three years ago would be I think surprised to hear me say this today, but I think there's some structural flaws in capitalism.
I wouldn't have been caught dead saying that 3 4 5 years ago. Well, it's a it's a pretty darn big shift for me.
So I think there's been a I think there's been a backdrop of a realization around the flaw and capitalism and then a specific realization that. wow. Facebook and these other online advertising businesses are. In that same bucket.
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[00:31:00] Will we give people a set of tools for free so anyone can sign up today and develop that initial understanding and awareness of just how much they use their? And then the second part of the experience is we have what we call a coach, which is really just a program a series of exercises that really help people sort of begin to understand.
Why am I using my phone so much what are the underlying thoughts and feelings that create this behavior that I don't like those examples of those thoughts and feelings is maybe I'm maybe I'm feeling bored. Maybe I'm feeling lonely. Maybe I'm feeling sad and when those triggers arise my default is to get on my phone.
[00:32:00] And so we coach people on how to come up with Alternatives so that when those triggers come up my pavlovian reaction is not okay get on my phone. Escape it's go outside. Go for a walk call my. Do something more in the interest of my psychological well-being than this this false antidote that the phone provides which actually tends to make that bad feeling worse.
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STEPHANIE
So Tim and I met at an event hosted by the center for Humane technology. The center for Humane technology is at the Forefront of reversing the digital attention crisis. And a lot of people at the organization including its Brave founder and my dear friend Tristan Harris were technology insiders and a lot of people at the event where Tim and I met still our [00:33:00] technology insiders who have contributed to the state of the world that were in Steve Wozniak founder of Apple was there.
Justin Rosenstein who I worked with closely at Facebook and is the inventor of the like button Evan Sharp the founder of Pinterest was there. The the inventor the inventor of the hashtag. I think they all feel a sense of. I think they're concerned. I feel think they feel a sense of obligation. I think they feel like they in some way need to be on this Leading Edge of change
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when you start a company you are the underdog you are on every measure in the David and Goliath Parable.
[00:34:00] You are David and you feel that every day. And so what it leads to is a drive and it in a conviction in trying to win especially for a bunch of type A people. Who want to want to have impact and want to win and I think one of the things that you see happened and I think this happened at Facebook, I think by the way, I think it happened in stays that boober is that when you are David and you're in his shoes?
And you're coming to work every day as the underdog it's really hard to. Realize the point in time where you become Goliath. That point in time when you become Goliath in your industry your [00:35:00] responsibility changes. And your disposition should change and your societal responsibilities change. You are no longer the scrappy underdogs.
You're the dominant and come back. I think what's missing from a lot of these companies is taking stock of where they are on that Continuum and there was a point at which Facebook did start to become more dominant. And I think that's when it's it's appropriate for it to change. And I think what you see in their behavior and how the company's being lad is that it
[00:36:00] didn't.
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STEPHANIE
Something people struggle with in this moment of Reckoning with technology is the intention of Technology entrepreneur. Are their intentions good or evil for those of us who don't believe they have evil intentions. What do we do with the fact that non malicious intentions have led to such malicious outcomes.
What do we do with the fact that consequences may have been unintended but may have also been predictable. My favorite piece of philosophy of technology is an article by Langdon winner called do artifacts have politics. It starts like this "in controversies about technology and Society. There is no idea more provocative than the notion that technical things have political qualities. At issue is the claim [00:37:00] that the machines structures and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions of efficiency and productivity, not merely for their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power And Authority."
do artifacts have politics is a beautiful piece of writing and still prescient even though it was written in 1980 and it speaks to the fact that look, we are surrounded by claims that artifacts the internet social media Facebook inherently have politics. Facebook itself is destroying democracy.
It's destroying our families. It's destroying our mental and emotional well-being. That's called technological determinism. The flipside is of course the notion that a Technology's impact is entirely driven [00:38:00] by the social system didn't. That Facebook is just a neutral tool that's being exploited by that actors whether they be Venture capitalists or the Kremlin.
That's called social determinism. And what Langdon winner invites us to see is that in most cases neither technological determinism nor social determinism is very helpful For understanding how artifacts how technologies have politics. so how do we understand the politics of Facebook and social media and the internet?
Well, you'll just have to read the article but I will leave you with this: the context in which Technologies are developed does contribute to the political impact they have. Which is why so many conversations about technology these [00:39:00] days end up at the structural flaws in capitalism. Some people would say that the structural flaws in capitalism has so much bearing on how Technologies develop that it almost doesn't even matter what the intentions of Technology leaders are because they are so constrained.
It is their fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value at all cost. which for many of these companies means maximizing engagement. But to that I'd say to Jack Dorsey and Evan Spiegel and Susan Wojcicki And of course Mark Zuckerberg, I'd Echo Tim in saying: you are Goliath and not just in the US tech industry.
You are Goliath in our global economy. You have the power to change the context in which your Technologies develop you could change the system [00:40:00] that prevents you from having the kind of impact. Do you say you want to have. I understand no industry has ever initiated its own evolution in this way.
But that's precisely why using your power to change the context in which you operate so that you don't have to compete with sleep and our closest relationships would be truly disruptive. And that would be going Way Beyond Goliath.
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TIM
you know over the past year or so I have.
I've been playing in the back. I've just been these moments where I've been playing in the backyard with my kids and just experiencing a moment of joy, and I've had these moments where I thought God. Maybe this is just what it's all about.
I think they're probably people who hear that and say [00:41:00] yeah, like obviously this is what it's all about, but wasn't so obvious to me. Rewind four years ago three years ago when I'm in the backyard with with with my kids in the same. You know vignette. and I'm thinking. God this is a waste of time. I really should be.
Working on my email. so different.
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STEPHANIE
Tim Kendall is the CEO of moment. Yes an app but one that helps you use your phone less and live your life more Americans spend an average of four hours a day on their phone. And so far Moment is given an average of one hour a [00:42:00] day back to millions of people. Tim and I are going to be speaking together at The Institute for the future.
Her in Palo Alto on Thursday, September 26. For more information go to Facebook. Just getting go to reckonings.show/episodes/25, and yes, the event will also be on the reckonings Facebook page
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big thank yous go to David Roswell for your generous support
to the Center for Humane technology for your Monumental work to realign technology with humanity and for being my connection to Tim.
Howard Rheingold for your unending inspiration
to those of you who shared your editorial insight: Helena de Groot, Allie Wollner, Patricia Adler, and Phil Groman
and to some of our friends on patreon you too can join this list of esteem supporters at patreon.com/reckonings: Abigail Farrell, Greg Berguig, Trevor Stutz, Tibet Sprague, Kenny, Allston, Kyle Studstill, P Foster, Laffrey Witbrod, Jordan A Patterson, and Christoffer
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I'm Stephanie Lepp and if you made it all the way here, let me give one more Thank you to you for listening to Reckonings.
