The "So What?" Mindset

`0:24:46`

Actually, beyond not fun boring. I don't even know what would be beyond that, but I'm not interested in that at all. I'd rather spend the money making the thing I make better. That is the thing I'm here for, not to squeeze an extra 100 grand out of something or an extra million out of something. I don't care. It doesn't matter. There's a point where you're doing well enough where it shouldn't matter anymore. Now, that might make me a bad CEO. Maybe someone else would come into my business and double the business overnight. That might be totally true, and I'm willing to accept that that's the case. My answer would be, so what? I don't care. — I don't even think you think of yourself as a... And there goes the "so what" again. — You asked for it. — No, I don't think you can help yourself. I don't think you think of yourself as a CEO. I don't. I don't actually even like the term, frankly. — Okay. — Like, executive officer?

`0:25:32`

What? Of what? I make products. I run the company with David. David and I run it together. I don't need the CEO. — How do you say... — Chief Executive Officer. Of what, again? Like, of what? We make decisions. That's what we do. We make decisions. We make products. We hire great people that we like. We find people with zero drama. We put together a team. We set out to make things. We take really good care of people, really good care of our customers. We make good products that we really like. Great products, hopefully, right? I've got to leave a little bit of room there for some humility. We can always make better products, so I'm not going to call our products fantastic. They are good, great. There's always room for making those better. But as far as being a CEO and whatever that's supposed to mean,

`0:26:20`

I don't know what the hell that means. Yesterday, I answered 200 emails from my customers. Some people would say that's irresponsible for a CEO to spend their time emailing customers. I think it's the best thing you can do. — Yeah. — But I don't think of myself as a CEO. — I would say, whoever says that's not a good use of your time... — A lot of people say it, dude. — Yeah, but they need to listen to Founders because they're all like this. — Yes. — The best entrepreneurs- — Yes. — and founders in history- — Yeah. — and I think that what me and you bond over is exactly that. All I care about is products. I don't care about anything else. — Yes. — I think the way you think of yourself is a designer. — Yeah. — Is that correct? — Yes. Sure. — Okay. Little presumptuous. I think of it... Yes, fine. — You're not a presumptuous person. I didn't mean it that way. — I know you didn't. — Yeah, but when I talk to you, it's like you've just designed everything in your life. — I like to make things. — Yeah. — I'll just say that.

`0:27:07`

You're a very thoughtful guy, and you see how much thought you put into the design of everything in your life. It just happens you've also put a lot of thought into designing products in the business. Again, to fit exactly who you are as a person. — Yeah, as best I can. I mean, I have a family, and I have kids, and you don't always get things the way you want them to be, right? — Yeah. — But you do your best, and you live within a system that you're proud of and happy with, and that's, I think, a big part of it. — The best founders, I see this over and over again, they're always... You said something about the thickness of the envelope and all this stuff that's between the person running the company and the customer. — Yeah. — You have to make that as small or almost non-existent as possible. One of my favorite examples is this. — Yeah. — This example from over a hundred years ago, Jim Casey, the founder of UPS. — Uh-huh. What he realized is he had all these executives.