Entrepreneur Profile: Richard Saul Wurman of TED, “Don’t Worry about Pleasing Others”
Telling It Like It Is(Photo: Kev/null)
TED founder and chair, Richard Wurman: Abrasive but Charming
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“I’m not interested in making money, but I’m particularly interested in not losing money.”
The founder and the original chair of the TED Conference (www.ted.com), Richard Wurman, gives an incredibly candid interview about the conference and his own professional journey. He also shares some clear-cut maxims that have guided his career, including:
• The power of truth
• Practical reasoning
• Do good work
• Do not worry about pleasing others
At 73, Richard Wurman, the founder of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, is a prolific author and a champion of innovation. He has taken the event around the globe from New York City to Kobe, Japan.
Speakers assemble from a wide variety of communities and disciplines and past attendees have included: former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
He left the conference in 2002, but his work is far from done. He continues to write and is currently spearheading the 19.20.21. project. Amazing guy.
Website: www.wurman.com, www.192021.org
Transcript
R: Sure, there’s a huge difference between TED Talks and actually being there. And, so face-to-face meetings with people are better than, by a wide margin, than anything else we have.
RW: We’re getting better and better ways of interfacing and there’s a lot of things between HP and Cisco, there’s a lot of systems for conferencing that make you feel more and more like you’re there. They’re very expensive and its really, this kind of interview would be very good that way if you one of those systems. But you know, they’re 50-60 thousand dollars to step up and you have to have them in both places. So, its not like just two fax machines. So, I can talk to you about some stuff, and from what you’ve already said you probably thought of it all already. I mean you said, telling stories, and telling the truth, and having a nice network and friends. The big thing is just always telling the truth.
CK: Yes
RW: Its often overlooked because most people don’t tell the truth. I mean, you look at the presidential candidates, they don’t tell the truth. This is not a pejorative against these people, its just they can’t. A CEO of a company doesn’t tell the truth. Some innovative person who is trying to sell their product isn’t telling the truth most the time. They exaggerate, or they don’t tell you the downside, or they don’t tell you how terrified they are. [???] TED was, it was an attempt when I ran TED for about 20 years to always tell the truth. From [???] not to have people who didn’t tell the truth. And I found that was deceptively powerful.
[5:00m]
CK: Deceptively powerful, that’s actually a really profound statement.
RW: But there’s a lot of things you’re asking me a question that is not a trivial question.
CK: Right, sure sure.
RW: And if I had the silver bullet, I would have done a lot more things in my life.
CK: Got it.
[5:30m]
RW: I don’t have the silver bullet, so besides what I’ve already said, the biggest motivation to getting anything done is wanting to do it very badly, and I mean very badly. And that isn’t ambition and that’s not to be confused with ambition. Just really wanting to do good work and wanting to do it so badly that its more important than other things. So, and I’m not talking more important than eating or any of that stuff, I’m not doing that kind of… It becomes singular in what you do at that moment. I think its also important to let go, I’ve done a lot of books, I’ve done over eighty books and a number of people say, “Well which is your favorite?” God, I don’t give a shit, you know, once its done, its over, I let go, its the next thing. I don’t carry luggage. There just an awful lot of woowoo talk, and I’m not a woowoo person. That’s how I get through a day, and my ideas and my life. Now, I’m not proselytizing, I really don’t care so much about other people. And I don’t care if they do what I do or not. I mean it really does not matter to me. It just doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter to me at TED whether the audience liked the speaker or not. It didn’t matter to me what they thought of me. What mattered to me is doing good work. Doing it the best I knew how. That’s all. I’m not trying to please anybody. I’m not trying to please you now.
CK: You know sir, actually one definition of charisma is that one person is totally committed but really not attached to whatever the outcome is. So I think what you just said is simplistic but really profound.
RW: I don’t even feel I’m sharing it, its just my day. [CK: Laughs] Somebody asks me to, some British magazine, recently, asked me for the five [???] most influenced me in my life. I put it aside, I didn’t want to answer it. Then they sent me the magazine, it was a beautiful magazine. I forget the name of the magazine but it was beautifully produced. The people who did it had such care, they really cared. So I said, “Oh alright, I’ll try.” And didn’t know how to think of what influenced me, what were the influences in my life? And the first one I came up with, and the other four kind of danced around it. What the biggest continuing influence in my life is the acceptance, and, well the recognition and acceptance of how ignorant I am. And there’s nothing that influences me more, any day, than that tango that I have between, [???], an hour by hour tango between my curiosity and my ignorance. And I thought they were gonna think, I thought they wanted really something else from me. And it turns out they liked it. They wrote back and said, “Gee we really love what you said.” And I was surprised because I thought it was a little, not really corny, but it didn’t fit with the magazine and people were talking about these people who influenced them and style and the motivation of making the world a better place and all that shit. And it seemed they understood what I was saying. I don’t know if they really did or not, but it seemed like they did. You never really know. I don’t know if you understand a thing I’m saying now. One because I can’t see you, and two who knows what anybody is thinking. I don’t. And when you accept that you can’t, then you don’t try.
[10:00m]
CK: So thanks for once again saying what you said. Richard, so I know that you have a loot of wisdom from your background and experience and all the research.
RW: I’m old is why I have wisdom.
CK: Say again.
RW: Because I’m so fucking old that’s why I have wisdom.
CK: [laughs] That’s right, that’s the prerequisite of being a wise old guy.
R: It can help.
CK: Yes. So, just very briefly though, can you tell us the history of TED.
RW: There is no history of TED that’s ever been written. That’s a good project for somebody some day. There’s some apocryphal stories I’ve told, and one of them was, in the early 80s I was traveling a lot and I would have kind of airplane seat conversations with a lot of people and the only individuals that had some interesting projects were people in three areas of concern. Well, three areas of occupation, three occupational areas, and that was the technology business, the entertainment industry and the design profession. T-E-D. But what none of them discerned that when they had a project that was really good they leaned heavily on the other two, they just didn’t see that pattern. It was pretty clear to me the pattern of those connections. So, I put it together and said, “Well it would be interesting to talk about projects that were the convergence of technology, entertainment and design.” And that convergence nobody had talked about before. Oh I’m sure people thought about it, but they hadn’t really publicly made it a, hadn’t sort of masterpiece’d the idea. So I put on a meeting, it was a terrific meeting. Very few people came because they didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. And I wouldn’t do it again.
CK: You would not do it again?
R: I would not do it again.
CK: Oh ok.
R: And I lost money. And over the years after 1984 for a number of years I started doing OK financially and people who had been to the first one had started kind of a whisper and I’d meet people here and there and they said, “Do it again.” In different ways, I decided to try it one more time. And the second time people by then knew what I was talking about and it was successful and then successful after that. But it was very tough to begin it and I lost money then I didn’t lose money. I’m not interested in making money, but I am particularly interested in not losing money.
CK: Right, I understand.
[15:00m]
R: So, I’m not looking for a get rich quick scheme, but I am, I really don’t like to do things that make me come out leaner than I go into them. And so people seemed to really all of a sudden understand it, you know it was a Eureka moment.
CK: And what year was that? When that eureka moment happened.
R: 1990.
CK: And that was the first year?
R: That was the second. ’84 I waited six years and did it in 1990. Then I did it every year. Sometimes a couple a year. Then I did one in Japan and one in New York. I did TEDMed and I did one in Toronto. It seemed like I could do no wrong. In my network I could invite almost anybody and they came. And I was sort of king for a few days every year. Then I thought, Jesus, I have done enough of them and I felt [...] but I always started things again. I sell some companies and sold my guidebook company AccessPress, and another company, the Understanding Business Conference, and two other conferences I started, one [???], one TEDMed. You know after a certain point I figure, once I figure out how to do it its not so interesting anymore. Then I kept on reinventing every year and I did one that was simply The Greatest Design Conference That Ever Was was what I called it. Another one was called [???], another was called Geeks and Geezers, everybody was over 70 or under 30. [???] And then I did the TEDMed conferences and they were interesting because I started doing a lot of medical books. And so I just kept doing [???] trying to keep myself interested. Its a really simple story.
CK: Well, so, it is a simple story sir, but I’m sure obviously you’ve done it very very well and you were able to actually broaden it into other scopes.
RW: Well, I said I always try to do good work. You know I really try to do good work; its not worth doing if you don’t do it well.
CK: So I have two questions, two follow up questions for you. One is: you know, for the people who are listening to you right now, starting a community is a rather difficult task. For us, you know, maybe its easy for you now given your track record, so its easy. And you also have a huge Rolodex so you can call people on these things. But for people who are starting out their community…
R: Again, if you’re wanting to do it [???] so we have a bigger Rolodex. Or, you know, you have to have some innate things. I’m sort of abrasive but charming.
CK: [laughs]
R: You have to know yourself. I mean, I have to be able to say that about myself. If you don’t feel comfortable in your skin then how do you expect anybody to feel comfortable with you?
CK: This is good. This is good, thanks.
RW: There’s no big plan. There’s just a great desire. [pauses] So that’s it. I didn’t try nor would I ever try to start a community. I wouldn’t self-consciously try to do anything like that.
CK: Say a little bit more please.
RW: It was not my goal to set up a TED community. It is the new owner’s goal. But it wasn’t my goal and it would never be my goal. [pauses] It just happened. When I do a book called understanding health care, I’m not trying to change the health care industry, I’m trying to understand it myself. [pauses] When I do a guidebook to Tokyo, its because I want to, I’m not trying to make people’s lives easier when they travel to Tokyo, or make the city understandable to them. It was so it was understandable to me because I found myself going there. And there was nothing I could use. When I did a road atlas to America its because I didn’t like the one that was out. I’m very simple motivation. I mean obviously it sounds obsessive, and it is somewhat, but, I do it. I mean I understand when you collapse it how obsessive it sounds, but it really isn’t. I mean, I’m 73 years old I have permission(?) over those years to do a bunch of stuff.
[20:00m]
CK: Ok, well that actually… No this is actually really good thank you. The second question that I have is…
RW: Second question is your last question.
CK: My last question.
RW: Make it a good question.
CK: It will be a very good question, I hope. My personal obsession is how we can actually accelerate the process of innovation. So the way I look at this is through collaboration. I really think that given the technology we have today, new technology happens all the time but a lot of people reinvent the wheel and a lot of people don’t know what other people are doing. And by making information more accessible and that people are more willing to collaborate when the incentives align. So, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what communities, I’m sorry, conferences like TED, would communities like TED and the various other conferences that you have put together. How do you think it is impacting the speed of innovation.
RW: Well, [long pause] my life, every year at TED I would at some time or another, not terribly planned but it would come up and I would always do it, I would say, turn to the audience walk to the front, because I was always on the stage. And I would turn around and walk up to the front and say, in a rather effusive way with my hands stretched out sometimes, trying to paint you a picture. I would say, “I love television. I absolutely love television.” Now why did I say that? One its true, that I do love television. And two because it was a no no because you were not supposed to say you love television if you watch a lot of it. In the sense, its supposed to be, you know people are above it. I certainly have met people saying, “Oh we never watch television.” or “We don’t have a television set.” as a way of showing how intelligent they are. Have you ever met anybody like that? Huh?
CK: Umm, no.
R: Well, its not uncommon really, you’ll see when it comes up. Now why is that an answer to your question? Because of the sheer amount of information and understandable things that I can get off of the television now from when I was a child with a little 10 inch black and white screen that had two channels. Two network shows. And most of the day was taken up with test patterns and we thought it was incredible when test patterns had music to them. You probably don’t even know what a test pattern is. It was a screen that had radiating lines so you could see if your set was tuned in and it was, you could see the lines separately and they weren’t fuzzy.
CK: Oh ok, alright.
R: And that was on your set most of the day. Anyway, the amount that I can learn in a day, I have 240 hour TIVOs like things connected to my main television set. I have one two three four five six seven, ones on in my office now, eight TVs around my house.
CK: Wow.
RW: And I record things all the time and they are very large. All the nature channels, all these technological channels, boxing, I like boxing. All the travel programs, archaeological things, all those things. And I go through them fast forward in the evening for two or three or four hours. So I get to see all of them, don’t watch the ads. But I take in a lot and I remember it. Now that is enormous change from when I was first, first had a television set when I was 10 or 11 years old.
[25:00m]
In a way, I’ve certainly learned more in my life off the television set than I ever did in any class or any group of classes I’ve ever taken in any junior high school, high school or college. When I did the conference I did in Tokyo, sorry in Kobe not Tokyo, the one I did in Kobe in ’93 I think it was. [coughs] the only possible way I could say yes to the Japanese [???] there, and it was only the fourth TED. TED4 Kobe. The only way I could do it was because of the fact they had a fax machine and I had a fax machine. Fax machines had just come out a couple years before and all of a sudden everybody had a fax machine. And the hour difference, the 12 hour difference, meant that I sent faxes all day to them and then all night my fax machine ran and I read them in the morning and then I sent faxes back to them. Couldn’t talk to anybody on the phone. The language was to much of a problem and you had no record of it and the time difference would be, nobody would sleep. So the fax machine changed the ability to innovate, come up with ideas, and respond to other people. Television set allows you to visualize things, fax machine allows you to communicate in different time zones very easily and send some pictures, simple black and white pictures to begin with. And now email allows me to do some books, like Understanding Health Care, very very fancy project. I mean it cost like a million dollars to do the book. And the people who worked on it, nobody knew more than about four or five pages in the book and they worked on it all over the United States and I sent the rules and they sent the images back to me and I assembled everything and they didn’t really understand the book until it came out. But I did. And I could do it with an office of two people and maybe 100 people around the United States. The communication allowed me to do things I couldn’t do before. Now my new big project, did you look at my flash site 192021?
CK: Yes.
RW: That new project is a [???] project. There’s going to be 19 urban observatories, 19 conferences going on around the world. There’s going to be a television series, and there’s going to be a big exhibit opening in Singapore and thirty some books that come out of it. Well, we couldn’t have done that without the Internet. Without the means of doing a site like that flash site. In about a month and half or so we have a hundred other, a deck of a hundred other images that are going on of film that we produced with Radical Media. And its also a means of getting funding for it because you can communicate a very sophisticated a very large idea in new ways. So, the communication systems change the ability of what you can think up, I couldn’t think up an idea like that because hwy bother thinking up an idea that couldn’t happen. The fact that I know that it can happen because of these various communication technologies I can think of ideas like that. I mean that’s a very big idea that one. That’s a 50 million dollar funding is what we’re going to be doing for that. Its not a small idea. I have an office of one person, Melissa, who is half the time my secretary and half the time my wife’s secretary. That’s my whole staff.
CK: Wow.
RW: Now I get two or three emails a week. That’s not many. But two or three very serious long emails from people around the world because somehow they’ve seen 192021 site and I’m not linked to anybody. It’s not even on my homepage. So, you can do things that you couldn’t even dream of doing before. At least I can. And its most big effect on doing these things, the speed and way I can do it. The community you talk about. The ability to pull together a virtual project, a virtual office, a virtual staff, is because of, I embrace anything that’s possible to get some words around. But its not a fancy project. I don’t teach, I don’t give very many lectures, I’m not on the circuit, I don’t have a PR person, I don’t have an agent, I don’t have a publisher and never have. I don’t have a distributor. I don’t advertise.
