Joe Gebbia Interview | The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss 0:00 Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Gebbia 0:02 Tim, thank you so much, buddy. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 0:04 Yeah, man. I'm so excited to finally have you here, so thanks for flying out.

Joe Gebbia 0:09 Of course. My pleasure.

Tim Ferriss 0:10 Here we are in Tejas. And where to begin? I mean, we've had the opportunity to get to know each other over the last while, which has been super fun. We've had some unique peak experiences, which I'll leave nebulous just so everyone's really uncomfortable with that statement.

Joe Gebbia 0:23 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 0:24 [laughs] And, uh, where to begin? We were talking about this. I was having excessive numbers of macchiatos earlier while I was watching you eat your French toast. And, uh, I think the question to start with is what is your first memory of causing trouble or getting into trouble?

Joe Gebbia 0:42 [laughs] Well, um, let's see. To go back, I think it would probably be around second grade 'cause, uh, second grade ... Well, you have to understand, um, when I was young, I was really into art and was into drawing, and around the second grade, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out. Right, like-

Tim Ferriss 1:06 Big deal

Joe Gebbia 1:06 ... big deal. I was totally hooked. Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, everybody, like, I was, I was in it. And so I started drawing them, and I just had such a good time drawing them that I would show them to my classmates, I remember, in the second grade, and my classmates started to wanna buy them from me.

Tim Ferriss 1:24 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:25 And so I would mount them on this, like, really special poster board, and I'd come into class and, like, I would be selling these for the total of $1. If you wanted to get a big one, I would sell you the bigger ones for $2. And so I was having a ball, um, doing what I loved, making drawings. My classmates, I'm, like, making extra, you know, allowance every week. I'm like, $1 is a lot of money when you're in second grade.

Tim Ferriss 1:48 It's a big deal.

Joe Gebbia 1:49 It's a big deal. And so, uh, I, at one point, the, it's, my teacher pulls me aside and she says, "I need to talk to you," and she begins to explain to me that students were so interested in these drawings that they were asking their parents for extra lunch money, and their parents are like, "What do you need the extra lunch money for?" And they traced it back to me and they-

Tim Ferriss 2:08 Oh, no

Joe Gebbia 2:08 ... the teacher shut me down.

Tim Ferriss 2:09 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:10 Said, "You can't be doing this."

Tim Ferriss 2:12 All right, so already signs of looming misbehavior. Uh-

Joe Gebbia 2:20 Yeah, and, and signs of, of, uh, you know, spotting an opportunity and doing something about it.

Tim Ferriss 2:24 And entrepreneurship.

Joe Gebbia 2:25 Yeah. Yeah, it was also, you know, you could say my first brush with regulation.

Tim Ferriss 2:29 Yeah. [laughs] Right. First brush. That, that, that may or may not-

Joe Gebbia 2:35 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:35 ... come in handy later.

Joe Gebbia 2:36 Maybe.

Tim Ferriss 2:37 And where were you at the time? Just place us geographically. Where did you grow up?

Joe Gebbia 2:43 Uh, my parents are from New York. Uh, wa- my grandfather's heritage back in Italy and Ireland, grandfather's in Brooklyn, parents grew up in Long Island, moved to, to Georgia right before they had me, so I grew up in the Deep South, and that was in, you know, the town of Lawrenceville, which is next to Snellville, which is near Lilburn, which is not far from Norcross, which is kinda close to Atlanta.

Tim Ferriss 3:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 3:06 So if you went, you know, an hour in one direction, you'd, you'd be in, you know, farm fields and, you know, horse ranches and, um, it'd be, uh, you know ... It wa- it was, it was the South-

Tim Ferriss 3:19 Right

Joe Gebbia 3:19 ... in a, in every kinda way.

Tim Ferriss 3:21 So you're selling these drawings. Now, where did that impulse come from? And I ask because I've had the chance to spend some time with your dad.

Joe Gebbia 3:32 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 3:33 Awesome guy.

Joe Gebbia 3:34 That's true. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 3:34 We were together at a Date With Destiny event, and you had the very good idea of basically creating Animal House by renting a house together on JoeBnB, otherwise known as Airbnb, and your dad's awesome, A. Also seems to be very entrepreneurial, uh, so that's why I'm asking. I'm not implying it came straight from your dad, but, uh, could you maybe talk about that and then also what were, what were some defining characteristics of your childhood?

Joe Gebbia 4:12 Well, certainly both my parents, including my dad, were very entrepreneurial. They, they both worked for themselves growing up, so I had, I had this, um, you know, environment where I saw my parents forging their own path, sort of their success was fully dependent on how hard they worked and how ambitious they were in, in their, their careers of what they were doing. And my dad certainly was entrepreneurial, you know. He was always coming home with something on the weekend saying, "I've got this new product idea," "I've got this new service I found," and, and, um, you know, our, our basement was full of these different attempts at different things. Um, so there was this, this spirit of trying things out-

Tim Ferriss 4:49 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 4:49 ... by all means, in our household.

Tim Ferriss 4:51 What were some of the things that your dad tried?

Joe Gebbia 4:53 Oh, God. Um, I don't know. Some early internet things in the mid-'90s as the internet started to come out. Um, you know, s- I, I don't actually, don't remember-

Tim Ferriss 5:03 What were some of the things that caught? W- what did he, what did he end up doing?

Joe Gebbia 5:06 [laughs] Um, well, he ended up working with my mom.

Tim Ferriss 5:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 5:12 And, uh, they both were in the health food industry, so when you go into Whole Foods and you see, you know, vitamins and supplements in the vitamin aisle, they were the representative between the manufacturer of those products and getting it into the shelf of those stores.

Tim Ferriss 5:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 5:24 It was, interesting was to tag along with, with them on business trips where they'd drive around the South from South Carolina to Tennessee to, uh, Alabama, and getting to see how they interacted with the store owners, 'cause it wasn't just Whole Foods. It was the, also the mom and pop vitamin stores as well. Right?

Tim Ferriss 5:43 The independents.

Joe Gebbia 5:43 The independents. And so, um, it was really fascinating was watching them interact with the store owners and just seeing how far they would go to serve people. You know, we ... I remember one time specifically we were in Tennessee, and it was really late at night. Uh, all the other store employees had gone home. It's my dad, myself, and the store manager, and we're sitting there stocking shelves. We're like-

Tim Ferriss 6:07 So this is Tennessee?

Joe Gebbia 6:09 Yeah. We're doing somebody else's job. But, uh, for my dad, it was just about creating a connection with, with the store owner, and really, I guess, going above and beyond what was required of you. And so I really took away from that, those, you know, obs- observations of watching how, how your parents treat people. Um, you know, there's just ... It was really nice to see, and it definitely planted a seed in me of, of like, you know, going out of your way for those that you're serving.

Tim Ferriss 6:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 6:35 For your customers.

Tim Ferriss 6:36 Was it your, was it your dad's idea to bring you along? Did you ask to be brought along?

Joe Gebbia 6:40 That's a good question.

Tim Ferriss 6:40 Or something else?

Joe Gebbia 6:41 I don't know.

Tim Ferriss 6:42 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 6:42 I don't know yet.

Tim Ferriss 6:43 I remember the, the very first morning in the house that we rented-

Joe Gebbia 6:51 Yes

Tim Ferriss 6:51 ... in Florida. We had heard of Date With Destiny being nicknamed by some people Date With Death, because the schedule was so intense, right?

Joe Gebbia 7:03 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 7:04 Uh, 12, 16, God knows how many hours. It's up to, up to the powers that be, the big man, and so on. And it can be very hard to get food. It can be very hard to get a break, and even if you do get a break, maybe there's a line of th- 300 people from 60 countries waiting to get a chicken wrap, so you're not gonna get your chicken wrap. And so we had stocked up with bars and mixed nuts and yogurt and jerky and everything imaginable, and it was scattered all over the place. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 7:44 [laughs] That's-

Tim Ferriss 7:45 It was in perfect order.

Joe Gebbia 7:47 Right.

Tim Ferriss 7:48 It was ready for a storefront, and I was just like, "Did you do that?" To my, to my friend Naveen. He's like, "No, I definitely didn't do that."

Joe Gebbia 7:54 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 7:54 I ... And then I knew Amelia hadn't done it. And I was like, "Who did?" And then I was like, "Oh." Then Joe Senior was like, "Would you like some eggs? I'm happy I'm making some eggs. Would you like some ..." I was like, "Wow."

Joe Gebbia 8:05 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 8:06 Wow, yeah. So it makes sense, it makes sense, that attention to detail.

Joe Gebbia 8:09 You, you got a little taste of it-

Tim Ferriss 8:10 Oh, it was great

Joe Gebbia 8:11 ... that morning.

Tim Ferriss 8:11 I was, I was thrilled. Uh, what else did you, what else did you experience in childhood that, that stuck with you? And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll lead with one thing that I originally asked you all about and when we initially spent time together. Also related [laughs] to Tony Robbins. Like, Tony's the glue that holds us together, which I didn't expect to really be verbalizing, but it seems, at least up to this point, that he's been a, a, a, a s- a consistent character in the background or in the foreground. He's a big dude, hard to miss. But we began talking about tennis, because I had just taken my first ever tennis lessons, uh, with Jim Lair and, uh, Lorenzo Beltrame, an incredible coach down in Florida. B- but you were wearing a, uh, Nick Bollettieri or Bollettieri Academy shirt, and I knew just enough, having read the Open autobiography by Andre Agassi, to recognize the name, so I asked you about it. Uh, so it seems like tennis was certain- certainly something that was also-

Joe Gebbia 9:21 Oh, my God

Tim Ferriss 9:22 ... part of the family.

Joe Gebbia 9:22 Oh.

Tim Ferriss 9:22 So maybe you could talk to that.

Joe Gebbia 9:23 We had a tennis family, you could say. I think that's what they called that at the time, where every member of the family plays tennis.

Tim Ferriss 9:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 9:29 We did coaching together. We played in Alta and USTA together. We did, um, competitions together, and it was a, truly a family sport growing up. Um, and so tennis was a huge part of my life as a kid, amongst a lot of other sports. And I think that's, of things that stood out to me of, of childhood and things that, one of the things I'm really grateful for is, is that whatever my interests were, my, my parents would support it. Um, and I think they learned this lesson the hard way. Um-

Tim Ferriss 10:00 How so?

Joe Gebbia 10:02 They, they got me into, uh, violin when I was really young, when I was, like, about four or five years old.

Tim Ferriss 10:08 Which you were interested or not interested in?

Joe Gebbia 10:10 No. I, I mean, no.

Tim Ferriss 10:11 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 10:13 And so I was taking violin lessons, and there's a recital that ... I, I don't remember how old I was, maybe six. And I'm at this recital, it's in Savannah, Georgia. I'm sorry, Augusta, Georgia. And I'm definitely out of my depths here. Like, all the kids are bigger than me. I'm, I'm not being able to keep up with everyone else who's playing. And apparently, I sat down on the front of the stage and just put my violin down.

Tim Ferriss 10:39 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 10:40 And there's my parents in the back, probably with a terrified look on their face. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 10:45 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 10:47 And after that experience, they switched their perspective and said, "We're gonna support whatever his intrinsic interests are."

Tim Ferriss 10:54 Right.

Joe Gebbia 10:55 And so I was really grateful for that, y- you know, throughout my, my childhood. Sports, music, and art were the three things that, uh, any time I threw my weight behind something, they were right there to support me, whether it was with a, you know, practice le- a sports practice or sports equipment or, um, music lessons or art supplies. Whatever the thing was, they were there to, to support me in it.

Tim Ferriss 11:18 What, if not violin, where did you gravitate-

Joe Gebbia 11:22 Well, what's funny-

Tim Ferriss 11:23 ... towards in, in music?

Joe Gebbia 11:24 ... is in the violin lessons, I do remember this, this part, I was so eager to finish the violin less- violin lessons that I could go bang on the piano-

Tim Ferriss 11:33 Ah

Joe Gebbia 11:33 ... that was in the same music room, and sure enough, I started taking piano lessons, and I've, I've played ever since.

Tim Ferriss 11:39 Cool. So you still play?

Joe Gebbia 11:40 I do. Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 11:40 Nice.

Joe Gebbia 11:40 I've got a piano at home, and it's, like, one of those things, uh, you know, it's the first thing I do when I get home at the end of the day, is I just go jam on the piano. I, I either play some of my favorite music from Thelonious Monk or Dave Brubeck, or I just make stuff up and kinda riff.

Tim Ferriss 11:58 What other entrepreneurial experiences do you recall from elementary school or high school after you got the kibosh thrown on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Joe Gebbia 12:09 [laughs] Yeah, that certainly wasn't the end. You know, I I distinctly remember a whole bunch of things from, part of the common stuff, right? Like, I started a lawn mowing business in my neighborhood. So I'd, I'd put around f- flyers on people's doors in my neighborhood and offered, um, lawn mowing and car washing. And so, you know, I'd go mow, mow a lawn for 20 bucks.

Tim Ferriss 12:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 12:32 Um, and that, that just was quick money in my pocket as a, as a kid. Um, kind of getting into high school, there was, uh, one moment where senior year came around, and the s- the senior year T-shirt that they did at my high school, it, it was b- it was pretty uninspiring. Let's just call it that.

Tim Ferriss 12:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 12:52 And I thought, "You know, I, I bet I could do something better than that." At this point, I just got my first Mac, my first Apple computer, and it had Photoshop on it, and Illustrator, and the graphics software that you needed to, to make, you know, visuals. And so, um, I s- that's when it, was actually one of my introductions to Photoshop, was I just redesigned the T-shirt. And I didn't have any money, really, other than the lawn mowing money that was coming in. And, um, I figured out how to get these T-shirts made. I went to a local printer, um, figured out how to do all the, transfer the files to them, and suddenly, I, I'm, I'm sitting on about 300 T-shirts, and I realize I gotta go sell these things.

Tim Ferriss 13:32 Okay, got it. So you took it upon yourself to redesign the, was it the high school T-shirt?

Joe Gebbia 13:39 Yeah, like, the s- the senior-

Tim Ferriss 13:40 The senior-

Joe Gebbia 13:40 ... the gra- like, the senior T-shirt. Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 13:41 The senior T-shirt.

Joe Gebbia 13:42 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 13:42 And then went out, and now you have a bunch of inventory.

Joe Gebbia 13:47 And I got a bunch of inventory, and I gotta go sell them. Um, which would come up again later-

Tim Ferriss 13:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 13:51 ... in another story. Um, but yeah, it was, it was, it was fun. And actually, I remember, uh, I did better than break even on those, and, and people were really happy to have a, a really memorable-

Tim Ferriss 14:01 What'd the shirt look like?

Joe Gebbia 14:02 ... shirt. You know, it was a riff on the, the Tide logo.

Tim Ferriss 14:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 14:06 You know, Tide detergent?

Tim Ferriss 14:07 Sure.

Joe Gebbia 14:07 And so instead of saying Tide, it said Seniors, Class of 2000, Brookwood High School, and, um, it did really well.

Tim Ferriss 14:14 Mm-hmm. So you, so you didn't, you didn't bet the farm and lose the farm. You, you at least broke even.

Joe Gebbia 14:20 Yeah, yeah. It was, and it was fun to, to learn, you know, how to use some of the, the graphics programs like Photoshop, and then also figure out, like, how do you turn that into something, right? How does it leave your screen and become something physical? And so it was a great lesson, i- if anything.

Tim Ferriss 14:35 Where did you think ... Now, this is senior year in high school.

Joe Gebbia 14:37 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 14:38 What did you think you were going to do when you grew up, per se, at that point?

Joe Gebbia 14:42 Well-

Tim Ferriss 14:42 Or what did you want to do?

Joe Gebbia 14:44 So every year from elementary, middle, and high school, the art teacher would tell me, "You need to take more art classes," 'cause it was a, a talent that I had that stood out, and they, they recognized it and were telling me about it. And so year over year, I would invest more into art classes. And at one point, I was driving downtown to the Atlanta College of Art on weekends to take figure drawing classes. Sometimes on, on weeknights, I'd, I'd drive down for painting classes. And, and then something really incredible happened. I applied for this program called the Governor's Honors Program in high school, where they take students from around the state of Georgia across all disciplines, math, and science, and languages, and art, and they pick about 30 students throughout the, the state for each discipline. And then if you get in, you go to a college campus for the summer, and you actually study college-level coursework in whatever the discipline is. So I went for art, and I had an incredible time. Here I was surrounded by some of the other, you know, the, the best artists in the state of Georgia and other high school students, and I had teachers who were co- collegiate level, uh, challenging us the same way they would a college student, and I freaking loved it. And there was one woman in particular, her name was Donna, and she was, like, one of those people in life that you have along your, your journey who helped you, helps, helps you see something else about yourself that maybe you don't quite realize yet. And so she sat me down one day during this program and, and really kind of laid out what it might look like if I pursued art after c- after high school. And she was one of the first persons that got me really excited about ... She made it realistic for me to even think about, is that even a practical idea?

Tim Ferriss 16:27 Right.

Joe Gebbia 16:28 And she's like, "There's one school you have to go to. It's the Rhode Island School of Design." And I'm like, "The what?"

Tim Ferriss 16:32 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 16:33 "Where is that?"

Tim Ferriss 16:33 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 16:34 Right? And so-

Tim Ferriss 16:36 Is that in the Bahamas?

Joe Gebbia 16:37 Yeah. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 16:38 Rhode Island.

Joe Gebbia 16:38 She, she put, uh, RISD on the map for me, and, uh, it was during that, that program, during that, that summer, um, I really dove into painting. I did this painting that was about f- eight feet by four feet wide, um, stretched my own canvas, and really, like, threw myself into understanding materials and paint, um, better than ever, ever before. And we had the show at the end of, of the program. So, you know, everyone in art, the discipline, got to have a ga- like a gallery show, and there was my painting on the main wall when you walked in. It was really, like, it was a moment for me to realize that pe- A, people appreciated the images that I made and, and my art, and second is I loved it. Like, I really felt, uh, challenged. I, I felt creative. It was, it was allowing me to f- fulfill all these, these desires that I had to, to create things.

Tim Ferriss 17:29 How much of that was the environment versus the medium, do you think?

Joe Gebbia 17:34 I think the, probably the environment a little bit more, 'cause the medium could've been anything.

Tim Ferriss 17:37 Right.

Joe Gebbia 17:37 I mean, we did ra- raku pottery and firing. We did figure drawing, um, and painting. The, we, we were exposed to all kinds of different mediums and materials. I think the environment is what I fell in love with.

Tim Ferriss 17:48 The being challenged mostly?

Joe Gebbia 17:49 The being challenged, being surrounded by other creatives, and, um, and really that's what triggered me to say, "Huh, this, this Rhode Island School of Design thing." So the next summer I did their high school program and got to spend six weeks on campus basically as, like, a, you really act like a freshman, right? They give you, again, college-level courses, and I-

Tim Ferriss 18:10 At RISD.

Joe Gebbia 18:11 At RISD. I fell in love with the campus, fell in love with the people, and, you know, as a, as a junior in high school, I'm like, "I, I gotta go here. This is, this is where I, I feel challenged."

Tim Ferriss 18:23 So then, then what happens?

Joe Gebbia 18:24 Well, so before I, I leave, um, high school, there's a, there's another story about, um, an entrepreneurial Joe. Um, [laughs] so I haven't told this story in a while. Um, but so when I, I got to high school as a freshman, the senior class right before me had pulled off this amazing senior prank. So at our high school, the, the mascot is a bronco horse, so it's the Brookwood Broncos, and they went down the street to this, uh, like a, a country western store where you get cowboy boots and cowboy hats. It's called Horse Town East. And on the top of their sign, which was pretty tall, it was a couple story, it was a couple stories tall, was this giant full-sized plastic horse.

Tim Ferriss 19:15 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 19:15 And somehow the senior class figured out how to get the horse down from the sign, and then they put it on top of our school.

Tim Ferriss 19:21 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 19:22 And so the last day of class, everyone came in, there's this giant full-sized plastic horse on top of Brookwood. And so when I showed up as a freshman, everybody was talking about it. I, e- everyone was like, "Yeah, did you hear what the senior class did last year before they graduated?" "Yeah." And it, I just started to think to myself, I can, I wanna outdo that.

Tim Ferriss 19:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 19:43 I've got four years to think of something.

Tim Ferriss 19:45 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 19:46 Like, surely I can come up with something better than the horse on top of the school. So I set myself a challenge [laughs] of figuring out a prank, um, by senior year.

Tim Ferriss 19:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 19:57 So the years go by. It's now senior year, um, and we have about four months to go, and I still haven't thought of anything.

Tim Ferriss 20:06 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 20:07 And the clock's ticking. It's now three months to go. I still haven't thought of anything. It's now two months to go, and I, uh, I get onto Google and I search, you know, high school senior pranks, just to see like what else is out there, um, 'cause I'm still committed to figuring something out. And so I keep coming across the same stuff. You've got, uh, super glue the locks, the doors. You've got, um, fill up cups with water in the gym, put them all next to each other so they, like, knock over. And then you've got re- put, uh, three pigs out into the school and label them one, two, four, so everyone thinks there's a third pig running around somewhere.

Tim Ferriss 20:45 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 20:45 You know, it was like the, the repetition of how many sites were covering these pranks is like these are not original.

Tim Ferriss 20:51 Right.

Joe Gebbia 20:51 And that was one of my criteria, like this needs to be something original. I'm not gonna just like copy another prank. And so we're now like three weeks until graduation. Don't have any prank. I haven't figured it out yet. And my sister was a, a cheerleader, and so she'd have this cheerleading practice after school, and normally I'd have to hang around and, and take her home. And so I'm outside after school one day, and she's nowhere to be found. This is before cell phones. And the way that you tracked somebody down at that time was to, um, they'd make some announcement over the intercom system, and they, like call their name. So I go into the front office and, by the way, I went to the high school in Georgia that was one of the largest. We had over 4,000 people in our high school, right? So it's one of the biggest high schools in the state. And I thought that to access the intercom would be some, you go in some room, there'd be some big system, it'd be super complicated. So I'm in the front office and I'm looking at the secretary and I go, "Hey, I'm just trying to find my sister, Kim. Can you, can you page her over the intercom?" And the secretary goes, "Oh, sure. Just a minute." She pick, she picks up the phone and she hits #00 on the, the dial pad, and then she talks into the phone, "Hey, Kim. Kim Gebbia, your brother's here. Please come to the front of the building." And everything she said into the phone came out over the intercom system. And I'm watching this and I'm going, "It's that easy-

Tim Ferriss 22:18 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 22:19 ... to get into the intercom system of the largest high school in the state of Georgia? All you have to do is have access to the phone line and hit #00?" [laughs] I'm like, "Oh, my God." It was this big aha moment as I'm w- watching this unfold in front of me, and I go, "All I have to do is get one of those splitter jacks, plug it into the same phone line, and then I can run a cord of another phone somewhere else i- in the closet or something, and then I could call in and have access to the whole intercom system." So for a week, I'm toiling on this. I'm like, "How am I gonna route a phone cord without anybody noticing it?" And then finally it dawns on me, just get a cordless phone.

Tim Ferriss 22:59 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 23:00 You could be anywhere in the school and have access to the intercom. [laughs] So at this point, I recruit one of my buddies, Mark Eisenhower, who looking back probably wasn't the best accomplice f- for this mission-

Tim Ferriss 23:11 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 23:11 ... 'cause he played on the basketball team. He was about six foot four with bright blonde hair. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 23:16 Right. Cons- not inconspicuous.

Joe Gebbia 23:18 Not inconspicuous at all. Um, and so we go, we go to the school that weekend, and we have this grand plan that, um, w- we'll, we'll maybe trick one of the janitors into letting us into the main office, and when he leaves, somehow we'll, like plug in this cordless phone into the school.

Tim Ferriss 23:40 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 23:41 Um, it w- it definitely was not a, a well thought out plan at this point, but, um, we didn't have a lot of time, and so we, uh, we, we just went for it. And so we went to the school. It was on a Sunday afternoon. I think the janitor saw right through us. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 23:54 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 23:55 He did not let us in the office.

Tim Ferriss 23:56 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 23:56 And so we left, uh, a bit empty-handed. But we weren't giving up.

Tim Ferriss 24:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 24:01 This was too good. So I employed another friend. Her name is Chelsea Hughes. And so the three of us came up with a better plan, that we'd go up on a week, uh, on, on a, on a weekend and there was a community school office that we knew would be open on weekends, and that office connected like these inner chambers-

Tim Ferriss 24:23 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 24:23 ... to the main office, and if we could just get into that one, we-- the thought was we could go through the sequence of other doors to get into the, the main office And so Chelsea went up and, um, tried to figure out where that principal was, that, that, um, community school director. And so she f- she identified him on the far side of campus. She signaled to Mark, Mark signaled to me, and I'm outside in like a black hoodie with my backpack, uh, full of the phone, a flashlight.

Tim Ferriss 24:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 24:52 And Mark gave me the signal-

Tim Ferriss 24:53 Full-on Mr. Robot. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 24:55 Totally. I go running in through the lobby of the school, right into this community director's office, and then it's pitch black and I'm, I'm like going, going through all the doors, it's like chamber by chamber until you get to the main office, the front desk. And we get- I'm there and I move the desk to the side, and there's this just giant jumble of cords underneath it and I'm trying to figure out which one, what the hell is the phone line, and then I trace it back to the wall. I pull out the splitter piece, I put it in, and then I plug in the cordless phone and the phone from the desk into the same line, and I'm trying to bury the cord base underneath the, the pile of cords. And at this point, I'm sweating. My heart is racing.

Tim Ferriss 25:34 Of course.

Joe Gebbia 25:35 I'm like, I'm like in the darkness of this office, definitely not supposed to be there, and all of a sudden there's a tap on my shoulder.

Tim Ferriss 25:41 Oh, God. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 25:42 My heart jumps. I turn around. It's, it's Mark hovering over me. He goes, "Joey, we gotta go."

Tim Ferriss 25:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 25:47 "Mr. Chelk is on his way."

Tim Ferriss 25:49 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 25:50 And I'm like, "All right, I'm done." So we push the desk back. We go out the back entrance into the parking lot. We meet up with Chelsea. I pull the cordless phone out of my bag, I turn it on, and we get a dial tone.

Tim Ferriss 26:01 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 26:01 We have access to the intercom.

Tim Ferriss 26:02 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:04 So the next question is, what do you do with that access?

Tim Ferriss 26:07 Right. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:08 [laughs] So the next day-

Tim Ferriss 26:10 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:12 ... I decided that I was gonna make a tape mix-

Tim Ferriss 26:15 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:16 ... of different songs to play over the intercom system.

Tim Ferriss 26:19 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 26:19 And I play- I put together a mix of Pink Floyd, We Don't Need No Education-

Tim Ferriss 26:25 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:27 ... and Alice Cooper, School's Out for Summer.

Tim Ferriss 26:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 26:30 And I even got so s- detailed about this that I im- I had my mom help out at home. She didn't know she was helping me, but we had two phone lines in the house, one for the business, one for, you know, personal use. And I would call one phone line to the other and have the tape player next to it to figure out the right volume on it, the right distance from the phone-

Tim Ferriss 26:51 Ah

Joe Gebbia 26:51 ... and have my mom on the other end telling me if it was loud enough or not. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 26:54 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 26:55 So she helped me calibrate the right, uh, the right volume, uh, for the tape player. So the, the phone is embedded. Um, the tape mix, tape mix is, is made. It's now the last day of school, and I woke up that morning and I was nervous. I'm like, "Ah, gotta do this today. All right. Prank is happening." So I go to school a little bit late on purpose. So as it works, um, I park, I park my car in the parking lot and in one pocket I've got the phone, in the other pocket I've got this tape player-

Tim Ferriss 27:32 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 27:32 ... like a handheld, like a Sony Walkman.

Tim Ferriss 27:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 27:35 And I'm walking through the parking lot. It's just, just me. There's nobody else. And then all of a sudden our s- school police officer shows up on his golf cart, and he turns the corner and he's coming straight towards me, and there's nobody else around. It's just him and me, and he's coming at me and I'm staring at him, and I'm like, "Just be cool. Just be cool. He doesn't know." And like, as he's getting closer, my heart's racing faster and I'm like, "Oh my God, I've got this, the bulges in my pocket of the phone and the tape player." And he makes eye contact at me and the golf cart goes by.

Tim Ferriss 28:07 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 28:09 I'm like, "Okay." So I walk to the front of the school and there's like this overhang area where the buses pulled up and, um, there's these benches and then the, the, these glass doors before you go into the main lobby. And so everything's cleared out except for this one kid. He must've been like a freshman or a sophomore or something. And he's sitting there and I'm like waiting for him to leave 'cause I didn't want anybody to see what I was about to do. And he's not going anywhere. And I'm thinking to myself, "I have to do this now. Like, I can't wait any longer." So I just run up to him, I get right in his face and I go, "Look, you can't say anything about what you're about to see." And he was just totally freaked out and he goes, "O- Okay." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 28:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 28:50 Um, and so I go behind one of these, these brick columns that was holding up the, the overhang, and around the column you could see into the, the glass doors and, and where the office is, where the phone base is. So I pull the phone out, I pull out the tape player. My hands are shaking. And I'm like, I'm just thinking to myself, "All right, it's go time." I turn the phone on, get the dial tone. I hit #00. My hands are shaking even more. I take this deep breath, and actually this beep comes over the whole school to signal there's an announcement.

Tim Ferriss 29:21 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 29:22 And I can actually hear myself breathing-

Tim Ferriss 29:24 Through the intercom

Joe Gebbia 29:25 ... through the intercom. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 29:26 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 29:26 And I'm like, thinking to myself, "All right, I gotta do this right now." So I hit play on the tape player.

Tim Ferriss 29:30 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 29:31 I set the two down next to each other, and as I'm doing it, I flick the volume all the way just to be safe, 'cause I'm thinking to myself, "I don't wanna come across as too soft in the volume," so I'm like, "I gotta throw the volume all the way up." So I set the two down next to each other and I walk into the building, and that's when all hell broke loose.

Tim Ferriss 29:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 29:49 I open the lobby. I go into the lobby doors and the music is blasting out of the intercom system. "School's out for summer." It's like the speakers are about to explode.

Tim Ferriss 30:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 30:04 It's like so freaking loud. And, um, when you get to school late, you had to go to like a check-in line to sign in, and so I'm in the check-in line. There's like two people in front of me, and this is, this is the scene. I'm in this like, you know, kind of, uh, high school lobby. To my left are all the offices, including the one where the phone is.

Tim Ferriss 30:23 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 30:24 To my right is the gymnasium. Out of the gymnasium, two of my buddies come busting out while this music's blasting. They're laughing so hard 'cause they realize that it was me. The coach comes out of the gym, starts yelling at them, "Hey, you get back in here. We don't know what's going on, but you gotta get back in here." I'm just sitting there with a straight face. I'm not cracking a smile. I sign in, and then I, to get to my class, I have to walk past all these offices, right? And so while I'm doing that, I hear what's going on. They're yelling at each other. People are sticking their head out of the office. "Is it coming from in there?" "No, I don't know where it's coming from." They're, got the phone in their hands.

Tim Ferriss 30:58 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 30:58 You can hear on the intercom them hitting, like numbers on the phone, trying to shut it off.

Tim Ferriss 31:03 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 31:03 They had no idea where the heck it was coming from.

Tim Ferriss 31:06 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 31:07 And so as I'm walking past these sequence of offices, I catch a glimpse into the, the principal's secretary office, and then into the principal's office, which is even a deeper layer. And I see, I catch her face, and it's bright red, and she's yelling at somebody while this music's still playing.

Tim Ferriss 31:28 Right.

Joe Gebbia 31:28 Right? Now we're onto Pink Floyd at this point.

Tim Ferriss 31:29 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 31:30 Um, we don't need no education, right?

Tim Ferriss 31:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 31:34 And so, and so-

Tim Ferriss 31:35 So this has been going on, this is like three, four minutes in at this point.

Joe Gebbia 31:39 Yeah. I'm walking through, my class is in the very back of the campus. I'm walking through the halls. I'm totally by myself, while the music's playing, and every time I walk past a classroom, there's a little skinny, like, glass window, and you can kind of get a glimpse into it. And as I walk past these classes, I take these double looks, and people are, like, on top of their chairs and on top of their desks, and people are dancing.

Tim Ferriss 31:59 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:00 And I get to my classroom right as the tape ends.

Tim Ferriss 32:05 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 32:05 And look, I thought for sure they're gonna shut this off in, like, 20 seconds.

Tim Ferriss 32:09 Right.

Joe Gebbia 32:09 So I didn't make the tape very long.

Tim Ferriss 32:10 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:10 It was only a couple minutes. If I had made a 20-minute tape, it probably would've played for 20 minutes.

Tim Ferriss 32:14 Right.

Joe Gebbia 32:15 So I get there right as the tape ends. I open the door. People are standing on top of their desks. People are dancing. The teacher's at her desk with her, her head in her hands, like, totally lost control of her class. And it's like the record stops. I walk in. Everybody turns and looks at me and goes, "Joey, was that you?"

Tim Ferriss 32:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:35 And I'm like, "No, I don't know what that was."

Tim Ferriss 32:37 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:38 And so [laughs] finally, the teacher gets control of the class again, and we sit down, and everyone's looking at me like, "Joe, what was... That wa- that was awesome. What was that?"

Tim Ferriss 32:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:48 And I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know." And so not two minutes later, there's a knock on the door.

Tim Ferriss 32:54 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 32:55 An administrator walks in. She walks over to the teacher. The class goes dead silent. They whisper something to each other, and then they both turn and look at me. The administrator comes by my desk. She goes, "Joey, get your stuff. You're coming with me." And I'm, like, sinking into my desk. I'm like, "Oh, no." She gets outside. She slams the door. We're in the hallway. And she goes, "You wanna tell me what just happened just back there?" I go, "I, I don't know what you're talking about." She's like, "We've got Mark in the office. We know it happened." And I'm like, "I, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about." She goes, "You can make this hard, or you can make this easy on yourself."

Tim Ferriss 33:26 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 33:27 At that point, I was like, "Ah." So we walk all the way back to the front of the campus, and the whole way she's berating me, chewing my head off of all the, uh, damages that I caused and all the issues that were created with the phone system. And we go to the secretary's office, and we walk through and I see Mark there, and he's got his head in his hands.

Tim Ferriss 33:49 And Mark is your very tall-

Joe Gebbia 33:51 Very tall, very blond-

Tim Ferriss 33:52 Very blond-

Joe Gebbia 33:52 ... accomplice

Tim Ferriss 33:52 ... very obvious accomplice.

Joe Gebbia 33:54 Yes.

Tim Ferriss 33:54 Yes.

Joe Gebbia 33:54 Yes. He was, he was a good buddy and a good friend, and, um, I, I appreciate his help-

Tim Ferriss 33:58 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 33:59 ... in this endeavor. And so he's got, he's down like this. He's, like, totally crushed, and he sees me, and he looks at me and he goes... And I couldn't tell what he was saying.

Tim Ferriss 34:11 So he's just trying to mouth the words to you.

Joe Gebbia 34:12 He mouths something to me.

Tim Ferriss 34:13 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 34:15 And so he, what he was saying, he goes, "It was the janitor." And I'm like, "The what?"

Tim Ferriss 34:18 Oh.

Joe Gebbia 34:19 So we get through the secretary's office into the principal's office, Connie Corley. I'll never forget her name. They slam the door, and I'm standing there with my backpack, wearing a green Izod shirt. I'll never forget this. I'm in my brown khaki pants and my green Izod shirt with my backpack, and there's Connie Corley at her desk with her arms like this, kind of huffing and puffing. Her face is bright red. She's got the phone and the tape player-

Tim Ferriss 34:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 34:47 ... and the phone cord and the phone base on her desk.

Tim Ferriss 34:50 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 34:50 And around her are the 20 administrators, including the school police officer. It's the biggest school in the state of Georgia. We had our own police officer. And so they're all like this, like-

Tim Ferriss 35:00 Arms crossed, huffing and puffing.

Joe Gebbia 35:01 Right. And I'm like, "Oh, fuck." Like-

Tim Ferriss 35:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 35:04 Like, my heart's racing. I'm like, "What is going on here?" Every one of them took a turn at me just to yell at me about something. Connie Corley starts yelling at me, "How did you get in the office? You broke and entering. Ah." And she's, like, like, really angry.

Tim Ferriss 35:18 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 35:19 And I'm like, "Ugh." Like, like, I'm starting to feel a little bit bad about this, like-

Tim Ferriss 35:24 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 35:24 ... like, I'm, I'm not sure where this is gonna go. Like-

Tim Ferriss 35:27 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 35:27 ... w- w- w- is this, am I gonna get off on this or, like, are there some consequences here? I have no idea. And so from that, they lead us into this other, like, negotiation room, which I've never seen before.

Tim Ferriss 35:41 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 35:41 It was this long wooden table with these, like, leather chairs around the whole side. Con- uh, Principal Corley's at the head of the table. Mark and I are now sitting across from each other. We've got administrators standing over us with their arms crossed, like we're gonna make a run for it or something.

Tim Ferriss 35:53 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 35:54 And she, like, starts, like, negotiating with us, and, um, this is the part that, that actually pissed me off the most, is that, uh, she started to threaten our scholarships.

Tim Ferriss 36:04 Oh.

Joe Gebbia 36:05 And she looked at Mark. She goes, "Mark, you know, I know you've got, um, a basketball scholarship to this, this school in Georgia that you're going to. I hate to have to call the coach and tell him about this, this incident."

Tim Ferriss 36:14 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 36:14 She looks at me and she goes, "Joey, I, I know you're going to that art school in Rhode Island. I hate to have to call their admissions office and tell them about this incident."

Tim Ferriss 36:20 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 36:21 And at that point, I was like, "There's no way. You're getting in the way of either of our dreams-

Tim Ferriss 36:25 Right

Joe Gebbia 36:25 ... because we tapped into the, the high school intercom system," like.

Tim Ferriss 36:28 Right.

Joe Gebbia 36:29 So she made an offer. She goes, um, "We could press charges for breaking and entering and tampering with school property, and some other things, or you can do this list of things." Which included, um, wiping down computer screens in the library, you know, during the summertime. Um, ironically setting up and taking down the sound equipment for graduation.

Tim Ferriss 36:52 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 36:53 And like a few other chores and like-

Tim Ferriss 36:55 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 36:55 ... manual labor basically.

Tim Ferriss 36:57 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 36:57 Um, and so Mark and I, obviously we say, "Well, we'll do the chores and the manual labor, um, s- so that we can graduate."

Tim Ferriss 37:06 Right.

Joe Gebbia 37:06 'Cause pressing charges somehow equated to not being able to graduate and get your d- diploma. And so from there we go into the, the school police officer's office. His name was Officer Harrelson. And-

Tim Ferriss 37:20 That's a good cop name.

Joe Gebbia 37:21 This guy ... Yeah, right.

Tim Ferriss 37:22 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 37:22 This guy had the deepest kinda grizzly voice that you could imagine. "O- Officer Harrelson here at Brookwood High School." So we're in the office and he calls our parents, and this is, this is like probably where the worst part of the whole story. He did not know the update that we opted in to do the ma- manual labor.

Tim Ferriss 37:42 Ah.

Joe Gebbia 37:42 He thinks that we're not graduating high school.

Tim Ferriss 37:44 Oh, no.

Joe Gebbia 37:44 So he calls my mom. He goes, "Uh, Ms. Gebbia, this is Officer Harrelson here at, uh, Brookwood High School. Y- yes ma'am, I've got your, your son in, in custody here."

Tim Ferriss 37:53 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 37:53 "Yeah, that's right, ma'am. It doesn't look like he's graduating this year." Oh.

Tim Ferriss 37:56 Oh, no.

Joe Gebbia 37:57 "Yeah, ma'am, he's right here." He hands me the phone and I heard this tone of voice in my, from my mom I've never heard since. I never wanna hear again. She goes, "You get right home after school. I can't believe you." Click.

Tim Ferriss 38:08 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 38:09 I'm like, "Mom, but wait, we're gonna graduate."

Tim Ferriss 38:10 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 38:11 So she thinks her son's not graduating high school. Um, I, I'm like, "Thanks, Officer Harrelson. That was really kind of you."

Tim Ferriss 38:18 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 38:18 Um, and does the same thing to Mark. And we're walking out of his office, and this is the best part, he pulls us to the side and he goes, "Mark, Joey, I've been at this school for over 20 years and you need to know that was the best damn prank I've ever seen." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 38:37 [laughs] Officer Harrelson.

Joe Gebbia 38:44 So, so we, we go through graduation. Um, one little funny stunt that we did is that, you know you had your honors cords and, um, uh, different club cords that you wear around your neck. Mark and I wore phone cords-

Tim Ferriss 38:55 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 38:56 ... to honor the, uh, the senior prank. People were raving about it. Um, and we came back, you know, two weeks later to do, wipe computer screens in, in the, in the library. And I'll never forget, we're outside underneath the same overhang, like dusting off our rags, and all these buses pull up. And all these bus drivers start pouring into the school past us. They had like some bus driver, you know, end of year celebration or something. And one of the bus drivers actually walks over to us and she goes, "Are, are you the two boys that pulled that prank with the intercom system?" And Mark and I look at each other and we're like, "Yeah." She goes, "You know y'all are, you two are, are legends in this county?" And Mark and I are like, "What?" Like, how did they hear about it?

Tim Ferriss 39:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 39:39 Like all the bus drivers in the county that we live in.

Tim Ferriss 39:41 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 39:43 So, um, it was this just incredible moment of, you know, having an idea, having this ambition to do something that was original. In this case, there was no property damage. Nobody got hurt.

Tim Ferriss 39:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 39:55 Which is, to me, the essence of a great prank. And, um, that was part one of the story.

Tim Ferriss 40:01 Part one of the story? Well, all right.

Joe Gebbia 40:05 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 40:05 I'll bite. I'll bite. What's part two of the story?

Joe Gebbia 40:09 It's part two of the story. Um, I'm in college. This is about two years later. And one of my roommates comes home one day and he says, "Hey, have you heard of that show, uh, it's on MTV? It's called, um, uh, High School Stories, Pranks and Controversies." And I go, "No, no. W- what's it about?" He's like, "Yeah, I was, I was just watching it. It's like they showed this, this, uh, some high school, they, they had this high school prank." I was like, I sat up in my chair. I go, "Really? Tell me about that." And he goes, "Yeah. They, they film these guys who, get this, they super glue the locks on the doors of this high school." And I'm like, "You have to be kidding me."

Tim Ferriss 40:51 The oldest trick in the book.

Joe Gebbia 40:52 MTV's making a show about high school pranks and they're doing a super glue in the lock prank. I'm like, "I have to get in touch with the producer." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 40:59 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 40:59 So I get online and I track down the producer of the show, and I sent him an email that was a teaser of the story, but not the full one, and basically said, "If you wanna hear the rest of it, here's my phone number."

Tim Ferriss 41:12 Wow. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 41:12 Probably about 30 minutes later my phone rings with a 212 area code.

Tim Ferriss 41:16 NYC.

Joe Gebbia 41:17 NYC. And I get on the phone with this producer and he's like, "I'm really intrigued by your email. Always looking for good stories. What is it? What, what do you got?" And I told him the abbreviated version, what you just heard. And he's like, "Oh, I love this. I'm gonna pitch this to my executive producer. We're gonna get back to you." So about three, four days later, get another phone call from a 212. "Hey, this is Leslie from MTV. I'm the executive producer here. Really loved your story. Um, wanna hear more about it from you." So by the end of the call she's in love with the story and she's like, "You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna send a crew down to Georgia. We want you to come back this summer. We're gonna reenact the whole thing and include it in the next season of our TV show." [laughs] So that summer we got to go back to Georgia and reenact the whole thing. Now, however, this is only two years later. The same administration and principal was still there.

Tim Ferriss 42:08 Right.

Joe Gebbia 42:09 And they did not have a lot of forgiveness.

Tim Ferriss 42:10 I was gonna say, the wounds haven't healed over quite yet.

Joe Gebbia 42:12 [laughs] The wounds had definitely not healed. They definitely had a grudge. Um, because if anything, we just embarrassed them. Like-

Tim Ferriss 42:20 Right

Joe Gebbia 42:21 ... they had no idea how to turn it off. Um-

Tim Ferriss 42:23 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 42:24 Like, again, there's no damage or anything that was really done that's permanent.

Tim Ferriss 42:27 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 42:27 Uh, and so they declined reenacting at the school.

Tim Ferriss 42:31 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 42:31 So ironically, went to one of my rival high schools and refilmed the whole thing there.

Tim Ferriss 42:35 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 42:36 And even more ironic is that the principal, the new principal there, was a former administrator when I pulled the prank at my other school, so he was intimately familiar-

Tim Ferriss 42:43 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 42:43 ... with what had happened, and at that point he was, he could laugh about it. Um, so that summer we reenacted the whole thing. Um, Chelsea and Mark and got a couple other friends to be extras in the background, and it aired later that year on MTV.

Tim Ferriss 42:55 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 42:56 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 42:58 So it seems like your brushes with mischief just seem to reinforce your appetite for mischief of sorts-

Joe Gebbia 43:06 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 43:07 ... in a way. Perhaps.

Joe Gebbia 43:09 Perhaps.

Tim Ferriss 43:09 Now, when we were hanging out earlier today, I asked a question that, that I, I often ask of friends I'm gonna sit down with, and it was, in effect, can you give me any cues? I don't wanna hear the story, but can you give me any cues that might lead to a fun discussion?

Joe Gebbia 43:29 [laughs] Yes.

Tim Ferriss 43:31 And, and one of them, I said, "I don't wanna know the story," 'cause I wanna hear it fresh, right, when we're recording. And one of them was NBA, time worked with or in NBA, and I have no idea what this refers to, but that's a cue.

Joe Gebbia 43:52 Tim, I think this story starts by telling you a fun fact. I've seen Michael Jordan naked in person.

Tim Ferriss 44:00 Okay. This is a good start.

Joe Gebbia 44:02 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 44:02 Now we're talking about locker room-

Joe Gebbia 44:06 I, I worked-

Tim Ferriss 44:06 ... hotel room-

Joe Gebbia 44:07 I worked-

Tim Ferriss 44:07 ... barbecue. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 44:08 My job, I had a high school job where I worked as a ball boy in the NBA for the Atlanta Hawks, and that was my job in high school.

Tim Ferriss 44:15 [laughs] Okay.

Joe Gebbia 44:17 I love basketball. I played my whole life.

Tim Ferriss 44:19 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 44:20 And I was reading the news- I used to read the newspaper every morning when I was growing up.

Tim Ferriss 44:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 44:25 Just over breakfast, whatever the, I would just consume the newspaper. And so, um, one day I'm in the sports section and there's an article about a bat- being bat boys for the Atlanta Braves and being ball boys for the Atlanta Hawks. At the very end of the article it said, "If you're interested in becoming one, send a letter about yourself to this address." And I'm like, oh, my God, yes, like, that would be so cool, right?

Tim Ferriss 44:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 44:50 So I send a letter, but actually [laughs] I sent it on the day of the deadline.

Tim Ferriss 44:54 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 44:55 Like, months had passed, and I sent it on the day of the deadline, and I kind of forgot about it until that next summer. I get a phone call, and this guy introduced himself as Chris Tucker, the strength, uh, the head, uh, strength coach of the Atlanta Hawks. And he goes, "Yeah, we got your letter. We really liked it. We want you to come down and interview for one of our ball- our ball boy positions." I go, "This is awesome. I'll, I'll, I'll be there." So I go down to, um, at the time it was, uh, the Omni, uh, before they had Philips Arena, and I'm interviewing with them, you know, telling them about my s- my life and my love for basketball and, and these things, and I get a call back a few days later that I got the job. So this, I'm like a freshman in high school, right?

Tim Ferriss 45:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 45:40 I'm, like, barely, like, 16, maybe 15, um, 15 years old, and I start working, you know, in the locker rooms of the Atlanta Hawks. And actually, my very first game, I'll never forget this, was the Hawks versus the Toronto Raptors. And [laughs] they threw me onto the, the visitors', 'cause there are ball boys for the home team and, and the visiting team.

Tim Ferriss 46:04 Can you explain what a ball boy does in basketball?

Joe Gebbia 46:07 Absolutely.

Tim Ferriss 46:07 Because I'm an idiot when it comes to group sports or team sports. I know what a ball boy or ball girl does in tennis.

Joe Gebbia 46:14 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 46:14 But in basketball, I have no idea.

Joe Gebbia 46:15 So ba- the, there's different tiers, right?

Tim Ferriss 46:17 Mm.

Joe Gebbia 46:17 The entry level tier is you're wiping the sweat on the floor when a player falls down-

Tim Ferriss 46:20 Mm

Joe Gebbia 46:20 ... in the middle of the game.

Tim Ferriss 46:22 All right.

Joe Gebbia 46:22 Right?

Tim Ferriss 46:22 Got it.

Joe Gebbia 46:22 You've seen this.

Tim Ferriss 46:23 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 46:23 Like, people go out with the mop-

Tim Ferriss 46:25 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 46:25 ... and the towel, and you're just wiping up the sweat so the player doesn't slip on the court.

Tim Ferriss 46:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 46:30 That's, like, the entry level position.

Tim Ferriss 46:31 Right.

Joe Gebbia 46:31 And I did plenty of that. Um, as you work your way up the tier, then you work on the side of the court, and you'd actually run and grab the player's, uh, warm-up pants and jacket when they went to check into the game, so you'd be half, like, sitting on, uh, half court with them, and you'd hand them a towel when they came in, you know, to sit back down on the bench. And then the next tier was you'd work behind the bench and actually assist the trainer, and so you'd be handing the Gatorade over their shoulder.

Tim Ferriss 46:55 Oh, cool.

Joe Gebbia 46:55 You know, when they sit down, give them the towel, get them their, their, their warm-up, their, uh, their jacket or their hoodie. And then the highest level was doing that for the visiting team, right? And so, um, and whatever they needed. You'd set up the locker room before the game. You'd run any errands that need to get done. You'd break the locker room down at the end of the game, that, the whole thing. So you get to the game, like, three hours early to do all this.

Tim Ferriss 47:17 Mm.

Joe Gebbia 47:17 Um, you, you end up running errands for the players sometimes. Give you, like, a nice tip. I remember Horace Grant one time gave me a $100 bill.

Tim Ferriss 47:23 That's a big deal.

Joe Gebbia 47:23 To take his bag to the bus. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And so they threw me, my very first game, they threw me to the, to the visitors' side.

Tim Ferriss 47:30 Toronto Raptors.

Joe Gebbia 47:31 The Toronto Raptors, and, um, it was my first experience, right, of, like, being around some NBA greats. Marcus Camby, I remember, um, was on the team at the time. This guy I watched play, uh, uh, at UMass in college and, like, really admired. And, um, uh, [laughs] it, it was my first exposure to, um, a professional sports locker room, too. You know, everybody comes in and they just take their clothes off-

Tim Ferriss 47:54 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 47:54 ... to get changed and, like, nobody gives a, gives a shit.

Tim Ferriss 47:56 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 47:56 Yeah. It doesn't matter at the end of the day. Um, but for me it was like, whoa, whoa, where am I? [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 48:01 Lots of naked professional athletes.

Joe Gebbia 48:02 [laughs] Yeah, totally. That was my first experience. Of course, you get used to that. It's no big deal at a certain point. Um, so I'm, I'm in the NBA, and I did that for three seasons. I got to, to work alongside Lenny Wilkens, the head coach, Dikembe Mutombo, Steve Smith, uh, some of these NBA greats. Um, and there were some really incredible moments that happened. Um, one of them, [laughs] one of them was when the Ha- the Hawks played the Chicago Bulls, and Jordan's still playing. This is 1999, um, one of his last seasons. And, um, [laughs] I'll never forget this. So you have to imagine the scene. We're in Philips Arena, and, uh, the Hawks are actually winning.

Tim Ferriss 48:50 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 48:50 Which is amazing. And the place is going nuts. You can't even hear yourself think. It's so loud. People are screaming. They're, they're playing music over the, the loudspeakers, and I'm working the Bulls bench, right? Which is, like, you've got Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, uh, Michael Jackson, uh, um, uh, Phil Jackson, uh, Michael Jordan. Like, the whole, the whole crew.

Tim Ferriss 49:13 The whole roster, yeah.

Joe Gebbia 49:14 Yeah, whole roster. And so I'm working the Bulls bench. They're down. Phil Jackson calls a timeout, and the place goes nuts 'cause the Hawks are up, and in front of me, Jordan pops down. Rodman's on the left. Pippen's on the right. Phil Jackson is, like, right here, and he's furious. Like, this guy's using expletives like you never believe. He's yelling things. I c- I feel like I can feel his sal- like, his spit, like, hitting my face. He's just like ... And I'm, like, right behind Jordan. He's right here, and the place is, again, so loud. People are screaming at the top of their lungs, and I'm, I'm doing my job, right? I give the guys a towel, and then I'm giving them the Gatorade. So I'm like, I'm gonna start with Jordan. Obviously, he's right in front of me. So I, I reach around. I reach on this side. Um.

Tim Ferriss 50:03 So left, left hand, like, over the shoulder.

Joe Gebbia 50:05 Yeah, left hand over the shoulder. Jordan is facing this way, talking to Pippen, who's right next to him. I reach around, and Rodman, who's to my left, turns quickly, bumps my elbow. The Gatorade quickly goes upside down and straight into Jordan's lap.

Tim Ferriss 50:23 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 50:26 There are only a few times in my life I've been as terrified as that moment. Phil Jackson's yelling at me. Uh, uh, Michael Jordan spins around and he goes, "Hey, man, watch it."

Tim Ferriss 50:35 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 50:36 And I'm like, oh my God. Like-

Tim Ferriss 50:37 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 50:37 ... my heart's racing. I'm like, Jesus Christ. So I did what anybody would do in that moment. If you spill something, you tend to wipe it up.

Tim Ferriss 50:44 Right.

Joe Gebbia 50:44 So I grab the towel and I'm patting down Jordan's thigh.

Tim Ferriss 50:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 50:48 Like, now I'm, like, in the huddle, right?

Tim Ferriss 50:50 Right, right. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 50:51 Rodman's laughing at me because he realized what he do- had done.

Tim Ferriss 50:55 Oh, God.

Joe Gebbia 50:55 Phil Jackson's, like, right here, like, spitting. He's yelling so hard. And I'm like, "I'm sorry, Jordan." I'm, like, trying to, like, dry his leg up with his Gatorade spill that went right into his lap. And oh, man, I'm, like, sweating profusely, [laughs] right? 'Cause like, you're gonna get, like, the TV crews are, like, in the huddle too. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 51:11 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 51:12 You have the cameras in your face and it's like, [laughs] it was, like, a high-stress moment as a ball boy. [laughs] And so ... Right? You had one job. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 51:22 Don't pour the Gatorade on-

Joe Gebbia 51:24 Well-

Tim Ferriss 51:24 ... Jordan's balls.

Joe Gebbia 51:25 Well, obviously.

Tim Ferriss 51:25 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 51:27 Unfortunately, Rodman made that quick spin.

Tim Ferriss 51:28 No, no, I get it.

Joe Gebbia 51:29 You know, knocked me. Um-

Tim Ferriss 51:30 Not, not your fault

Joe Gebbia 51:31 ... so, um, like, the, the buzzer goes off and it's, like, time to get back on the court, and I'm still, like, patting down, like, Jordan's leg. And he, he's like, "Oh, come on, man." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 51:40 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 51:42 And then he got up. And, um, I think right after that, he actually had, like, a, a whole bunch of points. [laughs] He threw down a slam dunk or something. I think the, um, the, the moral of the story there is, uh, you know, when you, uh, spill Gatorade on Jordan, make sure you clean it up.

Tim Ferriss 52:00 Well, I, it seems like there's another pattern here-

Joe Gebbia 52:03 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 52:04 ... which is getting comfortable with uncomfortable situations.

Joe Gebbia 52:12 [sighs]

Tim Ferriss 52:13 Right? Or exposing yourself to discomfort-

Joe Gebbia 52:16 Yeah

Tim Ferriss 52:16 ... so that your comfortable sphere of action expands.

Joe Gebbia 52:20 Right.

Tim Ferriss 52:22 Uh, what, what was your next brush, once you get to RISD, so you're in RISD, were there any formative entrepreneurial experiences that, that, that come to mind?

Joe Gebbia 52:36 Absolutely were. Um-

Tim Ferriss 52:39 And I should explain also, if I may interject just for a second-

Joe Gebbia 52:41 Yeah

Tim Ferriss 52:41 ... that one of the reasons I wanted to explore a lot of these stories is that it's easy, and I think typical, for people to take a single chapter in someone's life and isolate it and view it as the whole story, right? But there's so much backstory and so much development and so many experiences that lead up to the small piece of the puzzle that people tend to think is the whole puzzle.

Joe Gebbia 53:10 Right.

Tim Ferriss 53:10 Right? So just for people listening and watching, that's, that's p- and I just enjoy your storytelling, so that's another piece of it.

Joe Gebbia 53:16 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 53:17 Uh, but the, RISD. All right, so this is, this is a level up. I mean, RISD, you have a lot of talented people at RISD.

Joe Gebbia 53:26 Mm-hmm.

Tim Ferriss 53:26 Uh, any entrepreneurial memories or experiments that come to mind from RISD?

Joe Gebbia 53:31 Yes. So I decided to go to RISD to study fine arts, to be a painter, and I didn't really know what that meant. I had this vision of maybe one day, you know, being able to exhibit in New York or something, like, do the gallery scene. I, I couldn't actually picture it, but, um, really wanted to go to study art and, and painting. So when I got to campus, they have, um, this week of orientation, and you get your class schedule, and you get to meet upperclassmen. And, um, so I'm talking to this guy, and-

Tim Ferriss 54:02 Fellow student

Joe Gebbia 54:02 ... fellow, fellow student, upperclassman, and he's saying, "Oh, who do you have for your courses?" And freshman year, they give you the foundation stuff, like drawing, two-dimensional design, three-dimensional design, liberal arts, art history. And so I'm going through the list of teachers, and I say this one teacher's name that makes his eyebrows go up. I go, "I've got Gareth Jones for 3D." And he goes, "You've got Gareth Jones? [laughs] Oh, man." I go, "What is it? What, who's, who's this guy?" And he goes, "Just wait for the chess set project." And I go, "What's the chess set project?" And he goes, "You'll see." [laughs] So my very first class is with this guy, Gareth Jones, teaching three-dimensional design. And picture this. We're in this art studio with these concrete floors, these, like, rickety metal stools, plaster-covered kind of work surfaces. It's a little bit cold. It's September in New England. And, uh, you know, it's our very first class. And I'm sitting around with, you know, 18 other freshmen. We're all trying to make sense of where we are in the world and what this RISD thing's all about, and this is about to be our first impression of what is it like to be a student at RISD. And so we're sitting there, and all of a sudden this guy wearing all black with this big poofy head of hair comes out, and he stands in front of us, and he, he's got this Welsh accent, and he goes, "I just want you all to know that half of you are going to fail my course because you won't finish the chess set project." And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh my God."

Tim Ferriss 55:42 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 55:43 "That's what it's gonna be like here? Like, half the people?"

Tim Ferriss 55:46 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 55:46 I look to my left, I look to my right, one of them's gonna be gone-

Tim Ferriss 55:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 55:49 ... because they're gonna fail out. I'm like, "Oh my God." And we're all looking at each other like, "Is he, is he serious?" And he goes on to explain the chess set project. And so in addition to your weekly assignments, the chess set project is this semester-long project that takes place outside of c- of the classroom on your own time, where you have to choose a three-dimensional artist, like a sculptor like Henry Moore, an architect like F- Frank Lloyd Wright, a furniture designer, a, a fashion designer, and you had to find a book about them. And from that, you had to select pieces of their work to recreate, and you did it in the format of a chess set, which means it didn't have to look like actual chess set pieces, but you take one of their creations and replicate it eight times for your pawn, and it had to look exactly like the picture in the book. You took another one of their creations, and you had to replicate it twice for the rooks.

Tim Ferriss 56:42 In 3D.

Joe Gebbia 56:43 In 3D, and you had to do it at 12-inch scale.

Tim Ferriss 56:46 Oh my God.

Joe Gebbia 56:46 Just looking at a picture.

Tim Ferriss 56:48 Wow.

Joe Gebbia 56:48 You had to figure out what it's made of, what's the backside look like, what's the underside look like. And at this time, I had a growing interest in furniture, furniture design. And I came across this furniture designer from the 1920s and '30s named Gerrit Rietveld. He was a Dutch architect and designer, um, and he, uh, did these really beautiful chairs that are actually in the Museum of Modern Art. They're classics. And I thought a couple of things. Um, one is, as I got to know Gareth Jones, the professor, it became very clear that this guy was super opinionated. He would argue to the death to make sure that he was always right. I would watch him q- like, just argue students, [laughs] like, like, relentlessly to make his point. And out of that, I just had this growing thinking of like, wow, like, I'd love to prove this guy wrong at some point, [laughs] right?

Tim Ferriss 57:41 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 57:42 And so, um, I also thought, I'm gonna throw myself into this project. There's no way I'm failing. In fact, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna complete this project, and if I'm gonna commit so much of my time to this, and if I'm gonna make chairs from this designer, Gerrit Rietveld, at the end of it, I wanna come out with something I can use. I don't want 12-inch chairs. I actually want full-size functional chairs. And so I'm like, this is a really great idea. I'm gonna share this with Gareth. So I call him over, and I'm like, "Gareth, I wanna make full-size functional chairs." And my, my expectation at this time was that he's gonna, you know, give me a high five and say, "Joe, you can do it. You got this. I believe in you." Instead, Tim, he goes, "Joe, I really don't think you can do it. Really focus on the smaller scale."

Tim Ferriss 58:32 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 58:33 And he walks away.

Tim Ferriss 58:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 58:35 And I'm like, "No fucking way." Like-

Tim Ferriss 58:38 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 58:38 "All right, buddy."

Tim Ferriss 58:40 Now you really have to do it.

Joe Gebbia 58:40 Right. "All right, pal," like, "you, you just lit every fire that you needed to light to get me to figure out how to do this."

Tim Ferriss 58:45 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 58:46 The thing is, I didn't know how the hell to make a chair. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 58:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 58:49 I never worked with wood before. I never worked with power tools, like, like actual machine shop tools.

Tim Ferriss 58:55 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 58:55 And, um, I, I was really stepping into the unknown on this, and I had a semester to figure it out. So I just committed every, all of my time to making this project happen. On, on weekends, Saturday nights, my friends would be going out to, you know, parties on campus, and I was in the studio trying to figure out how to make chairs. And so I, I started by going to the furniture department and talking to upperclassmen, and I actually sat down with the, the head of the furniture department. Her name is Roseanne Somerson, and I told her about my ambitions, and she looked at me with kind of a crazy face that's like, "You're never gonna figure this out." But she was encouraging, and she, um, pointed me to some upperclassmen who then started to help me understand wood and machines and the tools, table saws and band saws and lathes and the things that you need to make furniture. And so piece by piece, I started to figure out how to make these chairs. I was sourcing wood. I had access to the shop that they were giving me. And the thing is, I never told Gareth where I was in the project.

Tim Ferriss 59:55 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 59:55 So every check-in, he'd be like, "How's it coming?" I'm like, "It's all right."

Tim Ferriss 59:59 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:00:00 And I would downplay my progress.

Tim Ferriss 1:00:01 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:00:01 Meanwhile, in my dorm room, it's starting to fill up with these chairs everywhere, [laughs] right?

Tim Ferriss 1:00:06 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:00:07 And so I like, I worked my butt off, and I just, I, I, that whole semester, I was, like, hacking my way through it. And I, I get to the, the pawn. So I have to pick, pick one of his chairs and make it eight times. He made this beautiful bench out of just four pieces of wood, and I'm thinking to myself, wow, these benches are really big. That's a lot of wood. I can't afford this. I don't... I'm just a freshman in college. And so I'm out-

Tim Ferriss 1:00:33 So you had to cover all your material cost.

Joe Gebbia 1:00:34 Oh, yeah.

Tim Ferriss 1:00:35 Okay. No, no.

Joe Gebbia 1:00:36 So-

Tim Ferriss 1:00:36 This is, that's an important detail, right? So, okay.

Joe Gebbia 1:00:37 I had a study job at the time. I was trying to, like, f- fund this however I could. And so I'm in the, the quad one day outside the freshman dorms, and I'm, I make an observation. Everyone's standing around smoking here in the quad, and there's actually nowhere to sit. Huh. I've got this bench design that I'm gonna make. What if I approach the school- ... get them to pay for the wood. I'll make the benches for my project, then they can have them afterwards to put in the quad for people to sit on. So I go to the, the head of residence life, I pitch him the idea, he loves it. They fund a few thousand dollars worth of this inch-thick plywood, and in doing so, I get access to the school's wood shops and the school's craftsmen, like, who work on campus. And so now I've got their help to help fabricate these, these benches.

Tim Ferriss 1:01:24 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 1:01:25 And they paid for all the wood, which I definitely could never have afforded. And so, um-

Tim Ferriss 1:01:29 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:01:30 ... by the end of the semester, I've amassed 16 full-size functional chairs, and Gareth had no clue. And I actually finished the last chair at about 2:00 in the morning, the night before the final crit, the day before the final crit.

Tim Ferriss 1:01:45 Crit meaning?

Joe Gebbia 1:01:46 Crit is critique, right?

Tim Ferriss 1:01:47 Critique.

Joe Gebbia 1:01:47 Yeah, a critique. In art school, you have these critiques where you put your art- your work out, and then the professor and the class critique you, and that's how you learn how to improve as an artist or designer. And so it's, like, now December, it's freezing cold outside, it's Providence, and I specifically chose the slot right after lunch to present because I figured when everyone's out getting lunch, I'll get my roommates and a couple buddies to help me carry all these chairs and s- assemble them in the space. And when people come back, there'll be this great reveal moment, 'cause nobody has any clue, except a couple friends, exactly what I've pulled off here. And Tim, my only regret from this project is that I did not have a camera in my hand-

Tim Ferriss 1:02:30 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:02:31 ... to take a picture of Gareth's face-

Tim Ferriss 1:02:32 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:02:33 ... when he entered the studio.

Tim Ferriss 1:02:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:02:37 I swear, I'm standing there, and he comes marching in, and he picks his head up, and he looks at the room suddenly, and you can see him counting in his head. 15, 16. And he looks at me and he goes, "Joe, you've done it. You've proved me wrong."

Tim Ferriss 1:02:55 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:02:56 And I'm like, "Yes." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:03:00 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:03:01 And for the rest of the critique-

Tim Ferriss 1:03:02 Oh, man

Joe Gebbia 1:03:02 ... we all sat in my chairs and we talked about the, the project and, um, I got very high marks obviously. And, um, it was one of those breakthrough moments where you have somebody that you look up to tell you you can't do something, and you are literally tasked with something you've never done before, and somehow you persevere through it, you, you ask for help, you, um, you figure it out. And, and on the other side of that, I, I was sitting there in this chair thinking, "Wow," like, "if I could figure this out, what else could I figure out?"

Tim Ferriss 1:03:34 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:03:34 Like, this seemed like an impossible feat before this whole thing started. And here I am, I'm sitting in these chairs, the professor's, like, beaming at me, like... And it was just, like, one of these, these moments that, that one has in life where y- you sort of cross a threshold of, of understanding your limits. And at that point I, I had a new, a new bar or a new set of limits.

Tim Ferriss 1:03:59 How did you feel for, from the point that he said that for the rest of the day? I mean, what, what did, what did the rest of the day look like?

Joe Gebbia 1:04:09 I mean, well, first of all, I was so tired. I'd been up for, um... Actually, I hadn't slept for about three days before that.

Tim Ferriss 1:04:15 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:04:15 So over 48 hours I was without sleep. Um, so I was delirious [laughs] A. Uh, B, I was just so r- relieved. And then third, I was like, there's this ex- excitement in- inside of me.

Tim Ferriss 1:04:30 Uh-huh.

Joe Gebbia 1:04:30 Of like, I just, I just proved myself wrong. W- what else can I prove myself wrong on? And suddenly it's like there was so much possibility of anything at this point forward that I come across that feels impossible, I probably need to take a second look at that-

Tim Ferriss 1:04:47 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 1:04:47 ... and rethink that based on this experience. 'Cause again, like, how do you make a chair? And then how do you make 16 full-sized functional chairs at the end of the pro- uh, over the course of a semester? And so what's cool is that the benches got installed, students were sitting in them for, they lasted for a couple years after that. And so the legacy of it not only went into the benches, but the, the story of what had happened became his story that he told every class after that.

Tim Ferriss 1:05:15 So that's, that's really powerful on a bunch of levels, right? Because, uh, not only, and I have to, I don't know the guy, of course, at all, but I have to give the professor credit for being willing to say, right, like, "You proved me wrong," right? Because also just in that moment, the power of that reinforcement for you is a, is a big deal, right? I mean, that's a really d- big deal, potentially life defining inflection point of sorts. Secondly, a few things occurred to me. You created a, you also created a, a product, an outcome that people could use.

Joe Gebbia 1:05:51 Mm-hmm.

Tim Ferriss 1:05:51 Right? Versus a scale model, and you created a story that would then set the bar infinitely higher, not necessarily the pass-fail mark, but the you can fucking do this mark-

Joe Gebbia 1:06:07 Mm-hmm

Tim Ferriss 1:06:08 ... for students for generations to come, right? Many, many classes to come. That's a big deal. I've said big deal a lot 'cause I think you're a big deal, Joe.

Joe Gebbia 1:06:17 Uh, it's true.

Tim Ferriss 1:06:18 And, uh, one question that occurred to me while I was listening to this was related to the moment when he said that you couldn't do it or he thought you couldn't do it, and how you responded to that. It made me think of a story that I heard from Alexis Ohanian-

Joe Gebbia 1:06:36 Mm

Tim Ferriss 1:06:36 ... co-founder of Reddit.

Joe Gebbia 1:06:37 Yes.

Tim Ferriss 1:06:37 When they went in early, some- relatively early in the development of Reddit to meet with Yahoo. And they were showing traffic numbers and analytics to this Yahoo exec, and the Yahoo exec made this comment, which probably to him or her at the time didn't seem like a big deal, but they said, "Oh, well this is a rounding error for us." And to my recollection, Alexis And his team went back to the office, and they put, "You are a rounding error," up on the wall to motivate the team.

Joe Gebbia 1:07:13 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:07:14 Right? But not everybody responds to what you could view as a, a death blow that way. So where did you get that from? I mean, is that from sports? Is it from your parents? Is it from somewhere else? Is it just your programming? Where do you think that comes from?

Joe Gebbia 1:07:32 I don't know if there's just one source. I think sports is definitely a way to, to... If I had to point to something, you know, I played so many sports growing up from tennis to baseball to basketball to track and field to cross country. Um, like some of those are team sports, some of those are individual sports, and in all of those, I mean, in any sport that's competitive, you're trying to ultimately compete with yourself to do a better performance than you did the last time.

Tim Ferriss 1:07:56 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:07:57 Um, and so I, I looked at sports as this constant, um, I was, I was in a game with myself, and like cross country was a great example. That sport, like for me, was I feel like where I honed my goal setting and was able to practice pushing my limits. So every race, um, I would... If, if I crossed the finish line and I could still really like walk and had energy, to me that was energy I could use on the course to run a faster race.

Tim Ferriss 1:08:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:08:26 And so eventually I got to this point where I literally would collapse after the finish line, and it became so well known that like the, the medics would be waiting for me, and they'd have the ice bags-

Tim Ferriss 1:08:36 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:08:37 ... and like they'd have like the, the IV just in case, and like the parents would be there to like pick me up. And, um, um, in the last, you know, 800 meters to the finish line, I'd always try to find somebody who was running a little bit faster than me, and I'd tr- I just would try to accelerate to catch up with them, draft them a little bit, and then sometimes I'd be neck and neck with them to like, and the finish line's within sight, it's so close, and I would just say out loud to them, I'd say, "You're not beating me. You're not beating me." And I'd, I'd use that to motivate myself just to, to try to run faster to, to get a better time. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:09:12 That's amazing. Uh, so there... I'm glad you brought up the sports because it, par- part of the reason I asked is that it, and it's a slightly different lesson maybe or b- one lesson that I took from sports. I went to two different high schools. The second high school I went to had mandatory sports, which I felt was really-

Joe Gebbia 1:09:34 Mm

Tim Ferriss 1:09:34 ... in retrospect important for a lot of kids. And by being forced to do various sports, primarily wrestling in my case, if you want to get better, you're going to train with people who are better than you.

Joe Gebbia 1:09:49 Yes.

Tim Ferriss 1:09:50 By definition, you are going to be beaten by other people. And at least in my experience, I started to view any type of failure in that capacity, being beaten, as feedback, right? I mean, you're... It's like a crit, right?

Joe Gebbia 1:10:08 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:08 It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sports-based crit, and, uh, that's why oftentimes, you know, I'd, when, uh... And if you have a good coach, they're also gonna be pushing you beyond what your perceived limits are.

Joe Gebbia 1:10:20 100%.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:20 Right? So you get into the habit, perhaps subconscious or otherwise, of asking, "Is this impossible really impossible?"

Joe Gebbia 1:10:26 Mm-hmm.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:27 Because I never thought I would break, whatever, six-minute mile, and I just did that. And then I never thought I was gonna break a 5:30 mile, and my coach just helped me to do that. Or I figured out this hack, which is chasing the fastest person in front of me and then saying, "You're not gonna beat me. [laughs] You're not gonna beat me," and then I collapse in a big mess of a heap at the end. But nonetheless, hey, I just beat 5:30.

Joe Gebbia 1:10:47 Exactly.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:48 Or whatever it is. Um-

Joe Gebbia 1:10:50 And you, you, you, you feel like you've, you've expanded, like you've, you've pushed the limits of what you thought was possible within yourself.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:56 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:10:56 And that, that for me was like one of the greatest feelings-

Tim Ferriss 1:10:58 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 1:10:58 ... that I, I had at that time.

Tim Ferriss 1:10:59 And what strikes me is that for me, I didn't have many vehicles for expanding that capability that was, that was as tangible as sports.

Joe Gebbia 1:11:09 Mm.

Tim Ferriss 1:11:10 But design is super tangible, right? I mean, you're building-

Joe Gebbia 1:11:13 Yeah

Tim Ferriss 1:11:13 ... these chairs and these benches.

Joe Gebbia 1:11:15 Totally.

Tim Ferriss 1:11:15 And, uh, I sh- I should also just mention as a side note that I wanna, I wanna come back to RISD, that I don't think it's ever too late. People might be listening saying, "Well, hey, I didn't have a great cross country team or wrestling coach in high school," so kind of up shit's creek.

Joe Gebbia 1:11:35 Mm.

Tim Ferriss 1:11:35 It's like, no, actually, you can still develop that, right, with physical training and, and other outlets to expand your capabilities and your perception of what's possible.

Joe Gebbia 1:11:47 Sure, and it's so funny 'cause that was a piece of advice I got in seventh grade when I started playing basketball. The basketball coach said, "Joe, if, Joey, if you wanna get better at basketball, you need to play with people who are better than you."

Tim Ferriss 1:11:58 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:11:58 And so when I used to go to the, to, to the Y to shoot hoops on the weekend, I wouldn't play with people my age or younger. I'd actually play with the high schoolers who were much bigger, much stronger, much more talented than I was. And of course, I got, you know, pushed around and I like, you know, you get bumped around by guys who are, you know, um, playing on the varsity team. But man, my skills, the learning curve that year, I feel like that was, that was like a, another kind of threshold moment of like, I'm not very good at basketball to actually, okay, I've got some skills now.

Tim Ferriss 1:12:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:12:29 And so I think since that p- since that moment, I've always sought to try to find people to play with who are better than me.

Tim Ferriss 1:12:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:12:37 And that'll sort of come up back up when we talk about Airbnb.

Tim Ferriss 1:12:40 So the, so the Welshman-

Joe Gebbia 1:12:42 Yes

Tim Ferriss 1:12:42 ... concedes defeat-

Joe Gebbia 1:12:44 Gareth Jones

Tim Ferriss 1:12:44 ... so to speak. Gareth Jones.

Joe Gebbia 1:12:46 Um, I, I, by the way, I, um, I caught up for him, with him, I caught up with him for a coffee about 12 years later, and I had to ask him, I'm like, "H- here was my experience of that conversation. Like what, what the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you get behind me?" And he goes, "Joe, come on." I knew that if I told you you couldn't do it, you would.

Tim Ferriss 1:13:09 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:13:11 I was like, "You..." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:13:13 Oh, you.

Joe Gebbia 1:13:14 Oh, you.

Tim Ferriss 1:13:14 Oh, you. Good man.

Joe Gebbia 1:13:16 We have a great relationship, and I see him when I go back to campus.

Tim Ferriss 1:13:19 That's very cool.

Joe Gebbia 1:13:20 Um, so-

Tim Ferriss 1:13:22 So phase shifts-

Joe Gebbia 1:13:22 Phase-

Tim Ferriss 1:13:23 You have that experience

Joe Gebbia 1:13:23 ... you have that experience, and, um, th- as a great segue of sports into my RISD experience. I, I love basketball, as we've been talking about, and I, I walk into the Office of Student Life one day, and I go to the guy at the front desk, and I say, "I wanna play on the basketball team." And he gives me this funny face, and he goes, "We don't have a basketball team."

Tim Ferriss 1:13:43 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:13:45 And all of a sudden there's this, like, this awkward silence as we're just staring at each other, and he breaks the silence by saying, "You can start one if you want to." And I go, "Really? What's involved in that?" And he goes, "Well, if you collect a list of 12 other students that wanna play, um, bring it back to me." I'm like, "That's it?" [laughs] Uh, and I'm like, "Okay." So I run off, and I spend a week putting poster- posters up around the dorms, and I gather names of, you know, 11 other people who play basketball. It wasn't actually that hard. And I come back to him like, "Okay, cool. Now what?" And he goes, "Okay. Uh, fill out this form. Take this to the student government meeting on Wednesday to get recognized as a student organization." I'm like, "Okay." So I go to the meeting, and I present the concept. "I wanna have a basketball team. Here's the paperwork. Here's the names. Here's the, like, what we think we might need for a budget." It gets p- approved from the student government. So then I'm like... I go back to him like, "What's the next step?" [laughs] He's like, "Okay. Well, you need to find a gym, and..." And so one of these... One thing led to the other, and that year we, we started RISD's first basketball team in, uh, 40 years. And we started this, this team. It was, like, a hodgepodge group of, of other students, and we would rent gym space at a private high school in, in Providence, uh, to go practice in. And at this point we're just practicing. Like, we literally have th- there's no season. There's no games.

Tim Ferriss 1:15:06 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:15:06 There's no other competition. It's just us-

Tim Ferriss 1:15:08 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:15:08 ... scrim- scrimmaging each other. And, um, we d- made some really basic uniforms and just got things off the ground. The next year when I came back to campus, um, was, was different. I'm like, "Okay. This year we're gonna make a season. We're gonna play other teams. Like, let's turn this into something." Um, and so I get on the phone, and I start calling colleges in New England. I'm calling community colleges and, you know, junior, junior varsity schools. And, um, I get on the phone with some of these coaches, and I introduce myself, "Hey, this is Joe Gebbia calling from the Rhode Island School basketball team, and I'd like to..." "Uh, hello?"

Tim Ferriss 1:15:47 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:15:48 "Hello?"

Tim Ferriss 1:15:49 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:15:50 Pretty much everybody hung up on me-

Tim Ferriss 1:15:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:15:52 ... in the first couple phone calls. But then there was one college that took my call. I'll never forget it, 'cause I had to s- sneak out of my graphic design class to, uh, take the, the call. It was, uh, Clark University in Massachusetts, and I'm on the phone with their head coach, and he's like, "Yeah, okay, cool. Well, we're not gonna send down our varsity team, but I'll send my JV team." And I'm like, "Perfect! We'll take it." So on December 4, 2001-

Tim Ferriss 1:16:15 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:16:16 ... we had the first RISD basketball game, RISD versus Clark University. And at this point, like, it's so informal for us. We've got these basic mesh jerseys that are, like, reversible, basically a practice uniform for anybody else, and I'm player-coach leading the team at this point. And we're in not even our own gym, 'cause we don't have one. We're in some private high school gym around the corner. And the Clark University bus pulls up, and their players start to get off the bus, and I'm going, "Oh my God."

Tim Ferriss 1:16:45 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:16:46 "Their shortest guy is taller than our tallest guy."

Tim Ferriss 1:16:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:16:50 And they get, you know, the head coach and three assistant coaches and a trainer comes off.

Tim Ferriss 1:16:53 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:16:54 Meanwhile, it's just, like, 12 scrappy art school students on the court with, like, basic mesh practice jerseys. And I think once the c- [laughs] once the coach came down to the court, he kinda recognized what he'd gotten himself into, and he's like, "Oh, boy."

Tim Ferriss 1:17:06 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:17:08 And so we had a few, I think about 150 fans-

Tim Ferriss 1:17:11 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 1:17:11 ... of RISD students show up that, that first game. Um, I'd say we got blown out. It was 94 to 49. But in my mind, that was a huge win, because we established something. Like, we got a team established and off the ground-

Tim Ferriss 1:17:24 It's a real milestone

Joe Gebbia 1:17:25 ... at, at RISD. Yeah. And it was an incredible experience the next couple of years, um, because it was like running a startup. You know, you had to put a team together. You had to raise funding. You had to create a brand. You had to market that brand. You had to get people to the games. And one of the things I was most proud of is that, uh, at RISD, the work- the workloads are, are incredibly difficult, and once you get into your majors, they, you know, they say, like, sometimes you never see anybody again, 'cause they're just so focused on, on the workload. And, um, other than graduation, the basketball games became the only other time really during the year where you'd have the full cross-section of campus under the same roof at the same time: students, faculty, administration, um, uh, professors, alumni, people from Brown who were just curious and wanted to come over and see what this crazy RISD basketball team was doing. And so it was this really cool moment where you just, uh, bring people together, and that was, I think, really the, the, the, the undertones, the undercurrents of what the team was really about. Sure, it was about sport and competition and staying in shape and the camaraderie of being on the team. Second to that, it was also about bringing people together.

Tim Ferriss 1:18:33 That thematically makes sense if we're time traveling, looking forward quite a bit.

Joe Gebbia 1:18:38 Yeah. So that was a great experience. Um, I think a lot of people ask what the name of the team is, and, um, you know, because we're an art school, we didn't have to have traditional names. You know, RISD and any art school is all about self-expression and, and, um, not holding back. And so there was a legacy of names on campus that all had a particular theme to them. And so the hockey team on campus is called the Nads.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:05 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:19:07 So when you cheer, it's go-

Tim Ferriss 1:19:09 Go Nads.

Joe Gebbia 1:19:10 Yes. And so when we started the basketball team, we had to sort of fall in line with the theme, so the team's called The Balls.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:16 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:19:17 And both the Nads and The Balls are supported by the Jockstraps, which is the cheerleading team.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:22 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:19:23 And, um, there's a whole theme, uh, probably maybe we won't go into it here, but there's like a whole theme of, of sports at RISD that, um, adds to the, I think the, the, the levity and the humor of it.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:33 Are they all testicle related?

Joe Gebbia 1:19:35 Um, there was a, uh, there was a, um, I think there was a rowing team at one point called the, uh, The Shafts.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:43 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:19:43 Or it might have been the, the lacrosse team I think was called The Shafts at one point. Um, so.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:49 Side note.

Joe Gebbia 1:19:50 Side note.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:51 Because I'm well-caffeinated. Do you know where the, the word avocado comes from?

Joe Gebbia 1:19:56 No, I don't.

Tim Ferriss 1:19:56 I will tell you. It comes from, I believe it's, I wanna say an, an older Mayan language, but someone can correct me on the internet. I'm sure they will. Comes from a word ahucatl, T-L at the end, ahucatl. And avocado grow on trees hanging one lower than the other-

Joe Gebbia 1:20:16 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:20:16 ... in pairs, and, uh, that means testicles. So if you wanna make a RISD, current RISD students who might want to start-

Joe Gebbia 1:20:26 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:20:26 ... another team, you could go with the avocados, but it requires a bit of explanation.

Joe Gebbia 1:20:30 What would that sport be? I don't know yet.

Tim Ferriss 1:20:33 The most boring juggling-

Joe Gebbia 1:20:34 Juggling

Tim Ferriss 1:20:35 ... team in intramural juggling.

Joe Gebbia 1:20:36 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:20:36 Remedial juggling team.

Joe Gebbia 1:20:37 Juggling team.

Tim Ferriss 1:20:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:20:39 The first and only juggling team in college.

Tim Ferriss 1:20:41 So I have to ask, because I've been wanting to debut this question for a while. We talked about Crit, we've talked about Balls, which I think is a, it's a bit of a reach, but we can segue to Buns. When does CritBuns enter the picture here?

Joe Gebbia 1:20:58 All right.

Tim Ferriss 1:20:58 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:21:01 So it's freshman year at RISD. I'm in a drawing class, and the way it works, again, is like you'd come in and it'd be an eight-hour class. So in the morning you'd pin your work up on the wall, your drawing assignment from the week before, and you'd literally spend all day critiquing it or having a crit. And, you know, people would ask afterwards, "How'd your crit go?" "Oh man, my crit was so hard. My teacher was so rough on me," or like, "It didn't go well," or, "It was great." And about four hours in, you're... Picture the, the environment. You're in an art studio, hardwood floors, metal stools, wooden benches. Four hours in of sitting on these hard, uncomfortable surfaces, your butt starts to feel it. And everyone's wiggling around trying to get comfortable. So by the end of the day, you're incredibly sore, and I watched as my classmates exited the art studio with this bun print on the seat of their pants because all the charcoal dust, paint, and ink that's on these studio surfaces rubbed off onto our pants. And sure enough, I look at mine, my pants are ruined too. So I'm walking back to my dorm room and I'm thinking, "There's gotta be a better way."

Tim Ferriss 1:22:09 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:22:11 If we're gonna endure these crits for the next four years, what if you had a seat cushion that you could sit on to make you comfortable and to keep you clean? And so I got back to my dorm room and I pulled out my sketchbook, and I drew that same bun print shape on the seat of our pants and gave it some dimension, and I called it CritBuns.

Tim Ferriss 1:22:29 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:22:31 And, you know, at this point I had no idea how to make a product. It's just your first year of design school. So I tucked the sketch away. Now fast-forward to five years later. I've now done a dual degree in graphic design and industrial design, and at this point I know how to make a prototype. I know how to translate something from a sketchbook into, you know, a real working prototype. And so I make CritBuns out of hard foam. You can actually sc- sculpt it out of this special foam, and now I have this full-size hard, you know, representation of the shape, which is like, you know, two buns that come together and there's a handle so it's for portability. I take that hard model, I cast it in rubber, and then I pour into the cast a expanding polyurethane foam. So when I took the lid off, there was, looking back at me, the first soft CritBuns seat cushion.

Tim Ferriss 1:23:26 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:23:27 And it was great because now I could walk around to my classmates, I could say, "Hey, what do you guys think? How much would you pay for this? What kind of colors would you want?" And people, of course, had a, a cracked a smile when they saw it and they had a good laugh. Um, but I really hit a wall because I had a one-off prototype, but I didn't know how to get it to the next stage, and I certainly didn't have the money or the funds to do that on my own. It was around this time, my senior year, where I notice a poster on campus that says, "Competition for the design diploma. Submit your ideas here." And at RISD, they give you your, you know, degree, a paper de- degree, and they also give the graduating class a different object every year. So I submit CritBuns for the competition and it wins. It gets selected to be given out to every graduate from the RISD class of 2005, which is like freaking incredible. However, they tell me this on May 1st. Graduation is on June 1st.

Tim Ferriss 1:24:24 That's not a lot of time.

Joe Gebbia 1:24:24 And in between that, I have to deliver two thesis projects for graphic design and industrial design. I definitely don't have time to take on anything else in, in-

Tim Ferriss 1:24:32 How many students are in the graduating class?

Joe Gebbia 1:24:34 It's about eight hu- uh, 600.

Tim Ferriss 1:24:35 600.

Joe Gebbia 1:24:36 So I'm, I'm like, I'm so exuberant and excited that like, "Oh my God, they'll pay for the, the, the manufacturing of a couple hundred cushions." But at the same time I'm like, "How the hell am I gonna get this done?" Like, there is absolutely no time. And so I start, I get onto Google and I research, I search foam manufacturers. Tim, I called every single search result for the first 15 pages.

Tim Ferriss 1:25:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:25:05 I was calling people in India, I was calling people in England, I was calling people in Texas, I was calling people in California, and everybody said the same thing Uh, well, son, um, you know, it's gonna take you about six weeks just to make the metal mold and about another four weeks for production. Sorry. Click. And I just went through everybody and was getting, "No, no, no, no." So then I went to my professors in industrial design, and they also said it's never gonna happen in time. Now, um, at this point the school's getting a little bit nervous-

Tim Ferriss 1:25:31 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:25:33 ... 'cause the clock is ticking here.

Tim Ferriss 1:25:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:25:35 And they call me and they say, um, "W- how's the project coming?" And I'm like, "It's cool. Don't worry." And they go, "Uh, so is it gonna happen?" And I'm like, "Probably." And they go, "Well, you have until Friday at 5:00 to tell us if it's a go or not." So I'm like, "Okay."

Tim Ferriss 1:25:51 And what-

Joe Gebbia 1:25:52 So-

Tim Ferriss 1:25:52 ... is this on, a Monday, on a Tuesday? Something.

Joe Gebbia 1:25:54 This is like r- Monday.

Tim Ferriss 1:25:55 All right.

Joe Gebbia 1:25:56 So fast-forward, it's 4:00 on Friday afternoon.

Tim Ferriss 1:25:59 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:26:00 I have no options. Everybody's telling me no, it's never gonna happen. It's impossible. The manufacturing's gonna take many, many weeks, if not months. And I'm like, "I don't have that many weeks. We've got three now." And so I go outside the industrial design building. It's like a, a sunny afternoon, and I'm laying on the grass right on the, on the river in Providence, and I feel the breeze on my face, the sound of the birds, and I'm looking up at the sky, and I'm, I'm thinking to myself, "I have to figure this out. I can't... I'm not gonna give up on this. What haven't I thought of yet?" And I realized that the guy that runs the metal shop in the industrial design building, this guy Steve, I haven't talked to him yet. So I run back into the industrial design building. I go, "Steve, here's what's going on." And he goes, "I've got this friend Sam up in Cumberland, Rhode Island, who's got a tool shop. Why don't you give him a call? Maybe he'll help you out." So I get on the phone with this guy Sam, and I just pour it out to him. I'm like, "Sam, this is what I wanna do." I give him every ounce of enthusiasm that I have, and at the end he goes, "Oh, you really want this, don't you?" [laughs] And I'm like, "Yes. Whatever you can do." And he goes, "All right. Here's what I'll do. I'll move a couple projects around. If you send me the 3D CAD file today, I can make the tool this weekend and send it wherever you need me to send it on Monday." And I'm like, "Oh my God. I'm gonna call you right back." 'Cause I remembered there was a pool float company that I spoke to the week before in Connecticut who-

Tim Ferriss 1:27:27 Pool float

Joe Gebbia 1:27:27 They m-

Tim Ferriss 1:27:27 So it's like they make-

Joe Gebbia 1:27:29 M-

Tim Ferriss 1:27:29 ... like water wings or whatever you would lay in-

Joe Gebbia 1:27:30 Yeah

Tim Ferriss 1:27:30 ... in your pool.

Joe Gebbia 1:27:30 The pool float noodles and the things that float in water made out of foam. And the guy told me, he said, "Well," I remembered something. He goes, "You know, we can't make the mold in time, but if you find somebody else, we can produce the cushion." And the other thing is it had to have a silk screen on the top that said RISD 2005 on it. And so, um, I call back this guy, uh, Christophe at, like, 4:50 PM, right, on a Friday. He should've been gone. Like, I, I don't know how I caught him still in the office. And I go, "Christophe, it's Joe at RISD. I, like, found somebody to make the mold. He'll have it to you by Monday. Can we make it work?" And he goes, "You really want this, don't you?" [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:28:08 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:28:08 I'm like, "Yes. Whatever you can do." And he goes, "All right. Here's the address to send it to." So I literally call the school back, pr- it might as well have been 5:00, and I'm like, "We got it. Here's where to send the p- the purchase order," da, da, da, da, da. Two weeks later, uh, the day before graduation, 600 CritBuns showed up on campus with a silk screen on top that said, "RISD Class of 2005." [sighs]

Tim Ferriss 1:28:33 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:28:34 It was-

Tim Ferriss 1:28:35 The day before.

Joe Gebbia 1:28:37 It was the impossible, um, of how do you make 600 CritBuns, 300 red, 300 blue, with a silk screen on top in such a short amount of time when everybody's telling you no? Like, everybody just stared at me and was like, "This is never gonna happen." Um, I was exhausted [laughs] by the time that happened. However, it was so fun to see my classmates running around with CritBuns. Everybody had a pair, and, like, um, it was really fulfilling, and it was worth all the effort and all the energy. And I finished my two theses successfully on time, and I got to graduate and everything. Um, and while a lot of my classmates went off to great jobs at, some at NASA doing industrial design, and some at, um, some of the big design firms like IDEO and others, um, I made a decision. I said, "You know, RISD, and just design school in general, does such an exceptional job of helping you come up with a creative process to, you know, think of really original creative ideas." They're, they usually hit a wall, though, which is that you stop it at the prototype, and then you move on to the next project. And for me, it built up this incredible desire to figure out how to, how to, how do you get to the shelf of a store? Like, how does your idea transition from that one-off prototype all the way to the shelf of a store? And so I thought, "Well, I wanna, I wanna decode this black box. I have to figure this out." So I made a decision that I was gonna use CritBuns to help figure out how you get a product from an idea in your head to a sketchbook to the shelf of a store. So the day after graduation, I started my first company to make and sell CritBuns. And the beauty of it is that I didn't get paid for the graduation project, but they gave me the metal mold afterward, which was a few thousand dollars.

Tim Ferriss 1:30:24 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:30:25 So with the biggest expense out of the way, I was off, off to run.

Tim Ferriss 1:30:29 So what happened, what happened to CritBuns?

Joe Gebbia 1:30:30 Ooh.

Tim Ferriss 1:30:30 Why aren't you making CritBuns today?

Joe Gebbia 1:30:32 So [laughs] that summer, I started to develop the brand. I filed the patent, which is des- has a design patent on. I filed the trademark and everything, and, um, I went back to the school that summer and I said, "You know, that was so fun for the graduating class. What if we did this for the incoming class as a welcome to RISD gift?" And they loved the idea, and they placed my, their first order. And so on top of that order, I, I tacked on my own inventory. So I did this production run of, I think, 1,000 cushions.

Tim Ferriss 1:31:02 Ah, right.

Joe Gebbia 1:31:03 And two things happened. The first is that there were now 400 students running around campus with CritBuns, actually using them in the studios. I, I could go talk to them. I could take photos of them. I could actually start to build stories and narratives around how they use the product. And [laughs] second thing that happens is, I'll never forget, in my apartment in Providence, in the basement of, like, this really old kind of nine- early 1900s apartment, um, I had about 10 boxes of hundreds of CritBuns, like, filled up this entire room, and I'm sitting there staring at them and thinking, "Oh, boy. Nobody's coming to my basement to buy these things."

Tim Ferriss 1:31:41 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:31:42 I have to go out into the world and I have-

Tim Ferriss 1:31:43 How dare they

Joe Gebbia 1:31:43 ... to figure out how to sell these. How do I sell these things? So I put together a sales sheet, um, and, and I, uh, put on my best shirt and my best shoes, and, like, just the best kind of, like, professional look that I could have. And the first store I walked into was the Brown University bookstore, and I asked for the store manager, and we sit down in this little conference room, and I start to go through my spiel, and I put the, the sales sheet in front of her and a sample cushion. And I'm going through the, the whole thing and I'm like, you know, giving it all my enthusiasm, and about 30 or so seconds in she looks at me, she goes, "No, thanks," and gets up and leaves the room. And I'm just sitting there in this tiny little fluorescent-lit conference room by myself with my cushion and my sales sheet and no sale.

Tim Ferriss 1:32:29 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:32:30 Like, actually a, a pretty horrible rejection. Um, so I walk back to, uh, [laughs] to my apartment, very slow walk, kind of like a Charlie Brown-

Tim Ferriss 1:32:39 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:32:40 ... Snoopy kind of walk. And, [laughs] and I'm thinking to myself, "Well, that sucked." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:32:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:32:49 I'm like, "How the hell am I gonna sell these cushions if that's the reaction I'm gonna get?" And it was in that moment where I remembered this sales equation that I had heard at this, uh, entrepreneur weekend at Brown University that I snuck into one time.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:33:06 And the guy s- talking gave this equation for whenever you introduce a new idea into the world, it was an equation for receiving rejection and how to move past rejection. And the equation was SW2 + WC = MO.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:24 Wow. Hell of a memory. Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:33:26 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:33:26 I'll give myself zero seconds. I already forgot it. All right.

Joe Gebbia 1:33:28 [laughs] So it's like-

Tim Ferriss 1:33:29 One more time. SW2-

Joe Gebbia 1:33:30 SW2-

Tim Ferriss 1:33:31 + WC

Joe Gebbia 1:33:32 ... + WC = MO.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:34 All right.

Joe Gebbia 1:33:34 So SW2 is some will love your idea, some won't.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:40 Uh-huh.

Joe Gebbia 1:33:41 Plus who cares equals move on.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:46 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:33:49 It was the per-

Tim Ferriss 1:33:50 I like it. I like it

Joe Gebbia 1:33:50 ... the perfect equation.

Tim Ferriss 1:33:51 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:33:51 So I'm telling myself, "Okay, SW2, who cares? I just gotta move on." And so I did. I'm like, "All right. I'm just gonna go find another store. Some people are gonna love it, some people aren't. It doesn't matter. I just gotta keep going."

Tim Ferriss 1:34:00 Mm.

Joe Gebbia 1:34:00 "I can't get hung up on one person saying no. I need to go keep going till I find, can find somebody that says yes." So I went to the next store. They said no. Went to the third store. They also said no.

Tim Ferriss 1:34:11 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:34:12 I went to the fourth store, which was this little, tiny gift boutique store on Thayer Street in Providence.

Tim Ferriss 1:34:18 I know Thayer.

Joe Gebbia 1:34:19 Yes.

Tim Ferriss 1:34:19 Had a Halloween on Thayer. It's a hell of a Halloween.

Joe Gebbia 1:34:22 It is, it is. That's a crazy street to be on for Halloween. Um, so I go into the store, I give them the pitch, the sales sheet, and I... At this point I'm t- I'm tweaking everything. I'm iterating as I go. And the woman goes, "I'd love to buy c- I'd love to buy some cushions from you." And I'm like, "Oh my God." And she goes, "I'd love to buy four."

Tim Ferriss 1:34:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:34:40 And I'm like thinking inside, "Hell yeah." She could have bought one and I would've been happy.

Tim Ferriss 1:34:44 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:34:45 So she starts to go through the thing. "Well, here's... You can ship them to and here's the address." And I go, "Oh, no, no, no. I'll go pack them up at my house and bring them back to you today."

Tim Ferriss 1:34:52 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:34:52 She's like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yeah." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:34:53 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:34:54 So I ran home. I packed up my cushion. I was so excited. I gave them to her, and I went back later that night after they had closed. It's like, uh, it's dark on Thayer Street. I go to the front of the store and I press my face up against this cold glass, and I can kind of see my, my breath in the glass, and there's a dim light on in the back of the boutique. They're, they're closed. And I'm scanning the store and I'm squinting, and there it is. I can see CritBuns on the shelf of the store.

Tim Ferriss 1:35:23 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:35:24 And I'm like, "Fuck yes." Like, I did it.

Tim Ferriss 1:35:28 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:35:29 Like, everything f- after that point was downhill. Like, I... It was like I knew how to walk into a store, I knew how to talk to a buyer.

Tim Ferriss 1:35:34 Downhill in, downhill in-

Joe Gebbia 1:35:35 It's an easy-

Tim Ferriss 1:35:36 ... in a good sense.

Joe Gebbia 1:35:36 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 1:35:36 Like, you're pushing the boulder downhill.

Joe Gebbia 1:35:38 It was easy. Right.

Tim Ferriss 1:35:38 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:35:39 Before I was, like, trying to climb uphill against all these obstacles. Now it was just, like, coasting downhill. So-

Tim Ferriss 1:35:43 Now, was that because you had the skills or because you had proven to yourself that you could do it?

Joe Gebbia 1:35:48 Proven to myself I could do it. It was that, like, one proof point that-

Tim Ferriss 1:35:51 Four cushions

Joe Gebbia 1:35:52 ... four cushions on the shelf of the store. I'm like, "Hallelujah." Somehow it happened. Um, now I have the, like, even more confidence to walk into a store and meet with a buyer and ask the question, you know, "What's the process to, to get a new product into your store?" And I could sit down with them and talk about the product, how original it was. Um, so I make trips to Boston and talk to stores there. I go down to New York. I talk to Pratt. I talk to, um, School of Visual Arts, talk to Parsons. Um, um, I talk to more stores in Providence.

Tim Ferriss 1:36:23 What was the furthest away you traveled to sell CritBuns?

Joe Gebbia 1:36:26 When I'd go home to Atlanta for the holidays.

Tim Ferriss 1:36:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:36:29 I'd sell them at stores-

Tim Ferriss 1:36:30 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 1:36:30 ... in Atlanta. I mean, everywhere I went, I was always carrying a cushion with me. I'd talk to anybody about it, right? It was like everybody I talked to, I was just practicing the sales pitch.

Tim Ferriss 1:36:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:36:39 And just as to get comfortable with it. Um, so that product and that concept just, you know, it was never meant to be anything huge. It was just meant to be grad school, in essence, to help teach me, like, the whole stack of product development, because I was doing everything out of my apartment, from the distribution, the packaging, the fulfillment, the website, the press. Like, everything was run from my desktop computer next to my bed in my bedroom. Um, and so I got, like, in a very mic- like, you know, a very small scale, I got the full, you know, ecosystem of what it means to run something. Obviously at a very small, manageable scale, which was perfect. Um, and so one of the One of the, the defining moments was I set a goal for myself. I said, "What's the store shelf that would be the pinnacle for me? Like, what would I just be the most proud of?" And one of the most heralded shelves for any designer to get on is a shelf at the design store at the Museum of Modern Art-

Tim Ferriss 1:37:41 Oh, yeah

Joe Gebbia 1:37:42 ... in New York City.

Tim Ferriss 1:37:43 Huge.

Joe Gebbia 1:37:43 Huge. I mean, there's legends are there. Like, you can get Eames stuff, you can get George Nelson stuff. You can get, like, the greats of the greats, right? Along with modern things, of course. And so I set my goal. I'm like, "I'm gonna figure out how to get CritBuns into the MoMA store." And after two years of just not giving up, I finally got my first order from MoMA. I will never forget that phone call.

Tim Ferriss 1:38:06 Okay. Now, you are clearly gifted, or you've developed and cultivated gifts with art and design. You've also had a lot of practice pitching, right? Through good and bad, experiencing rejection and acceptance. So what, what got you the acceptance?

Joe Gebbia 1:38:29 I think it was-

Tim Ferriss 1:38:30 I mean, what was the, what was the, like-

Joe Gebbia 1:38:31 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:38:31 ... what was the, what was the pitch? What was the process?

Joe Gebbia 1:38:34 At a certain point, I think they realized I wasn't gonna go, gonna go away.

Tim Ferriss 1:38:37 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:38:37 And they're like, "All right, let's just order-"

Tim Ferriss 1:38:38 It's just easier to let this guy-

Joe Gebbia 1:38:39 Maybe. Who knows?

Tim Ferriss 1:38:40 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:38:40 I never, I never asked them. Um, but the product ended up selling out, uh, of their store. Um-

Tim Ferriss 1:38:44 Did you sell pe- Did you send people there to buy them? [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:38:47 [laughs] I didn't have to.

Tim Ferriss 1:38:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:38:49 But I remember going... I definitely made a trip down to New York after I shipped them the order, and I walked in, and there it was on the shelf of the MoMA, and I took a picture, and I just thought, like, "Wow." Like, this seemed... If you, if you... If I had told myself three years earlier that I would've made a product that would be on the shelf of the MoMA store, I would've said, "You're crazy." Like, that's impossible.

Tim Ferriss 1:39:10 So what gave you the, the chutzpah to pursue it for two years?

Joe Gebbia 1:39:17 [sighs]

Tim Ferriss 1:39:21 And was it the fact that you'd-

Joe Gebbia 1:39:23 I think it was just the-

Tim Ferriss 1:39:24 There were so many impossibles that you'd proven possible to yourself? Was it something else?

Joe Gebbia 1:39:28 It was just wanting to experience that, that feeling, like, what I imagined it might feel like if I were to ever accomplish something that was so, such a stretch goal for me.

Tim Ferriss 1:39:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:39:37 Um, I, I don't know. Like, I just developed a relationship with the buyer at the time.

Tim Ferriss 1:39:42 Uh-huh.

Joe Gebbia 1:39:43 And I think that just evolved into an order eventually, and, um, you know, at that point, like, wow, what was next?

Tim Ferriss 1:39:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:39:50 Right? So-

Tim Ferriss 1:39:52 Was that... Now I'm g- I'm gonna prompt one thing-

Joe Gebbia 1:39:55 Hmm

Tim Ferriss 1:39:55 ... because it just popped into my head. Was MoMA before or after, I wanna say, trade show in Japan?

Joe Gebbia 1:40:04 It was before.

Tim Ferriss 1:40:05 It was before.

Joe Gebbia 1:40:05 Yes.

Tim Ferriss 1:40:06 We can't... I, I only-

Joe Gebbia 1:40:08 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:40:08 ... remember bits and pieces of this, but can you describe-

Joe Gebbia 1:40:14 Yeah

Tim Ferriss 1:40:14 ... Japan?

Joe Gebbia 1:40:15 So the product ended up taking me around the world, and-

Tim Ferriss 1:40:17 And this was still for colleges?

Joe Gebbia 1:40:19 Well, no. I mean, this is for any kind of, you know, gift fair or any kind of event where there's other designers selling their things.

Tim Ferriss 1:40:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:40:27 And so I got connected with this website called designboom.com, one of the biggest design blogs in the world, and they had this thing called the gift, um, the gift mart. Um, and they basically would invite designers from around the world to come sell their things at these big design week events, where it'd be really hard to afford access to it as an independent, you know, young designer. They would kind of create that opportunity for you.

Tim Ferriss 1:40:50 Pay for the booth or they-

Joe Gebbia 1:40:51 Exactly

Tim Ferriss 1:40:51 ... they have the entire space.

Joe Gebbia 1:40:52 You had a small fee to pay, but nothing like the actual cost, and so they subsidized it to make it possible. And so I got involved in that, and it took me all over the place. I traveled to Sydney, Australia, where I sold the cushion. Um, I traveled to New York, and I traveled to Tokyo for design week one year. And this was f- fascinating, um, because I got to experience what it was like to sell the cushion in person to, directly to consumers. It's one thing to sell to a store manager than it is to sell to the actual customer.

Tim Ferriss 1:41:20 Very different.

Joe Gebbia 1:41:21 The other thing was, um, RISD has these events where the alumni can come together and sell their creations, whether it's ceramics or furniture products. And so at this point, I had figured out [laughs] after hundreds of interactions with people face to face, you know, I had designed my stand with the cushions and the big signs that said CritBuns, you know, um, "Supporting creativity where others can't." [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:41:46 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:41:47 And, um, I actually have seen it so many times at this point, I was able to break the sales process down into five steps. There were five stages to the CritBuns sales process. The first stage is what I call the what the hell is that stage, where people are walking by, and they do this double take. And they look at it, and they're like, "What is that?" But the shape and the color is interesting enough to draw them in. And so then they get to stage two, which is called the touch and feel phase.

Tim Ferriss 1:42:18 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:42:19 They grab the product off the stand. They squeeze it. They realize it's soft. The first smile comes to their face.

Tim Ferriss 1:42:24 This is also my dating process, by the way.

Joe Gebbia 1:42:26 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:42:26 Please continue. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:42:28 They, they kinda get a smile on their face, and they flip it over.

Tim Ferriss 1:42:31 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:42:32 And they enter stage three, which is the story phase. So on the back of the package, I tell the, the story, you know, in a couple of lines, you know, how the product was concepted, how it was created, who made it. And so you see them reading the story, "Ahhh," and then they smile, and they make the connection of why the thing is the way it, it is. Then there's stage four. Step number four is tried and true. I've seen this everywhere. They immediately start going like this with the cushion in their hand. They're looking around, 'cause they wanna try it out.

Tim Ferriss 1:43:03 Ah.

Joe Gebbia 1:43:04 Does it deliver what it says it's gonna do? Does it make any hard surface more comfortable? So I always have a demo chair nearby for people to try it out. And so people sit down on it, and as they're sitting on it, I had a chair next to them, and I'd s- I'd lean over to them, and I figured out the question to ask. I ask somebody How do you see this fitting into your life?

Tim Ferriss 1:43:24 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:43:26 And what's amazing is that people told me all kinds of different uses that I never even imagined for the cushion.

Tim Ferriss 1:43:31 Huh.

Joe Gebbia 1:43:31 There's actually 35 different uses for it. People use it for camping trips. People take it to baseball games. Soccer moms love it for their kids. Um, pregnant women love it 'cause it takes the pressure off your tailbone when you sit down, 'cause it's got a dip in the middle. People with sciatica love it because, again, the dip in the middle takes pressure off your tailbone. I learned so many uses for the thing just by asking people that question. And the minute that people could connect it to something that's important in their life, there's a very high percentage that they bought it.

Tim Ferriss 1:43:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:43:57 And at 19.99, it, like, wasn't, you know, a huge commitment.

Tim Ferriss 1:44:00 Bank breaker, yeah.

Joe Gebbia 1:44:01 So that was stage four. Stage five, I never could have predicted, and this was really the magic of learning what... It's not only about a product, but it's about a story as well. I would literally watch people buy my product. They'd stand up, they'd turn to the next person in line, who'd say, "What the hell is that?" And the person who just bought it would literally tell them verbatim the story about the product.

Tim Ferriss 1:44:27 On the back of the package.

Joe Gebbia 1:44:27 They would sell the product for me. I would just sit back and watch this happen, and I'm like, "This is amazing." And I realized the power of story in that moment, that design is more than just a product. It's more than just, you know, digital experience. It's... That cushion is 50% foam and 50% story.

Tim Ferriss 1:44:46 Huh.

Joe Gebbia 1:44:47 It was a really valuable lesson, and so I used... Like, I learned from that every time that I went to these different events. So here we are in Japan.

Tim Ferriss 1:44:55 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:44:56 We're in Tokyo, and it's really exciting. My first time to Japan. I'm, like, thrilled. I'm... Like, my senses are just, like, overwhelmed with everything about Tokyo, and I'm at this five-day design event for Design Week. This is back in, like, 2008, 2007. And so I go out there with, um, 40 cushions, which are these two giant boxes.

Tim Ferriss 1:45:21 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:45:21 Like, these... They take up a lot of volume, right? And I'm like, I take those things on the plane, and then I take them through the Tokyo subway system.

Tim Ferriss 1:45:29 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:45:29 And, like, it's really awkward 'cause you can't carry... You have to, like, drag them, and it's like-

Tim Ferriss 1:45:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:45:35 I'm like this, you know-

Tim Ferriss 1:45:36 For those people who haven't been to [laughs] Tokyo, every once in a while you'll, you'll encounter a subway car that has lots of space. That is not the default, uh, particularly if you're going during any busy period.

Joe Gebbia 1:45:48 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 1:45:48 There are, in fact, certain stations where they have attendants wearing white gloves who will push people into the cars so that the doors can close, and it's sardines in a can. So I'm just imagining you dragging these things around.

Joe Gebbia 1:46:01 Just imagine, I've got my big backpacker's backpack. I've got these two giant cardboard boxes of 20 CritBuns each that are, like, heavy and awkward. I'm trying to navigate the n- the narrow subway system of, of Tokyo. And I get to my setup at the, at the design fair, and I've got this little, like, tiny folding table. To my left and right and all around me are other designers as part of Design Boom, and I'm so excited. As people come walking up on day one, I start talking to them to try to tell them the story, and nobody speaks English.

Tim Ferriss 1:46:37 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:46:39 And by the end of day one, I've sold a total of zero CritBuns, and I'm thinking to myself, "Oh my God, this is, this is not good. I'm definitely not going home with 40 cushions."

Tim Ferriss 1:46:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:46:51 "I need to change my strategy here because this is not gonna work. The story's not translating. The power of the story that works so well has no impact here whatsoever."

Tim Ferriss 1:47:00 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:47:01 So thankfully, the, the young designer next to me was Japanese, and we struck up a friendship 'cause we're gonna be together for the next couple days. And I'm like, "I, I have a problem here. I need to translate these things." She's like, "Well, um, I can help you translate if you wanna make any written material." So I designed this poster overnight, this giant poster that is all in Japanese with pictures of CritBuns. Um, I d- had a picture of a stadium seat with an arrow pointing to it and s- you know, stadium seat seating in Japanese, and then, um, had somebody kneeling in a garden. Um, I had somebody meditating on it. And, um, she was so kind to, to translate for me. I ran to Kinko's that night, got it printed in downtown Tokyo, uh, and the next day I had this beautiful poster that did all the explanation and had demo chair printed out in Japanese on the demo chair. And one by one, somebody actually made a sale, and I was like, "Oh my God, okay. This is gonna work." And then I had another guy who actu- actually happened to be a RISD grad, who was there just visiting. He spoke Japanese, and he's like, "If you want help translating, I'm happy to do this for you." So, uh, bless his heart. He was amazing. He actually would, like, draw people over to my little folding table with my stacks of CritBuns everywhere, and he would tell the story in Japanese. And I'll never forget, the last day, it was like towards the end of the day, everything started k- kind of closing down, and we sold the last pair of CritBuns. And there's this picture of him and I sitting there at this empty table being like, "Oh my God, I can't believe we did it."

Tim Ferriss 1:48:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:48:35 So I was able to pay for my trip basically by the sale of these CritBuns. Um, it was just a, a great lesson in, like, having to figure out how to translate your story, um, beyond just, you know, English speakers in my case.

Tim Ferriss 1:48:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:48:47 Um, that, that was a, a role and an experience. So man, that, that project took me all over the place. I got to meet the, the guy who invented the Foam Finger.

Tim Ferriss 1:48:58 [laughs] Sure.

Joe Gebbia 1:49:00 This guy Gerald Foss, who's here in Texas, um, uh, to see if he wanted to do manufacturing at one point. Um, and you go into his lobby, and he's got, like, the original Foam Finger from the 1970s in the glass case, right? [laughs] Totally random. Um, I got to meet the late Billy Mays-

Tim Ferriss 1:49:17 Oh, yeah

Joe Gebbia 1:49:17 ... from the infomercials.

Tim Ferriss 1:49:18 OxiClean.

Joe Gebbia 1:49:19 So I applied at one point-

Tim Ferriss 1:49:20 And many, many more.

Joe Gebbia 1:49:21 Yeah. "Hey, I'm Billy Mays. Welcome. We're gonna show you this right now." And, um, there was this, uh, uh, the reality show at one point for inventors and people that made products, um- For some reason, I, I was inspired to submit CritBuns. Um, and so I flew to LA one, one weekend, and I'm in this, like, lobby for the casting with all these other inventors. And [laughs] everybody had, like, really weird stuff, like a lot of stuff for cats.

Tim Ferriss 1:49:49 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:49:49 Like, people had, like, pet cats, like, running around them, and, like, it's, like, a lot of pet stuff. And there's me, like, in one of my best shirts, holding my CritBuns, like, really proud. And the producer comes over, and they mic me up, and they're like, "Okay. We want you to walk down that hallway and go through those double doors," and that's all they said.

Tim Ferriss 1:50:04 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:05 And so I'm like, "Okay." So I got my product, proud entrepreneur here. I walk down the hallway. It's this, like, dark... The lights are off. This dark hallway, and all I can see is, like, these two illuminated doors at the end. And I open the doors, and there at this huge conference table is Billy Mays and one other co-star, and then there's, like, all these cameras and all these lights pointed at you.

Tim Ferriss 1:50:25 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:25 And he goes, "Hey, I'm Billy Mays. Come on in."

Tim Ferriss 1:50:27 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:27 And I sit down in the chair, and suddenly I'm on this, like, pitch session. It was like Shark Tank before Shark Tank.

Tim Ferriss 1:50:34 Right.

Joe Gebbia 1:50:34 Right? Like, I'm having to pitch him on why my product's so great, and, um, it wasn't going so well-

Tim Ferriss 1:50:40 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:42 ... until he tried it out.

Tim Ferriss 1:50:44 Mm.

Joe Gebbia 1:50:44 And he, like, actually got up, and he sat down in it for... He goes, "Oh, yeah, this, this is pretty good."

Tim Ferriss 1:50:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:48 And, um, and then they said, "Okay, thanks." And, like, I walked out. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:50:53 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:50:54 It's, like, this, like, blitz of, like, five minutes of just pitch mode, and it was, like, getting peppered with all these questions, and all these lights on you, and these cameras. I did not get on the show.

Tim Ferriss 1:51:03 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:51:04 Um, but it was just one of these crazy moments of, like, these unexpected things that this, this product, these experiences that this product brought me.

Tim Ferriss 1:51:11 So, s- so why are you not, why are you not the, the titan of the CritBuns empire? Why did you stop-

Joe Gebbia 1:51:19 [sighs] So-

Tim Ferriss 1:51:20 ... CritBuns?

Joe Gebbia 1:51:21 This goes back to RISD. I switched from, uh, being in painting to being in ind- industrial design, largely in part because I learned about Charles and Ray Eames, two designers from the mid-20th century that were a couple. Ray was the wife, Charles was the husband. And they produced design that it's legendary. It's still referenced today. It's in the, the, it's in the MoMA, in the permanent collection. It's iconic. And they dedicated their, their lives to producing the best design to the most people for the least price, and they were really, um, celebrated for democratizing good design and making it accessible. I'd also had the, the chair project with Gareth Jones, and fell in love with making things, and realized that I wanted to switch from, you know, this more, um, uh, uh, creative pursuit of painting, which was more about, you know, the expression of, of ideas through that medium, into the expression of ideas through industrial design, which was cool to me because you could make something, objects, and it could be replicated thousands, hundreds, thousands, millions of times. You could actually touch millions of people with your designs, just like the Eames had. And so this was my motivation to switch into industrial design. You could d- use design to improve people's lives, and it could be done at scale. You could touch a lot of people all at once. And so RISD and the industrial design department did something brilliant. Our first year in the program, they put us all in, in the, the school vans, and they drove us out to the Rhode Island state landfill. And here we are [clears throat] driving through these canyons of trash. Like, you have your faces pressed up against the bus gla- window, and you can't even see to the top-

Tim Ferriss 1:53:09 Wow

Joe Gebbia 1:53:10 ... of the landfill for, for the state. And you get out to the top, and you're, you get out of the vans, and you're looking back over this just, you know, landscape of garbage. And for me, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, wow, like, I do not wanna spend my life making things that contribute to making the landfill better, bigger.

Tim Ferriss 1:53:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:53:33 That is not interesting to me. It was, like, a, a really impactful moment where I just, I, I, I started to feel a, a slight sense of guilt that I was now studying a, um, a discipline that was about making more stuff. And so it, it really kicked off this enthusiasm or consciousness around how do you make stuff that's environmentally considered?

Tim Ferriss 1:53:55 Cradle to cradle?

Joe Gebbia 1:53:56 Cradle to cradle, yeah, uh, Bill McDonough's book, which was also came out around this time, was hugely influ- influential. Natural Capitalism kinda came out around this time, and these... There was starting to be this, this other way of thinking about how we consume things in the planet. And certainly I... You feel a responsibility as a designer 'cause y- you're pretty close to the origins of those things. Sometimes you don't decide the strategy of, hey, we need to make this product, but you're definitely in it, in the field of view of being able to decide what kind of materials to use, what's the whole life cycle of a product. And so, um, with CritBuns, I actually delayed the launch of that for six months because I was trying to find a foam that was environmentally considered, and I called everybody. I sh- I was f- talking to people in the Midwest making foam out of soybeans at one point. I found a woman in England who started to make plastic out of bubblegum that you'd scrape off of the sidewalk. Um, but I s- couldn't find anybody that made a foam that was appropriate for the product. So I decided to go forward with the product, and, um, that sparked this other idea, which was, okay, um, I've learned two things from this: A, the foam doesn't exist, and B, there's wasn't even a good source to try to find the foam in the first place.

Tim Ferriss 1:55:12 Hmm.

Joe Gebbia 1:55:13 Right? Like, Amazon was starting to really emerge at this time, and it was so easy to find a book on Amazon or, like, content. I was like, "Why isn't there a site where you can find sustainable materials?" I talked to some of my classmates my, that we had graduated at this point, and, um, became very clear that whether you're in architecture or fashion design or package design or industrial design, there was a growing consciousness around we wanna feel good about the things that we're making. And so I realized I'm not a material scientist. Maybe I'm not gonna invent a foam. However, I know how to make a website. So what if I started a site that would allow any designer to connect with the sources of sustainable materials, whether it's bioplastics or, you know, reclaimed glass or w- you know, organic cotton? And so a classmate and I partnered up together, a buddy named Matt, and we created this f- website to help solve our own problem of having access to sustainable materials. And, um, you know, the site started and, and it was this combination of ecology and, and intellect, so we called it Ecolect. And it was basically Google for sustainable materials, and we'd find manufacturers around the world, and we'd plug them into the system. And, uh, it was basically like a really high-end search engine and community for people who cared about this topic. So we slowed down CritBuns to work on this website. You know, the, the thing is that the, the product remained. I had, uh, figured out manufacturing abroad. Um, the CritBuns website was up. It was getting press at this point from around the world. It was getting blogged about. I was shipping orders out of my garage. This, um... At this point, I moved to San Francisco. My garage became CritBuns headquarters, and it got into some of the big catalogs in the US. One of them's called Solutions Catalog, which went out to, like, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of homes. And I had these orders flowing in, and, like, my garage, I had to employ some friends to come help pack up CritBuns, these orders of hundreds at a time. It was insane. Um, great learning experience. And, um, you know, in fact, Tim, there's something I brought for you today.

Tim Ferriss 1:57:18 [laughs] You're kidding. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:57:21 I have one of the original pairs-

Tim Ferriss 1:57:24 Oh my God

Joe Gebbia 1:57:25 ... CritBuns for you, my friend.

Tim Ferriss 1:57:27 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 1:57:28 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:57:29 This is incredible. Thank you so much. Oh my God, look at this.

Joe Gebbia 1:57:33 You're very welcome.

Tim Ferriss 1:57:34 CritBuns, a seat cushion for artists and designers. For the love of the crit. And then on the back we've got Buns TM. These buns approved for use on hard surfaces. Buns not a lifesaving or flotation device. Good. Good note. They're intended solely for cheek-to-cheek comfort. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:57:56 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:57:57 Amazing. Thank you.

Joe Gebbia 1:57:59 And you get the story on the, the back of the label.

Tim Ferriss 1:58:00 Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, here we go. The CritBun story. Hours of critiquing from the cold, hard, dirty floor gave a young design student more than a sore bum. It provided the inspiration for a better way, colon, a seat cushion offering day-long comfort and cleaner pants to art students worldwide. The name and shape, they originated from the charcoal bun prints students left behind on metal stools and hardwood floors. www.critbuns.com. The term crit, slang for critique, is the presentation of a student's artwork before professors and peers, and is a staple of every art and design school experience.

Joe Gebbia 1:58:38 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 1:58:41 Wait a minute, my favorite part. So you got patent pending, trademark and copyright 2005, '06 Juice Studios LLC. Critiqued in USA. All rights reserved. Drop us a line, highbrow@critbuns.com. Printed with soy ink. Approved by the CBBOD. I don't know what that is. And then you have a bun-shaped barcode on the back for scanning. This is great, man. I can see how... Let me try that.

Joe Gebbia 1:59:12 That chair's already pretty soft, but-

Tim Ferriss 1:59:13 It is br- already pretty soft. I think I'll, I will save this for my traveling hard surface experiences.

Joe Gebbia 1:59:18 For sure.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:19 Thank you.

Joe Gebbia 1:59:19 You're very welcome.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:20 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:59:22 So CritBuns sort of is, is slowing down, but, um, it's funny, every so often I still get an order. I still go down to the garage.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:30 Still?

Joe Gebbia 1:59:30 Still.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:31 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:59:32 And I s- still pack it up and ship it out, and, you know, life's changed quite a bit since then.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 1:59:39 Um, but it's, it's a great reminder for me of, of, like, those early days-

Tim Ferriss 1:59:43 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 1:59:44 ... of just hustling, of trying to get stuff done, of, like, the enthusiasm and the, um, you know, exuberance of, of bringing an idea to life. Like, it was a rush.

Tim Ferriss 1:59:53 And then you go from physical to digital. What did you learn from the Ecolect experience?

Joe Gebbia 2:00:02 Well, Ecolect launched at a time, and this might be hard to understand now, but if you go back 10 plus years, around 2007, Web 2.0, it's happening on the internet, and revenue is not cool, right?

Tim Ferriss 2:00:17 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:00:18 It, it's crazy to think about now.

Tim Ferriss 2:00:19 The new, the new economy.

Joe Gebbia 2:00:21 Web 2.0, revenue wasn't cool. Eyeballs were cool. Traffic was great, but it didn't, revenue didn't matter. And so unfortunately, we subscribed to that as well-

Tim Ferriss 2:00:28 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:00:28 ... with Ecolect, and our service was free, and, um, we didn't make any money on it. We bootstrapped the whole thing and never took investment on it, and the, the one thing that we did innovate on that actually did make money for us is what we called the Green Box. And the Green Box was basically like a physical magazine that we shipped out on a quarterly basis that allowed people to build an actual materials library for themselves. So we'd sip- ship actual samples with these beautifully designed-

Tim Ferriss 2:00:56 Huh

Joe Gebbia 2:00:56 ... placards that gave you all the information about it with a special integrated hook. So you can imagine a whole wall of materials that you'd have in your design studio or your design team in-house or consultancy, whatever the thing was, or even a design school for materials library. And that did all right, except it was so laborious. I'd be down in the garage, like, zip-tying things together and-

Tim Ferriss 2:01:16 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:01:16 ... have to design all these cards and then to get the stickers, and then, like, it just... It took way too long [laughs] versus on how much we made. Um, and so around this time, I also have a day job.

Tim Ferriss 2:01:28 What's your day job?

Joe Gebbia 2:01:28 My day job was I got a fellowship, um, from a book publisher called Chronicle Books.

Tim Ferriss 2:01:35 Yes.

Joe Gebbia 2:01:36 And they had a fellowship, which is a six-month program for recent graduates, typically for graphic designers. They introduced one for industrial designers.

Tim Ferriss 2:01:44 Huh.

Joe Gebbia 2:01:45 And I'm thinking, "Oh my God, this is perfect." I've got a graphic design background as well

Tim Ferriss 2:01:49 Chronicle makes beautiful, beautiful books.

Joe Gebbia 2:01:52 Their books are like objects, right?

Tim Ferriss 2:01:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 2:01:55 They, they really... What I learned there was, uh, about the importance of detail and craft.

Tim Ferriss 2:02:00 Now, by fellowship, I mean, that sounds like you're given a stipend to pursue your art, but are you also-

Joe Gebbia 2:02:08 It was like a glorified intern.

Tim Ferriss 2:02:10 Glorified intern.

Joe Gebbia 2:02:10 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 2:02:11 All right. Much more attractive when you call it a fellowship. [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:02:12 It is, um, much more desirable. And it worked, and I got that role for six months, and, um, had a great time there. Um, really got to work alongside some world-class graphic designers.

Tim Ferriss 2:02:24 So that's how you're paying the bills while you're offering this free service.

Joe Gebbia 2:02:28 So I'm paying the bills, and, um, I, I eventually get a, a full-time offer and I take it, and so I'm there doing industrial design work, working on, on packaging for, for high-end books. So they did, um, the book for George Lucas on Star Wars, and I got to design the, you know, the really high-end case. This book was huge. It weighed like... You know, it was like 20 pounds. It's like one of those really thick coffee table books. Um, did the package for Hugh Hefner. He did a book on the centerfolds, every centerfold since 1954, I believe, uh, starting with Marilyn Monroe. And so I got to design this, um, a, a custom leather briefcase that this book came in with the blind emboss of the, um, the Playboy bunny on the front. Anyway, there's a lot of cool projects there. But at a certain point, eCollect was growing and I realized it needed more, m- my full-time efforts. And so I, I made a decision. I said, "You know, um, I, I need to either stick with this job," which was getting very comfortable at that time, "or I need to take this plunge and start to really doing the startup full-time." And so, um, I quit my job.

Tim Ferriss 2:03:30 Is this like 2007, 2008?

Joe Gebbia 2:03:32 2007.

Tim Ferriss 2:03:33 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:03:35 Quit my job-

Tim Ferriss 2:03:36 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 2:03:36 ... to do eCollect and CritBuns full-time.

Tim Ferriss 2:03:39 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 2:03:39 And around this time, the rent goes up on our apartment, and it's around this time that my former classmate, Brian Chesky, moves in with me to be my roommate. And this is foreshadowing another major event in my life, but we won't get there just yet.

Tim Ferriss 2:03:53 All right.

Joe Gebbia 2:03:54 Um, so make this plunge of stepping into eCollect and CritBuns. Now, all this while, I'm now living in San Francisco, and [sighs] the thing is, since high school, since the first dot-com, when I was living in Atlanta, I would come home every day and I would be enthralled at the stories that I was reading about of all these internet companies that were starting. You had, um, you know, eBay and Amazon and Yahoo and excite.com and Lycos and, like, there was so much entrepreneurial spirit. And I had this, I had the sense that one day I, I wanted to run my own thing. I didn't know what it was gonna be. Maybe it was a gallery or something. Who knows if it was like a, like... What kind of business it would be. And so Chronicle was my path out to San Francisco, which is where I always wanted to be, 'cause that first dot-com, all paths led back to the, to the Bay Area.

Tim Ferriss 2:04:48 Oh, for sure.

Joe Gebbia 2:04:49 Right? And I'm like, "Well, that seems to be the place to go if you wanna get an idea off the ground." And so I finally move out there. Um, I bring CritBuns with me. I bring the eCollect concept with me, and I'm living in San Francisco. And during RISD, I, I had this, this radar on in the back of my mind that people that I met with, friends that I made, I was sort of, like, trying to find somebody else who had similar aspirations that I did, somebody else who may wanna co-found something with me in the future one day, and, like, be a partner in a business of some, some kind. And so at the end of RISD there were sh- a very short list of people that I felt I would just absolutely love to start something with. The guy at the top of the list was this guy named Brian Chesky. We got to know each other through sports on campus because I ran the basketball team, he ran the hockey team. So we got to know each other via sports. And there was one project that we had together in industrial design where, um, it was for a client in the, the haircare space, and we got to reinvent haircare products like blow dryers and curling irons. And [chuckles] for the final presentation, Brian and I went in with this team, and our concepts were so wildly different than everybody else's that I remember looking at him being like, "Wow," like, "This guy-"

Tim Ferriss 2:06:09 Wow

Joe Gebbia 2:06:09 "... when we're in a room together, we can do really creative things." And as the year went on and before we graduated, I just had this growing feeling that, like, there's something special about this guy. He knew how to rally people together. He knew how to get them excited. Uh, he had his own project, um, around fitness that he got people to volunteer their time to help to do design on and, and marketing on, and I just remember being really inspired by him. And it's the night before graduation. He's about to move to Los Angeles. I'm about to go... You know, um, I was gonna stay in Providence to work on CritBuns, and I decided to invite him out to dinner to tell him how I feel about this. And so over a slice of pizza on Thayer Street, I tell him, I'm like, "Brian, I just want you to know, I think we're gonna start a company one day."

Tim Ferriss 2:06:57 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:06:58 "And I think they're gonna write a book about it." And he kind of laughs it off. "Ha ha. Yeah, yeah." And, um, he ends up going to Los Angeles. I end up finding my way to San Francisco via Chronicle Books, and very quickly, once I'm in San Francisco, recognize that it is in fact an epicenter for entrepreneurship. There was so much activity going on around me. Web 2.0s, like the web is back, and I start calling him like, "Brian, I don't know what's going on in LA, but you gotta get up here. Like, there's so much activity. There's so much action happening here." And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got some stuff going." And, like, this went on for at least a year of trying to recruit him to get up to San Francisco. And so at a certain point, the roommates that I was living with move out and I'm left with this three-bedroom apartment, and I call him like, "Brian, I've got a room available. It's now or never. If you are gonna move, this is the perfect window to come up here. I've got a room waiting for you with your name on it." And I have to give him a lot of credit He made a courageous move. He quit his job, he packed his life into his Honda Civic, and he drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco and became my roommate. I have to tell you, Tim, there was this incredible excitement in the air. Like, it's like the band was back together.

Tim Ferriss 2:08:12 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:08:12 Like, all right, well, what are we gonna do? Like-

Tim Ferriss 2:08:14 Mm-hmm

Joe Gebbia 2:08:14 ... what could we possibly create together? And this is the same week that I quit my job at Chronicle. I've got CritBuns and Ecolect in the background. We're gonna come up with something big together, uh, Brian and I. And that's when I open the mail one day, that same week he arrives, and it's a letter from my landlord and it says, "Dear Joe, your rent is now 25% higher." And I run to my online bank account and I see that, um, I actually don't have enough money in the bank 'cause I have no paychecks coming in-

Tim Ferriss 2:08:44 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:08:45 ... to make rent. Brian has the same problem. And suddenly our backs are against the wall. There's just, like, this dark, stormy cloud that forms over our apartment.

Tim Ferriss 2:08:52 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:08:52 All the enthusiasm's gone. Now it's just terror and fear. How are we not gonna get evicted next month? We need to make the rent check.

Tim Ferriss 2:08:58 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:08:59 And that's when I'm sitting in, in my living room one day that week. I've got my laptop open and I'm looking at the website for a design conference for industrial designers coming to San Francisco, you know, two weeks later. And it says in big red letters, "Hotels are sold out in San Francisco." And I'm thinking, oh man, what a bummer for somebody who wants to come last minute. They've got nowhere to stay. And I glance over the, the top of the laptop screen into the vast space of the living room and start to think, what if I pull my airbed out of the closet and blow it up on the floor? We could host a designer for less than the cost of a hotel and maybe make some money to make our rent check. So I email Brian and he loves the idea. We actually get two more airbeds and we start to think through this experience. What if we offered airport pickup? What if we gave them a, a map to San Francisco and a BART pass to the subway, and we cooked them breakfast in the morning? And so we created this concept called the Airbed & Breakfast.

Tim Ferriss 2:10:01 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:10:04 We made a website, airbedandbreakfast.com. It was four pages, pictures of us, pictures of the airbeds. We talked about the neighborhood. And we were so proud of our website, except who the hell on earth knew to go to airbedandbreakfast.com?

Tim Ferriss 2:10:17 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:10:18 Nobody.

Tim Ferriss 2:10:19 Not exactly a high-volume search term.

Joe Gebbia 2:10:22 Right. So one night we realize that we have a marketing problem.

Tim Ferriss 2:10:26 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:10:28 The conference has come up pretty quick and we need to get the word out. So we email the design blogs, the top design blogs that were covering the conference. And neither of us had really been on design blogs before other than Ecolect and CritBuns, and it was kind of a Hail Mary. We just sent these emails out to, like, press tips@blank.com. The next morning we came down, we opened our computers, and Tim, it felt like Christmas. There we were at the top of the design blogs with headlines like, "Need a Place for the Conference Six this Weekend? Crash with Joe and Brian in their SoMa loft."

Tim Ferriss 2:11:02 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 2:11:02 One was like, "Networking Your Jam Jams on Airbed & Breakfast."

Tim Ferriss 2:11:05 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:11:07 And this idea that we had, you know, a week or two earlier was now being blogged about to the world in the design community. And so they responded. We had emails from all over the world, from Brazil, from England, from Japan, of people dying to have one of these airbeds in our living room.

Tim Ferriss 2:11:25 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:11:26 People started sending us their LinkedIn profiles and their design portfolios-

Tim Ferriss 2:11:30 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:11:30 ... and their resumes, being like, uh, trying to convince us to pick them to be one of the lucky three guests.

Tim Ferriss 2:11:35 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 2:11:36 At one point my phone rings with an area code that was unfamiliar. I didn't answer it. Suddenly I have a voicemail. I'm listening to the voicemail and it's this guy named Amol who's telling me, he's going, "My name's Amol and I just saw the Airbed & Breakfast concept and I have to stay with you guys. Call me back. I, I, I have to stay at the Airbed & Breakfast. Here's my phone number." And then in my inbox I've got like two emails from this guy. I'm like, how did he find my information? Um, so I call him back and he sends his design portfolio. Checks out he's, you know, a, a grad student at Arizona State University studying industrial design, and he becomes our first guest. And then we accept two other people, one woman named, uh, Kat, another gentleman named Michael. All were over the age of 30. Kat was a s- a single, a solo traveler from Boston. Uh, Michael was a 45-year-old husband and father of five from Utah. And there was all this excitement when the guests arrive. It's like, you know, we made sure the bed, the airbeds were properly inflated.

Tim Ferriss 2:12:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:12:34 There was a mint on the pillow.

Tim Ferriss 2:12:35 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:12:36 Like, we cleaned the place up in advance. We stocked the fridge with OJ and bagels and, you know, fresh eggs and, um, we had everything ready to go. I have to tell you, Tim, uh, the next couple of nights were just some of the most exciting 'cause this thing unfolded that we didn't expect which is that, yeah, we made some money on it, but more than that, we, we became friends with them and we really got to show them San Francisco through the lens of, of us, through our f- favorite things to do, our favorite places to eat. So imagine the difference of this. You're at a conference and at the end of the day you can retire by yourself to a hotel room, uh, that maybe is somewhat generic or lacks some general personality, or you... They came back to our apartment which was lively. We're cooking dinner together. We're sharing stories from our days at the conference. It was like night and day for them, and they had such a good experience. We took them to our friends' house parties, uh, after the conference s- some nights. We took them to the best burritos in the Mission District, to the, the farmers market at the Ferry Building one morning. And, um, at one point we gave, during the conference-

Tim Ferriss 2:13:46 It's a great place to take visitors.

Joe Gebbia 2:13:48 It is.

Tim Ferriss 2:13:48 Ferry Building.

Joe Gebbia 2:13:49 There was a PechaKucha talk, uh, during the conference.

Tim Ferriss 2:13:53 Uh, who's a what? What?

Joe Gebbia 2:13:54 A PechaKucha. It's that, uh, it's that, that format where you have 20 slides in, in like four minutes.

Tim Ferriss 2:13:59 Ah, right. Mm-hmm.

Joe Gebbia 2:14:00 And the slides just move and you gotta give a quick presentation. And so we gave a presentation about Air Bed and Breakfast in the moment that we're hosting people in Air Bed and Breakfast, and we had our guests up there with us and talked about this concept that came together, you know, two weeks ago is now actually unfolding in front of us right now. And it was this, like, really meta moment where the guests are now part of the presentation about themselves. And [laughs] it was totally insane.

Tim Ferriss 2:14:25 That's step five of the CritBuns, AKA Airbnb sales process.

Joe Gebbia 2:14:30 Totally. Share the story. So I'll never forget when saying goodbye to them, the door click closed, and I look at Brian and I'm like, "Did we just get paid to make friends?" And that, Tim, is when the gears began to turn. Uh, maybe there were other people like us who would also enjoy sharing their extra space with people coming to their, their town and want, who want a local experience. And so we told my previous roommate, Nate, who I found on Craigslist, who

Joe Gebbia 2:15:01 was a computer science graduate from Harvard, uh, who when he moved out, Brian moved into his room. Now Nate, the story with him is we lived together for a couple of months, and at night we'd come home from our day jobs, and we would work on our own projects in the living room. I was working on CritBuns. Nate was working on his own startups. And it was remarkable. I'm looking over my shoulder thinking, "Wow, this guy loves to work. We have similar work ethics." And I'm like, "If I ever need a computer programmer, I'm gonna call on Nate." Little did I know that Nate was thinking the same thing about me.

Tim Ferriss 2:15:33 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:15:34 "If I ever need a designer, I'm gonna call on Joe."

Tim Ferriss 2:15:35 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:15:37 So Nate moves out, Brian moves in, and after this one weekend, um, yeah, a couple months actually passed, and we didn't move on the concept. We went home for New Year's that year. This is 2007. So it happened in October. We come home for New Year's in, in 2007, and in- invariably people ask you, "Hey, how's it going? What are you working on? What's going on in San Francisco?" Um, we're like, "We're entrepreneurs." And they go, "Great. What are you entrepreneuring?" [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:16:08 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:16:09 And like, didn't really have a lot going on. CritBuns is kind of there, Equiux kind of, you know, uh, struggling along. Um, there's no funding at this point. But I did tell people about this crazy weekend where we had these three guests sleep on air beds in our apartment. And it was remarkable what happened next. People either leaned in and went, "Oh my God, that's amazing. I would love to travel and stay with a local." And the other half of people went, "Oh my God, you're crazy. You had a stranger in your home? What were you thinking?"

Tim Ferriss 2:16:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:16:40 And this, like, visceral reaction that, that caused people in these conversations was like, wow, like this really gets people fired up in either direction. Maybe there's something here. So Brian and... We come back in January. Brian comes back. He, he's from New York, upstate, and he comes back and, um, we sh- we had similar experiences. He's like, "Yeah, I told people about it and they either loved it or hated it." And we're like, "Yeah, like maybe we sh- maybe this is the idea that we should expand on." So we're like, okay, we know we need a real programmer. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna call on Nate. So I get a drink with Nate. I tell him about this crazy weekend with these three guests. Nate loves the idea. He's like, "Wait, we can use the internet to get people offline back into the real world with each other." He's like, "I would love to spend my time on this." So at this point, we think the big opportunity is a website for conferences, for people to sleep on air beds in living rooms.

Tim Ferriss 2:17:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:17:39 This turns out is a very narrow market.

Tim Ferriss 2:17:41 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:17:42 We did not know this at the time. So our logical next step is, what's the next big conference coming up where hotels will sell out? Well, turns out that right here in Austin, every March, there's quite a large conference called South by Southwest. It also happens to be the place where some preeminent tech companies went to launch and took off like rocket ships, including Foursquare and Twitter and some others.

Tim Ferriss 2:18:08 What year was this?

Joe Gebbia 2:18:09 2008. So we're like, we're gonna build the next version for South by Southwest, and this is gonna take off just like the others.

Tim Ferriss 2:18:16 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:18:18 So Nate hunkers down with us. We start to code out the next more robust version of the site. Becomes more than just four pages. And we pull all-nighters for like two weeks, and we launch just in time for South by Southwest. And all this excitement, all this energy, Tim, we got a total of five hosts.

Tim Ferriss 2:18:38 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:18:41 Two reservations.

Tim Ferriss 2:18:41 [laughs] I'm no mathematician, but that ratio doesn't sound favorable.

Joe Gebbia 2:18:46 Well, one of those reservations was us. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:18:49 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:18:51 It was actually Brian. Um, and um, Brian stayed with this guy here in Austin named Tien Dung, and he had everything laid out, and he had the, the pillow and the towels and the mints, and he had some like, um, some soup cooking in the background. He was like a great host, right? He was taking it really seriously. You know, at this time, like you, you... It was just a, a classified service, right? You came and you paid somebody on arrival. And Brian, um, Brian tells this story that he forgot to go to the ATM machine, and so he, uh, gets there and he goes through the whole night and wakes up the next day and the host has to awkwardly ask him, "By the way, where's my money?"

Tim Ferriss 2:19:37 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:19:38 And Brian's like, "Oh, no, shoot, I forgot. I'll go to the ATM today." Brian forgets to go to the ATM. Another night goes by.

Tim Ferriss 2:19:44 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:19:45 And at this point, the host is like, "What kind of joke is this?"

Tim Ferriss 2:19:48 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:19:48 "Did you guys just make a website to freeload accommodations when they travel?" And so, um, Brian eventually got to the ATM and paid him, but he said that that experience was incredibly awkward, paying somebody cash in person inside their home is like just not a great experience. So afterwards, you know, it was not a successful launch whatsoever. I think we got one mention on Mashable. Like, it was dismal. Um, and we debriefed on the whole thing, and we, we realized two things, because we were getting emails from people who were like, "Hey, I wanna s- stay in a home, but there's no conference in this city. How do I use your service?" And so we, we realized something. Well, maybe this is more than a conference website. Maybe this is just a travel website. And what if we got rid of the awkwardness of payments in person and allowed people to pay with a credit card in advance online, and we just remove that whole awkwardness from the customer experience? And in doing so, we're like, wait, if we did the tran- the transaction online, we could take a small transaction fee, and a business model was born. Um, and so at this point, uh, Nate needed a little bit more enthusiasm to get back involved in, in, in the c- in the concept.

Tim Ferriss 2:21:01 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:21:02 Um, uh, of the three of us, we all balance each other out really well. Nate's the pragmatist of all three of us, so he, you know, helps ground us in reality and, and progress and, and shipping things, while sometimes Brian and I can be, have our head in the clouds and, and, and really dream. Um, it's a perfect balance. And, uh, Nate needs some convincing that this can actually work. So in the summer of 2008, we realized that we could use, uh, um, some kind of event to give this thing a spark, for this thing to take off. And if you remember back in 2008, what everybody was talking about, especially in the summertime, the year of a presidential election, John McCain versus Barack Obama, and Obama was attracting these historic record-breaking crowds. He spoke in Portland to 75,000 people, and it was identified in June that the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, later that August, um, there was going to be a bit of a problem, because they moved the venue from the basketball arena of 20,000 seats to Invesco Stadium, which had 100,000 seats to attract more people to come to Denver to see Obama speak. Therein lies a problem with the amount of housing that exists in Denver. They have 20,000 hotel rooms. Most of them were already taken up by delegates, and the headlines started to read, "Housing Crisis Impending on Denver." The mayor started to hold press, press conferences to say he might open the city parks for people to pitch tents-

Tim Ferriss 2:22:39 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:22:39 ... 'cause there was nowhere to sleep. So we recognized and say, "Wait, what if we relaunched in time for the DNC so we can ride the coattails of all this press to gain awareness for our, the next iteration of, of Airbed and Breakfast?" So Nate loved the idea. We hunker down. We spend the summer rebuilding the site with online payments and the ability to travel anywhere at any time.

Tim Ferriss 2:23:00 So this was the carrot for Nate, was this-

Joe Gebbia 2:23:03 Nate needed to know that there was some reliable, you know, mechanism to create awareness on the horizon. 'Cause to build a marketplace without any awareness is like, you know-

Tim Ferriss 2:23:15 Difficult to say the least.

Joe Gebbia 2:23:16 Difficult to say the least. Um, so we hit the ground in Denver. We [chuckles] I remember we, we built a website, this shiny new version of Airbed and Breakfast, and we get on the phone with press trying to pitch them. Like, we had no idea what we were doing.

Tim Ferriss 2:23:30 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:23:30 I'm on the phone with C- like, CNN, and they basically hang up on me.

Tim Ferriss 2:23:34 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:23:34 But I have experience with that from some other projects in the past. Um, so I'm like, "I'm just gonna keep going." And-

Tim Ferriss 2:23:40 SW2 + WC = MO.

Joe Gebbia 2:23:42 Beautiful memory.

Tim Ferriss 2:23:43 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:23:45 So what we learned, what, what we started to do is actually contact local bloggers in Denver. Like, CNN's not gonna answer our call, but a local blogger loved the story 'cause it was of their neighborhoods and, um, it was very human-oriented of, uh, Denver residents opening their homes to support other fellow Ob- uh, Obama supporters. Um, and so these blogs would write about it, and it turns out that's where, like, the newspapers look for story ideas. So then the newspapers wrote about it, and turns out that's where the local TV broadcast looks for story ideas. So then we get a call from NBC local affiliate, and when NBC does a story, CBS and ABC shortly follow. So then we've got the Denver press covered. It turns out that's what the Boulder press looks to for story ideas, and we started to move, become a regional story. And it turns out when you have a regional story, that's what CNN looks to for story ideas. So within a matter of about two to three weeks, we went from zero listings in Denver to 800 people sharing their homes.

Tim Ferriss 2:24:45 Wow.

Joe Gebbia 2:24:45 Just through this awareness through press. Again, we had no money. Like, there was... We couldn't hire, like, a PR firm. We couldn't, like, go buy online ads. Like, this is all just word of mouth, like, the press talking about us. And then we get the call from CNN, and there's this funny moment where Brian and I are doing a live interview in our living room on a laptop through, like, Skype or something, and we have- we're sharing, like, earbuds.

Tim Ferriss 2:25:09 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:25:09 And we're, like, look like we're conjoined to each other 'cause we're sitting so close.

Tim Ferriss 2:25:13 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:25:13 And we're doing this live interview with this guy Errol Barnett on CNN and talking about this website and what it means to people to be able to stay in a home, uh, for anybody going to the DNC. And it was... And then when you'd have a CNN story, that's what international press look to to create stories. So then Le Monde picks us up and The Guardian, um, and press out in Europe. And it's just amazing to see what happens when an idea or a story starts at the smallest nugget and works its way up this chain-

Tim Ferriss 2:25:44 Right

Joe Gebbia 2:25:44 ... to becoming an international story in a matter of three or so weeks.

Tim Ferriss 2:25:48 Amazing.

Joe Gebbia 2:25:49 You know, I have to give credit to, um, to Seth Godin because I remember during CritBuns, I read his book, All Marketers Are Liars.

Tim Ferriss 2:25:57 Uh-huh.

Joe Gebbia 2:25:58 And I remember something that he says in there which I never forgot, which is th- to make something people wanna talk about, right? It's like purple cow. It's like make something that's distinct enough that people wanna talk about it, that's differentiated enough, and I feel like- That concept was imbued into, like, the early days of the company, certainly into CritBuns, into Ecolect and, and definitely into Airbed and Breakfast at the time. And certainly I f- I watched it happen in front of me, making something that people wanna talk about go from a, a local Denver blogger story to international press.

Tim Ferriss 2:26:32 So is it s- is it safe to say, would you consider that the, the first or one of the first major successful milestones for Air-

Joe Gebbia 2:26:41 Well-

Tim Ferriss 2:26:41 ... Airbed and Breakfast?

Joe Gebbia 2:26:42 Yes, because we had, um, a f- a few hundred people staying on the site that weekend, including us. We gotta go to Denver.

Tim Ferriss 2:26:48 So Nate was busy.

Joe Gebbia 2:26:49 Yeah, Nate, Nate was really busy, so we had to divide responsibilities. There's just three of us. Nate's doing all the coding, Brian's handling all the press, and I'm handling all the design and the customer service. [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:26:58 [laughs] So let me hit pause and let me ask you, would it make sense, and we can, we can certainly decide on the fly here.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:06 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:06 But we've got about probably like close to three hours. Would it make sense to have this be part one and then follow up with a part two?

Joe Gebbia 2:27:17 Oh.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:18 What do you think of that? We don't have to. We don't have to, but we could. What are your thoughts?

Joe Gebbia 2:27:22 Um, I'm open to it.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:25 Cool.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:25 And then record it another time?

Tim Ferriss 2:27:26 Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:26 Yeah.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:26 No, so I'm just thinking, like this is-

Joe Gebbia 2:27:28 We could totally... Yeah. We, let's leave people on a cliffhanger.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:30 This is, I think this is a good cliffhanger.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:32 Okay. So and then I'll say-

Tim Ferriss 2:27:33 Yeah

Joe Gebbia 2:27:33 ... "Okay, cool."

Tim Ferriss 2:27:34 No, no, no, no, no. Go for it. Yeah.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:36 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:27:36 However... I, I mean, because this-

Joe Gebbia 2:27:37 Okay

Tim Ferriss 2:27:37 ... like this deserves a round two.

Joe Gebbia 2:27:39 Right.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:40 Uh-

Joe Gebbia 2:27:40 So, so we had a, so we had a few hundred people actually using the service. Brian and I split up responsibilities. Nate's doing his coding. Brian's doing all the press. I'm doing all the customer service from my cell phone.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:51 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:27:52 And we have this incredible weekend where our marketplace is working, but you won't imagine what happens next.

Tim Ferriss 2:27:59 Ooh. Dot, dot, dot. [laughs] Okay. Amazing. No, this is perfect. This is absolutely perfect. Uh-

Joe Gebbia 2:28:08 [laughs]

Tim Ferriss 2:28:09 ... so to be continued. Uh, in the meantime, as sort of a, a, a temporary, uh, tie-up of, of part one, is there anything that you would like people to take from this, this first chronology that we've walked people through? Any ask of the audience or recommendation, suggestion, uh, that, that you would like, parting words of any type?

Joe Gebbia 2:28:43 I think any time that you introduce a new idea into the world, there's, there's bound to be somebody or many people who reject it. So I think rejection is inevitable any time you're trying something new. In fact, I'd say if you're not getting rejected, you're probably not trying anything new. Like, you're probably not even pushing f- hard enough on something new. And my advice would be look at rejection in a different way. That equation for me was, was just a way to reframe rejection as an opportunity to keep going, move on. And so my advice for everybody watching right now is that, you know, the gift of an entrepreneur is to reframe things, and any time there's a rejection that you face, turn it into an invitation. Turn it into an invitation to keep going. And you can say yes or no. You don't have to, but you at least create this opportunity to, to, to persevere, to, to continue going forward. And for me, every, all the stories I've shared so far, from the senior prank with the intercom system through to CritBuns through to, uh, the beginnings of Airbnb, are reframing every no into a, "Cool, that person didn't like it. I'm gonna keep going till I find somebody that does."

Tim Ferriss 2:29:50 And also something at least that I see from the outside looking in when you're sharing all of these stories and experiences is that you are also, over time, by exposing yourself to rejection and reframing, learning to in some ways seek out discomfort as opposed to avoid discomfort, and that's, that's one thing that also comes up for me. And on top of that, the fact that, and why I, I'm, uh, so excited that we were able to get together to talk about some of these, many of these stories, which is of course just a, a, a portion of your many life experiences, is that people are already familiar at this point with Air- Airbnb in all caps, right? Magazine covers. Uh, one of the most successful startups in the world. Uh, one of the fastest growing startups of all time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it's, it's easy because as humans we want to take shortcuts and create stories that are easily graspable to think of that as idea, execute, success, right? Like, it, it just came out of the blue and was this overnight success. But there's so much contributing to that and so many diverse experiences that, yes, you had, but in some ways you also helped to engineer, and, uh, I think that's inspiring, right? To know that it wasn't, it wasn't the byproduct of this immaculate master plan that required you to be Elon Musk times 10, that you executed over a two-week period and then you have an empire. No, that's not, that's not how it unfolds at all.

Joe Gebbia 2:31:36 If people think we woke up and Airbnb was just created out of thin air, that couldn't be further from the truth, and I hope if any, there's any takeaway from the stories that we've talked about today is that there's just a long lineage of trying things, bumping into walls, getting rejected, f- like failing, reframing that failure into learning, and trying to continue forward. And so by the time Airbnb came around, it was like I'd been in the gym of entrepreneurship for many years. So it's like you don't wake up and just run a marathon all of a sudden. The, nobody does that. You train for it. And so by the time it's ready for race day Your body's conditioned for it, and your muscles and your system, your nerve- like everything's ready for you to go run 26-plus miles. And I think entrepreneurs- entrepreneurship is the exact same way. And I think it's a misconception when people look at the magazine covers and they, they read about the stories of a successful company, they think, "Wow," like, "the people who started that, it just, they built it and everybody came." That couldn't be further from the truth. And like, I think Field of Dreams is probably the worst movie to ever happen to entrepreneurship-

Tim Ferriss 2:32:42 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:32:42 ... 'cause it created this idea like, oh wow, if you build it, they will come. I can tell you, if you build it, they don't come. Um, and it, it, it takes this incredible perseverance and sometimes irrational belief in yourself to bring something to life in the face of a lot of adversity and a lot of people saying it can't happen. Um, and so I hope if there's any takeaway from the stories that I shared today, it's that the simple act of spotting an opportunity, coming up with the original solution, and then taking that third but hardest step of putting something into the world, of trying something, of putting your idea into practice, doesn't have to be the big idea. It's just about being in the gym and doing a rep. The gym of entrep- entrepreneurship, you're doing like curls or something. Like, it's just getting in the habit of those three things. You spot an opportunity, you come up with the original solution, and you put your idea into the world. And the more you can do that, the better you are at spotting the next opportunity. And Airbnb just happened to be a part of the lineage of all the things I've told you that happened before it.

Tim Ferriss 2:33:48 So can you lay out the equation one more time and what each letter stands for?

Joe Gebbia 2:33:55 Absolutely. SW2 + WC = MO. And what this stands for is that when you introduce a new idea to the world, some will love it, some won't, plus who cares, equals move on.

Tim Ferriss 2:34:14 [laughs]

Joe Gebbia 2:34:14 Keep going until you find the people that do love your idea.

Tim Ferriss 2:34:20 All right, Joe. Amazing. Where can people say hi to you online, find you? Where can they learn more about the company and anything else that you might want to mention?

Joe Gebbia 2:34:32 I'd say go to airbnb.com, and if you wanna connect with me, you can, um, follow along at, on Instagram at JoeGebbs.

Tim Ferriss 2:34:41 Joe Gebbs.

Joe Gebbia 2:34:41 On Twitter at jgebbia, and certainly, you know, CritBuns is out there too.

Tim Ferriss 2:34:46 [laughs] And, uh, for everybody who's watching, listening, uh, we will have links to CritBuns, Joe Gebbs, uh, and all affiliated links, resources, and so on for everything we talked about in the show notes as per usual at tim.blog/podcast. Thank you everybody for listening. And Joe, thanks for hanging, man. So much fun.

Joe Gebbia 2:35:13 Super