Clare Leinweber: Tsai Center for innovative thinking at Yale's Fireside Chat with Joseph Tsai. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. I'm Clare Leinweber executive director of the Tsai Center for innovative thinking Yale or Tsai CITY. Clare Leinweber: Before I introduce our honored guests as well as my fellow moderators, I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about the mission and work of Tsai CITY. Our mission is to inspire students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real world problems. Clare Leinweber: We do this through offering experiential learning programs mentorship and funding for student innovators. Clare Leinweber: The center launched in 2017 we are now at the start of our fourth year of operation last academic year sized city worked with over 1400 students representing all Yale schools. We supported students pursuing more than 100 different ventures and special projects. Clare Leinweber: The format for this afternoon is a one hour in depth chat with Joe Tsai each of three moderators will address a different area of inquiry with Joe Clare Leinweber: Joining me as moderators are and Angelica Gonzalez, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Tsai CITY's faculty director Clare Leinweber: And Genevieve Liu college senior and CO Chair of the Tsai CITY student advisory board. We'll reserve about 13 minutes for Q&A at the end of the chat. Clare Leinweber: Q & A participation is limited to current students, please use the Q & A function to submit questions be sure to include your name degree program and expected graduation year along with your question. Clare Leinweber: A recording will be made available to those registered for the chat and approximately one week. Clare Leinweber: Now it's my very great pleasure to introduce you to Joe Tsai alumnus of Yale college and law school. Clare Leinweber: co founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group governor of the Brooklyn Nets and New York liberty and chairman of the teams home arena Barclay Center. Clare Leinweber: Joe also owns the San Diego Seals, a professional indoor lacrosse team in the national lacrosse League. Clare Leinweber: Joe played varsity lacrosse at Yale, and as a longtime supporter of the men's and women's lacrosse teams. Clare Leinweber: While Joe's accomplishments comprise a significantly longer list than this. I want to make sure we use our time with him wisely. So I trust that our audience today will find additional information elsewhere. And I'm going to say again, Joe. Welcome, and thank you so much for joining us. Joe Tsai: Thank you clear very happy to be here. Clare Leinweber: So I want to focus my portion of our discussion on the thinking behind the creation of Tsai CITY. So my first question to you is this. Why was creating a center of innovative thinking important to you and why locate such a center at a university. Joe Tsai: Well, it's, it's important because I was having a conversation with Peter Salovey this is how this all started and and Peter was saying that Joe Tsai: Yale is strong in humanities and and Yale is embarking on a sort of an initiative to strengthen its various science departments and the conversation quickly move toward well should we do something in computer science. Joe Tsai: And also something that's stem related um Joe Tsai: And Joe Tsai: We kind of started to go down this rabbit hole. Joe Tsai: Until I said stop, uh, you know, the idea of being innovative and also being entrepreneurial Joe Tsai: Is not just limited to scientists Joe Tsai: Even though we know that scientists and engineers like to solve problems, but there are a lot of different problems in the world that Joe Tsai: You know, social scientists, economists English majors historians people from all walks of life from all disciplines are facing problems and let's just focus the effort on problem solving. Joe Tsai: And using innovative ways to to do that. And then the next thing is to think about what kind of center. This is going to look like. Do we call it the center of innovation or the center on entrepreneurship. Joe Tsai: Now if you paid attention. This is called the Center for innovative thinking Joe Tsai: So what it implies is that the process of thinking through problems. Joe Tsai: Is really the emphasis, rather than the idea itself. We're in a place of learning and you asked about why we locate the center at Yale it's very simple, because we have a captive pool of people, young people that are eager to learn Joe Tsai: And it's the process. Joe Tsai: Of learning Joe Tsai: And the process of acquiring knowledge and thinking through problems, that's most important. Obviously, we hope that at some point in Joe Tsai: You know, once they've been involved in the program at Tsai CITY some of their ideas can blossom and they can take those ideas and continue to take that to fruition. But I think the thinking process itself is very, very important. So Joe Tsai: That's where, that's how we came up with the high city idea, and I'm very happy to see that now we have a building of our own people can come. It's also important. Joe Tsai: To have a place, a physical place where people can gather now sounds funny now where you know in a COVID environment to say that, but there's going to be a time when Joe Tsai: People come back to campus. I know that there are already students on campus that yell but people can congregate in the building and share ideas and exchange having that exchange. So again, that process is very, very important. Clare Leinweber: Yes, I sometimes think that the innovative thinking process is analogous to the critical thinking process that universities for, you know, millennia have Clare Leinweber: inculcated in their students how to apply it is very much a mindset and process oriented. I completely agree with you, that's very much what we're aiming for. And, and when you think about what you hope to see as Clare Leinweber: At the fruits of Tsai CITY's work in the short term, but then also in the longer term, so five years from now, what what what does success look like for Tsai CITY and then you know 25, 30 years from now, a generation from now, what, what will success look like for Tsai CITY. Joe Tsai: Five years from now. Joe Tsai: What I hope to see is some of the projects that were incubated in Tsai CITY. Joe Tsai: Are taken outside of this context when the students can Joe Tsai: Leave the campus and continue to Joe Tsai: You know, put in the effort and continue their projects and see some of these ideas come to fruition. I think that that would be a great thing. I know that. Joe Tsai: There are just so many so much diversity in the types of projects that everybody is working on, but to see that not just being incubated on campus, but outside of the the academic environment post graduation for people to continue to work on them. I would love to see that, uh, Joe Tsai: I guess the 25 year horizon is in 25 years I want every young person every high school graduate to say, hey, I want to go to Yale because of Tsai CITY. Joe Tsai: And they have an awesome lacrosse team. Clare Leinweber: When, when you reflect on your time here at Yale you or twice it Yale once undergraduate and once for law school. Clare Leinweber: What when when you imagine that. What do you think you might have. How might you have engaged with the with the center like Tsai CITY. Joe Tsai: What so that. So the question is, when I was here. How would I have engaged. Clare Leinweber: Yes. As a student, yes. Joe Tsai: Well I, I still remember as a student. Joe Tsai: Things were very structured Joe Tsai: You go, you went to class, you had office hours with your professors, you had Joe Tsai: Sort of a time of camaraderie with your fellow students you discuss ideas and things like that, but Joe Tsai: You know, there wasn't a place where you could go and just say, you know, I want to meet some new people. Um, Joe Tsai: I think Yale is a place where the whole college system is great because you actually have Joe Tsai: And enclosed group of people that get to know each other very, very well. So from a social standpoint that's excellent. But if you want to step out of your college and go to a place where you can meet some new people get fresh ideas. Joe Tsai: Maybe you know the cross campus library is would have been the place. I don't know. Joe Tsai: And so, so I think now with with Tsai CITY, especially, we now have a physical building Joe Tsai: It offers resources that I never had when I was a Yale student. Um, and so, so I think we should take advantage of that. Clare Leinweber: Yes. We're excited to be Co located our neighbors with the maker space with the engineering school, the Center for engineering innovation design. Clare Leinweber: We think there's going to be a lot of organic back and forth. Once, once all the spaces are open and and traffic and go easily back and forth between the two spaces. I think there'll be Clare Leinweber: A lot of really interesting mixing and mingling where students who would would not have crossed paths or have an opportunity to cross paths with each other. Joe Tsai: Yeah, for sure. Clare Leinweber: So I'm going to turn this over to our my co moderator Anjelica Gonzalez. She's going to ask you some big picture. Questions about Yale students innovative thinking inside city. Joe Tsai: Hi. Hello. Anjelica Gonzalez: Hi. Good to meet you. I'm doing well. Anjelica Gonzalez: I'm sitting here in front of a picture of the outdoors and new building. So we're grateful. Anjelica Gonzalez: Thankful to have such a great building and as Claire said it's adjacent to the Center for engineering and innovative design, but also to the School of Engineering and Applied Science Building so engineering is excited to become involved with everything that Tsai CITY is doing. Anjelica Gonzalez: I wanted to ask you a few questions about big picture perspectives over the last six months, we've all gone through Anjelica Gonzalez: A great deal of unprecedented change uncertainty with regards to public health, economic, social and political challenges all over the world. It's in the news every day. How have you been thinking about these issues in the context of risk resilience and innovative thinking Joe Tsai: Well, first, I think we have to identify what the problems are, and there are some very large, very macro issues that is Joe Tsai: You know, Joe Tsai: Is is is facing everyone in the world. Joe Tsai: First of all, Joe Tsai: I think because of the Asia region, but the global financial crisis back in 2008 Joe Tsai: The Joe Tsai: Government's have been or central banks have been pumping a lot of money liquidity into the system, which actually created a bubble economy and this bubble economy is a problem because it actually separated the gap between the haves and have nots. Joe Tsai: The gap. Had he had already been pretty why but it it's exacerbated that gap because when you have a lot of liquidity in the system. Joe Tsai: People who own assets that stocks, bonds property, you know, real estate do better and people who don't own assets but depend on kind of paychecks every month to to make a living are being left behind and that spend the last 15 years of Joe Tsai: You know this. Well, not exactly 15 I think it's 12 years of this kind of distortion. Joe Tsai: I think also, with the advent of technology. Joe Tsai: You have a lot of workers that are displaced that's even accentuated the problem. Joe Tsai: The third whammy is COVID where you know we're sitting here in a very comfortable setting the academic environment. Joe Tsai: You know, in the business environment. But the whole idea of work from home. If you think about it, is a very elitist concept. Joe Tsai: A lot. There are a lot of jobs in the world, the frontline workers, people who cannot work from home and they now can't, you know, make a living. They're not getting paid because they can't work. So you kind of have all these factors that come in. Joe Tsai: Which created this huge disparity between the rich and the poor. And I think that's the first problem that and I think that is the biggest problem. Joe Tsai: That we need to solve, we need to really get to the bottom of trying to find solutions for some of these economic issues. I don't have all the answer, but I think as people come to Tsai CITY for their projects. Joe Tsai: You know, I think you have to start from the ground up starting starting with helping the communities. Joe Tsai: And, and I hope that there will be some trot projects that will be focused on how do we level the playing field. How do we narrow the gap of income disparity in wealth disparity. Anjelica Gonzalez: That's such an interesting observation, because I think what you're saying is that economic disparities are really the source of health disparities of social disparities of educational disparities that we see across the globe. And so it's really Anjelica Gonzalez: Interesting and enlightening to hear how you you're thinking about connecting those issues. I guess the next question then is, as you look forward. And as you're looking ahead and forecasting. Anjelica Gonzalez: Where do you look for both short term and long term inspiration to the challenges and opportunities in entrepreneurs entrepreneurial ship but also innovation. Joe Tsai: Um, well, I always have faith in young people. Joe Tsai: I'm not that young anymore. I still would like to think that I i could go out and play a game of pickup basketball but Joe Tsai: I think investing in in the future is about investing not just the resources, but also time and attention to educating young people and Joe Tsai: I think when it comes to Joe Tsai: Problem solving, and let's say we if we want to narrow the gap in some of the social disparities. Uh, I think it's absolutely important that Joe Tsai: People can find a common place or a common language to actually Joe Tsai: interact with each other and debate ideas. Uh, so Joe Tsai: You know what I have seen is when you have young people that are they have read up on the the Joe Tsai: The subject matter when they are properly educated about a subject matter. Then there's going to be constructive debate, and I think that's Joe Tsai: That's going to be very that's that's that'll be very important. So building that common language, you know, Joe Tsai: A way of talking to each other, a way to debate ideas I think is fundamental to solving some of the biggest, most challenging problems in the world. So when I look at the signs of innovation. Joe Tsai: I want to see that people can actually properly debate ideas. Right now we have too much shouting at each other type of phenomenon. And that's not healthy. Anjelica Gonzalez: I think that's absolutely clear. It's been cleared that polarization needs to minimize the efficient action that can take place. So it's great to hear you say. Anjelica Gonzalez: I guess I wanted to touch on one last point and thinking about polarization and differences in our society, how they impact what another having impact innovation and Anjelica Gonzalez: Creation. We'll talk a little bit about diversity in August late August you announced a five point action plan towards developing equity and Anjelica Gonzalez: Diversity in your, your companies, the companies that you're involved with, and the many entities that you lead. So can you tell us a little bit about that and what how do you enact such clear and decisive action around innovation that's focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Joe Tsai: Yeah so. So, this the background is the Brooklyn Nets and the NBA. Joe Tsai: Since the killing of George Floyd several months ago, I think the country has been thrown into kind of a turmoil and the teams and Joe Tsai: The team owners and the players in the NBA have kind of felt this very strongly. I mean, the fact is the NBA. We have a league where our elite players are stars. Joe Tsai: You know, have 70 80% are black and this is very, very personal to our players and, by extension, you know, as we have these conversations with our players. Joe Tsai: You know, I start to realize that the issue of racial justice is a deep rooted problem with 400 plus years of history. Joe Tsai: That you can't solve overnight, but you have to face it like directly, you have to face it. Now you have to have that conversation. You can't skirt it. So that's why my wife and I started a Joe Tsai: An initiative to say that we're going to not only put money, resources behind a social justice program, but also look inward and look at our own organization or wheat diverse enough, are we Joe Tsai: You know, are we doing everything we can to promote the social justice cause, especially the, the issue that's facing the black community today. The fact is, Joe Tsai: You know i i never come across this you know when I see a policeman on the streets. I don't run the other way. I do. There is no fear. But as I have conversations with, you know, our players and also some friends, people that we we know Joe Tsai: Who are black, they, they start to Joe Tsai: They start to pour out. I mean, they just, you know, this very, very emotional conversation we've been in a lot of these emotional conversations about the kind of life that they they lead. That's just different because Joe Tsai: Certain people see other people by the skin of their color and not by what they do and what they accomplish so Joe Tsai: So for us it's very, very important to launch our social justice plan to talk about diversity, a little bit. I think Joe Tsai: People have to recognize that the foundation of excellence is diversity is and I, as I said, if you can't debate ideas, then you're not going to find Joe Tsai: The best solution. So only through diversity. Can you bring different people together with different experience background. Joe Tsai: Ways of thinking into one place and and you know that diversity is just as important as the freedom of speech, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Joe Tsai: This freedom of speech, the basis of that is that everybody comes to Joe Tsai: A place. There's a marketplace of ideas. You want to have free flowing ideas. So why wouldn't you want to have free flowing people different kinds of people different backgrounds and come and contribute to Joe Tsai: A problem and work toward the same cause so so to me, diversity is just as important as the First Amendment. Anjelica Gonzalez: That's remarkable answer and you've got to tell you, personally, thank you so much for acknowledging that experience of black Americans is different from that many other Americans. Anjelica Gonzalez: I'm going to turn it over now to my co moderator Genevieve Liu, who is co Chair of the student advisory board. Genevieve Liu: Hi. Genevieve Liu: Great to see you. I'm doing well. So I'm going to be providing sort of some of the micro level questions the micro perspective and and this comes from my perspective is not only the CO chair. It's I city but also a senior at Yale. Genevieve Liu: So my first question for you is sort of coming full circle as you think about the mission of Tsai CITY. Genevieve Liu: How do you connect it to the world today and the importance of diversity as you mentioned, and not just diversity but diversity of backgrounds of disciplines innovative thinking and, most of all, solving real world problems. Joe Tsai: Yeah. Joe Tsai: I think we, we had a little bit of a conversation about that in the Joe Tsai: Pre meeting about Joe Tsai: Just the idea of how do we marry Joe Tsai: innovation, entrepreneurship and also Joe Tsai: People that are socially minded right solving social problems and espousing social causes. I think all this is not mutually exclusive. And as I said, entrepreneurship is not about making money. Joe Tsai: It's about finding a problem and then going out to solve the problem. So the best entrepreneurs, what they do is they try to solve the customers problems they identify a problem and then they solve it. Joe Tsai: And that's what we say when we use the term mission driven company, even though you have these companies that make lots of profits for profit businesses, you could still be mission driven because your mission is that you have identify something that you want to solve. Joe Tsai: And a lot of these big problems or social problems. So going back, for example, to the roots of Alibaba. The problem that we were trying to solve was to help small businesses to succeed. Joe Tsai: In the pre Internet age. So I have to start talking about 1999 maybe before some of you guys are born. Joe Tsai: The pre internet companies, small companies just don't have the resources to compete with big companies, but now with the Internet. Joe Tsai: You level the playing field companies, if they want to do marketing. Now you see a lot of small Mark small companies or even individuals that can market themselves even better than Procter and Gamble when they use of social media. Joe Tsai: Right. So I think this is, this is an example of how we saw solving problems for small businesses became our mission and Joe Tsai: So I think, I don't know if that answers your question. Genevieve Liu: No that totally answers my question. And it's really, it's really cool to hear about your experience both funding Ali Baba, and then just thinking about all the amazing sort of Genevieve Liu: Companies and ideas and ventures that are coming out of Yale that are I think socially minded in so many ways. As you mentioned, both solving like very typically social issues and then also just thinking about the problems of everyday people. So that was really interesting answer, um, Genevieve Liu: I Joe Tsai: Wanted to see that. Joe Tsai: When you Joe Tsai: When you back a social cause to solve a social problem. That doesn't mean you have to be nonprofit. Joe Tsai: Right, because if you solve problems of society, you're going to create value and you then you can decide that if you want to take a slice of that value for the company. Yeah, got it. Genevieve Liu: Yeah, so I my second question for you. It's a little bit different. It's more about sort of your experience or just I'd love to hear more about it. Genevieve Liu: But the question is, have you had to sort of revise your own plans, personally, and probably also professionally since last spring, especially in response to the global health. Genevieve Liu: And financial the global health crisis and the financial realities of the world today, and it'd be great if you could share a couple of examples. Joe Tsai: Um, Joe Tsai: So I kind of hit an inflection point back in 2018 so this is before coated um Joe Tsai: The, the watershed event was when Yale lacrosse won the national championship. Joe Tsai: I went to the game. Joe Tsai: And it was one of those moments where Joe Tsai: You know, I thought to myself, a goal that I thought nobody thought would be attainable. Joe Tsai: Was actually achieved like maybe a couple of years ahead of time ahead of schedule. If you talked to coach Andy Shay, who will say no, that's a he's been waiting like 14 years for it. But so, so for me, you know, I started to think about how I Joe Tsai: I want to structure my my life. Joe Tsai: How to sort of replay in my career or or reclaim my life I had already gotten to a stage of, you know, relative success and comfort. Joe Tsai: And I decided that it was time for me to slow down a little bit at my full time job at work and start focusing on my family. Joe Tsai: And also start focusing on my passion, which is I wanted to get into sports a little bit more, um, and obviously after that you know i i bought Joe Tsai: The Brooklyn Nets and getting to that. But speaking of the pandemic and how that that has changed. Um, I think the biggest change is that I don't travel as much and I have to say traveling is overrated. Joe Tsai: When, when you're not, you know, in a rush running to airports and pack. I mean think about, like, every time you travel, you have to pack and how much time you waste packing. Joe Tsai: I, I was before the pandemic. I was traveling Joe Tsai: Cross the Pacific, something like twice a month. Joe Tsai: Not just the time on the road, but also Joe Tsai: Getting over jet lag. Joe Tsai: Was taking a toll on my, on my health. And so it's definitely good not to travel, help, help me to focus on what I really want to do helps me to think more and read more. I really enjoy that. Genevieve Liu: Now that's that's good to hear. And I can't even imagine the jetlag, the last question I have for you is not just asking for a friend myself personally Genevieve Liu: I'm wondering if you have any advice for current students about how they should approach innovation and exploration of other projects, both the gale and also after graduation. Joe Tsai: Yes. Joe Tsai: Well, Joe Tsai: I think a couple of things. First, you know, this is my advice to all young people all students learn some fundamental skills. Joe Tsai: When you can, and I think Joe Tsai: fundamental skills. Joe Tsai: Today are very, very different from, you know, when I was a student 30, 40 years ago. Joe Tsai: Um, I think. Today we're in a we live in a world where there's going to be a lot of digitization of the world so software is important. I would encourage all history majors and English majors and economics majors to take a lesson in coding Joe Tsai: Whether it's Python or c++ or whatever coding language. Joe Tsai: Because I think it's important to understand the how the how software works because the future of the world is going to be run by a lot of software. Joe Tsai: And I would consider that a fundamental skill. It's almost like you know instinctively. You will learn a foreign language Joe Tsai: Instead of French and that nothing wrong with learning French, but instead of learning a foreign language. I would focus on learning Joe Tsai: Just taking a coding lesson I think would be very important. Um, the other thing is I you know I I grew up, even though I have a legal training. I grew up as a sort of professionally as a finance guy. I love working with spreadsheets and I think knowing how to work a spreadsheet. Joe Tsai: Is very, very important as a fundamental skill. Not that you want to do a lot of calculations, but you want to understand Joe Tsai: Formulas and the underlying thinking in terms of the underlying logic of numbers that spit out in a spreadsheet. Okay, so that's fundamental skills. The my other advice is diversity of skill sets. Joe Tsai: So I would advise you, and all of us, the students that are listening in to take courses in statistics because the future is going to be about data. I think now they have a fancy word for its data science. Joe Tsai: The other course to take is something in psychology pay Joe Tsai: I think at the end of the day, I'm not a big very big believer in in AI taking over the whole world, I think, though, the world is still going to be run by human beings 100 years from now. Joe Tsai: I think understanding how the human mind works how cognition works psychology is very, very important. Joe Tsai: You know, in business, I come across a lot of people, especially people in leadership positions. One of the most important leadership traits is what we call EQ. Joe Tsai: Having that sense of knowing when to listen went to speak. Joe Tsai: When to take a step forward when to take a step back. Joe Tsai: That is a good sign of leadership and some people call it judgment as well. Joe Tsai: And traits like humility self awareness are are very, very important leadership traits, and this is something that you normally don't Joe Tsai: Don't come across when you, you know, you would think that leaders have to be strong leaders have to be assertive leaders have to lead and that and sometimes Joe Tsai: You don't leave in as the front person you lead from the back because when you stay back you can support the people that you lead Joe Tsai: And you know, you Joe Tsai: A Joe Tsai: Lot of that is getting buy in from your colleagues, some of the strongest strongest leaders in the world have tons of buying from the people that they need that they work with and Joe Tsai: So understanding the human mind how the human mind works. Having that level of EQ will help you in in being a leader. Genevieve Liu: Yeah, that was awesome. And I think I one thing that I really liked that you talked about was like learning coding almost as a foreign language, even if you're a history major, or an English major in the fact that Genevieve Liu: You know this is something that is accessible to all of us to make us sort of have have a bigger toolkit to be, you know, innovate. So I think that was really awesome. So thank you so much like this is amazing. I'm going to turn it back to Claire, who is going to open it up for q&a Clare Leinweber: As this is very interesting, very engaging. And I have a bunch of questions that have been piling up here. So I'm going to Clare Leinweber: Read them for you. But I'll tell you who has submitted them. So we have a question from Sonny Meta and SOM student 20 class of 21 Clare Leinweber: Saying yesterday it was announced that the athletics or past 1 million subscribers, despite covert given this news. Where do you see the future of sports media going and how are your properties and team staying in front of these trends. Joe Tsai: Oh that's a big topic. Joe Tsai: If I knew all the answers. Joe Tsai: I think we would come out of this coven situation very well. Joe Tsai: I Joe Tsai: I think that the question has the right premise, which is the sports business is not just a sports business, but it's also a media business. Joe Tsai: What is sports without fans. Right. So the whole idea is to put on a show the performance is to please the fans and something like the athletic is for like Joe Tsai: The crazy fans, the people who are really into it into all the ins and outs. If you want to know everything about the NBA Draft coming up and who's going to pick first through 30 Joe Tsai: You read the the athletic and I think there's a market for that kind of thing. It's a subscription based model, and I think Joe Tsai: These really good newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post have proven that subscription based models work. Joe Tsai: If your content is proprietary and you have good content. So, but that here's the issue though. I think there are too many competitors like the athletic Joe Tsai: There's, there's a number of other sports websites or apps that you can you can get a lot of information from so there's almost like no barrier to entry in in the area of kind of specialty information or analysis about sports. Joe Tsai: There's always going to be a very high quality recorders and analysts that will put out very very good content. So the competition that space is very, very fierce now about the Joe Tsai: The media business. What I mean is putting on a game that cocking content right I think Joe Tsai: The best part of the media business in sports is to own the IP itself. In other words, ownership of a team is really, really good because the team. The 30 teams in the NBA, together with the league own the intellectual property. Joe Tsai: And then we will license that intellectual property to the distributors. Joe Tsai: Who have access to the fans, but there's always going to be more distributors than there are owners of the IP. So going to the source and only owning the IP is very, very important in the sports business. Clare Leinweber: Thank you for that. Okay. We have a question from Daniel, who is a yellow college class of 2023 students. What were some of your most influential moments at Yale. Clare Leinweber: That you think brought you to where you are today. Moreover, as school is currently online. How do you think we as students can make the best use of the resources we currently have, particularly those that sigh city offers Joe Tsai: I mean there's just Joe Tsai: So many so many moments at Yale I benefited so much from from yours. It's kind of hard to pick out just one one or two events, um, Joe Tsai: I think Joe Tsai: I guess, you know, when I was in when I was an undergraduate. Some of the best times I've had was hanging out with my fellow students my, you know, the I was in Branford College. So, you know, I spent a lot of time in Branford basement. Joe Tsai: I don't know what it looks like now. But I remember those moments because we have so much fun just Joe Tsai: You know, sometimes just horsing around but sharing ideas. Joe Tsai: I remember there was a foosball table. So I spent a lot of time there at the foosball table. I would say that just I still think you know very fondly of yo because of the residential college system. Joe Tsai: You know what, I look at other colleges other universities that don't have that kind of system they people just live in dorms, or they live in. Joe Tsai: fraternities or sororities I think they're missing something. So I think the whole residential colleges system was is the best part of Joe Tsai: You know my time I yo Clare Leinweber: All right, we have a question from Archibald Ella. Clare Leinweber: Who is an EMBA student executive MBA student class of 2022 Clare Leinweber: Can you please speak about your experience at Alibaba. What was the most challenging and how did you manage being a CEO, CFO and a founding board member Joe Tsai: I'm sorry. The question is, what is the most challenging Clare Leinweber: About, about your experience. Joe Tsai: Happy experience. Okay, um, Joe Tsai: Yeah, I think. Joe Tsai: I Joe Tsai: After graduating from, you know, college, I went to law school straight Joe Tsai: I had taken a year off in between first and second year law school. Joe Tsai: But then I you know finished law school and then I went to work for a law firm. Joe Tsai: And so I went through an experience where my cohorts, both at school and also at work have similar Joe Tsai: Sort of backgrounds in terms of education, a capability up sort of training, if you will, um, Joe Tsai: But when you go into the real world. When you work for an operating company. In other words, if you're not working in a law firm or an investment bank or McKinsey, you know you when you work in a Joe Tsai: operating company then you actually see the diversity of skill sets the diversity of education, the diversity of experiences. Joe Tsai: And that was a big shock to me when I first went into Alibaba, because everybody had a different sort of educational background and Joe Tsai: It was important for me to stay very humble and I could have. I could have, you know, been like this. Joe Tsai: You know, really arrogant Yale graduate, you know, law school guy and tell everybody what to do, but I knew I was in a new environment. I was going into mainland China. Joe Tsai: As somebody who didn't grow up in mainland China. And I had to. I did. Most, most of the things that I did was just to listen and observe what was going on. Joe Tsai: And I was fortunate enough to have come across a group of founders in the business every just amazing people not they're not only smart and capable, but Joe Tsai: They're as, as human beings, like, you know, I want to go out and have a beer with them. I want to go on, you know, have have conversations with them. These are just incredible people. And I found them in mainland China. And this is, you know, not something that I would expect. Joe Tsai: The challenge of, you know, move going through different roles. I think I was Chief Operating Officer for a total of three months at Alibaba. Then I was kind of fired from that role. Joe Tsai: And went to what I was good at which is being the CFO CFO for 13 years and then I Joe Tsai: stepped away from that. I think the biggest lesson I learned Joe Tsai: When you are in an entrepreneurial venture as you scale the business, you have to think about stepping away and letting Joe Tsai: Younger people or other people to come in and take over what you do if you always want to stay in your position. Joe Tsai: You run out of bandwidth and the company can't scale, a lot of entrepreneurs get to a certain point, they're afraid to let go or they don't want to let go and the company's stock stops. Joe Tsai: They will lose the ability to scale. So you have to think about how do I groom the next generation of leadership in the company. Joe Tsai: How do I develop them. You have to have very specific development programs in the company Alibaba, the most important thing for us is not money or product or technology. The most important thing for us is people Joe Tsai: And we put a lot of focus on identifying Joe Tsai: People that have potential giving them every opportunity to move around different jobs and also mentor them. Joe Tsai: You know people like jack ma our currency. Oh, Daniel Tang, they actually run these mentorship classes, there are these groups every year they convened a group of 20 to 30 sort of mid level managers and then they will literally go to class with jack. I think that's very Joe Tsai: Important. It's also an innovative way. You know, you think about the company's founders, they run these internal classes for their mid level managers and they get together and share ideas and experiences. That's a pretty good thing. Clare Leinweber: Thank you for that. Perry Wang do college 2023 who resides in Saybrook college and is from Brooklyn has a question about the nets I he and his dad are Clare Leinweber: Lifelong Mets fans and so his question is about owning an NBA team. Clare Leinweber: Can you speak a little bit about buying the nets from an investment standpoint, for example, what kind of due diligence goes into such an investment and from a managerial standpoint, for example, what do you have to think about in managing an NBA team. Joe Tsai: Yeah. Joe Tsai: So first you have to be successful in the NBA as a as a team. Joe Tsai: You have to understand Joe Tsai: The revenue structure of how teams make money. Joe Tsai: You look at a typical NBA team half the revenues come from tickets. So you got to get the fans into the building, you got to sell tickets. The other half of the revenue comes from the League. The League itself generates revenue from national TV and international media assets. Joe Tsai: So understanding that is is quite important. Joe Tsai: The, the first part of getting butts in the seats and you know all that getting fans in excited about the team that's something you can control the second part, we really leave it up to Joe Tsai: Adam silver the league Commissioner and his team to generate kind of League level revenues. So it's important to understand that that that structure. Joe Tsai: And so we did the other aspect of the MDA that's very, very important is Joe Tsai: The, there is a very fair sharing of economics between teams and the players. Joe Tsai: If you go to buy a team in Europe soccer team in Europe, there's no salary cap and so ownership actually ends up a lot of the owners lose money. Joe Tsai: But in the NBA per the collective bargaining agreement, you basically have a 5050 share of the economics between players and and team owners. So in a way, our players are not employees. There are partners in the business and understanding that nature. Joe Tsai: Understanding that their partners that there are superstars and Joe Tsai: And there's a special way of establishing relationships with players. Joe Tsai: You know, being able to understand that is very, very important to to to ownership. Um, so Joe Tsai: And nowadays, you know, to get fans and into the building to get them to watch the games, you have to do a lot of marketing and I think the focus on social media is very, very important. Joe Tsai: Because of the nets ownership. Joe Tsai: I guess this was like two or three years ago. Joe Tsai: I decided that I started a Twitter account so that I can communicate directly with our fans. I'm I'm up to that point, have never used Twitter. I didn't feel it was something that was important to me. Joe Tsai: You know, I just can't understand the idea of limiting the number of words that you can post on social media, but because of the nets I not have a Twitter account. Clare Leinweber: Well, congratulations, you're gonna have a lot more followers soon, I bet. Clare Leinweber: So we have a question from Sandra Martin. The Yale College student class of 23 and he is on the lacrosse team considering your belief in the importance of diversity, what would you suggest to develop more constructive debate and progress between conservative and liberal ideologies. Joe Tsai: Yeah. Oh, by the way. Yeah, Zander really great to hear from you, from someone on the lacrosse team. I think Joe Tsai: I was very disappointed that the season got cut short but I I did remember seeing you get into a few games. I think the Villanova game was the first game of the season and you were freshmen right over last year, you're a freshman, then Joe Tsai: Got into the game. I, I was very excited for you. Um, so, uh, how do we, I look I think what's important is right now, instead of Joe Tsai: I think right now that's sort of the political dialogue in this country and many parts of the world. A lot of these political dialogues. People are talking past each other. We have to have a way of talking to each other. That's a Joe Tsai: With civility and with respect. I think you have to really respect the other person's Joe Tsai: You may disagree with their opinion. But you have to respect where they're coming from. And a lot of that is Joe Tsai: A lot of the issues that we talked about is historically based there are because of history. We have imbalance because of history. We have a Joe Tsai: Arguments problems and going back to understanding that history. Joe Tsai: This is always very, very important and also the other thing is don't be afraid to confront Joe Tsai: The, the, the issue directly by just talking about talking very frankly about it. I'll give you an example. Um, this is a very current example a couple days ago we announced that we we hired steve nash as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets Joe Tsai: Steve Nash's two time MVP. One of the most Joe Tsai: You know, talented point guards that ever played basketball. Joe Tsai: And for him. You know, it was incredible. Get for us to be able to convince him that, you know, he would come into Brooklyn and coach us coach, our team. Joe Tsai: The problem is Steve Nash's white and in the context of this whole social justice. Joe Tsai: Discussion in the nation. Joe Tsai: We, we came under a little bit of criticism. I'm sure some of you have some have seen what Steven headset. Sorry. Stephen a seaman a Smith what he said on ESPN. He said, Steve Nash got Joe Tsai: His job because of white privilege. So when Steve Nash was put on the spot during a press conference by a reporter and and the direct question was, Hey Steve, what do you think did you get your job because of white privilege what Steve said was very sensible and sensitive Joe Tsai: He said, Yes, I been the beneficiary of that, um, but Joe Tsai: I, I don't think that is an issue that applies in this particular case. But having said that, we need to have this conversation. Joe Tsai: Right, I don't blame neither steve nash nor I Joe Tsai, we don't blame Stephen A for raising that question, even though the example he uses in this particular case it may be misapply. But having that conversation is important. Joe Tsai: So, Joe Tsai: So I think this is a very good example of Joe Tsai: Rather than just shouting at each other and saying hey look we understand white privilege is a issue we need to talk about it in this case it doesn't apply. Joe Tsai: Because steve nash is the best person for the job. But we still are not afraid to talk about it i think i think this is this is where you need to Joe Tsai: You know, have have a rational way of having a discussion on both sides. I know that you know Joe Tsai: We were in a very highly charged environment where patients are people are not patient and tempers are short but uh Joe Tsai: You know, let's let's have a real discussion about these issues. Clare Leinweber: Great, Joe. If you have time, I will Clare Leinweber: Ask a couple more questions before we conclude Clare Leinweber: Yeah. Trenton Atkinson an MD PhD student in his second year has a question about what would you, if you had more time in your life, what would you spend it on, would it be a hobby, something you want to learn, you know, what would you choose to focus on Joe Tsai: Oh, well first I will spend more time with my kids so Joe Tsai: And Joe Tsai: I also want to Joe Tsai: Go back and read more history. I just think history is very, very important. A lot of the misunderstanding. A lot of the arguments that people are having is because they forget about history and history does repeat itself. Joe Tsai: I say history repeats itself because Joe Tsai: What I've seen in the recent environment. Joe Tsai: With sentiment in the society, for example, against Asian Americans, um, because of covert and because you know the guy in White House's communicating a message that Joe Tsai: affects all Asian Americans. Joe Tsai: You know, during World War Two. Joe Tsai: You know, when America went to war with Japan. Joe Tsai: Japanese Americans were rounded up and put into these internment camps, because there were not trusted as Americans. Joe Tsai: I think this is the kind of thing, it only happened, you know, like what's 60, 70 years 70 years ago, it's, it's a, it could repeat itself. Joe Tsai: So I think for me, going back and studying history is very important. I want to, I want to understand the world I want to understand different cultures. Joe Tsai: So that's what I'll spend my time doing Clare Leinweber: In our final question from Prodi Agarwal, who's to college class of 2021 and one of our student advisory board co chairs as well. Clare Leinweber: What advice would you give to students on striking a balance between exploring different fields and taking new risks versus trying to go really deep in a particular field. Joe Tsai: Yeah, well, Joe Tsai: Well, first, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Joe Tsai: I think you can go very deep. Let's say if you want to study Chemistry. A yo you could still Joe Tsai: Try to explore other things. Joe Tsai: You know, you'll say, well, I only have 24 hours a day, but Joe Tsai: You know you can you can do it. I think I trust that you know you guys got into Yale. You guys are smart. Joe Tsai: You can you can do that and I go back to sort of Joe Tsai: My idea about fundamental skill sets and also some diversity of subject matters. Joe Tsai: I would urge you to take psychology and data science as to sort of required courses. Joe Tsai: And learn how to code. Joe Tsai: And I think we equipped with that you can study anything you can go deep into any other subject matter and still come out fine. Clare Leinweber: So I think we are low on time, Joe, I want to thank you so much. This has been really informative. It's a pleasure to hear from you always, I hope we can do this again in the future. Clare Leinweber: Anjelica and Genevieve thank you very much for being my fellow moderators, and thanks to the Tsai CITY team for helping pull all this together and Clare Leinweber: Cecilia from Joe's team as well. Quick next steps for our audience. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to our newsletter. We talked about the importance of social media as well, follow us on social media. Clare Leinweber: We would also love to get your feedback. There'll be a link that will share at the conclusion of this chat that will bring you to a feedback form. Clare Leinweber: And then for students who joined us today. Please engage with us, sign up for a workshop or find something else of interest, sign up, talk to us. We would love to meet you and get to know you better. Clare Leinweber: For those of you already engaged. We look forward to working with you this year. For those of you who joined who are not Yale students consider volunteering your time to mentor, we often Clare Leinweber: are in need of mentors, with specific expertise. So if you're active in the Clare Leinweber: Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem and have some time and would like to connect all of our connections. This year, our remote Clare Leinweber: So that does make it somewhat easier to lend your support to a student who might need it. So thank you everyone. Thank you Joe. And everybody enjoy the rest of your day or evening, wherever you are. Joe Tsai: Clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Clare Leinweber: Thank you. Bye. Bye bye.
