IAM2691 – Capital Evolution: A Journalist’s Perspective on the Future of Capitalism

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Full Podcast Interview:

Full Audio Transcription:

Elizabeth MacBride 00:00

Stick to your idea, stick to your purpose, but be flexible about how you're enacting it, right? Don't get too rigid about the form it's taking because you should take what's offered to you, right? Take the opportunities of what's offered to you.

Gresham Harkless 00:47

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast and I have an awesome guest back on the show today. I have Elizabeth McBride. Elizabeth, excited to have you back on the show.

Elizabeth MacBride 00:55

Really happy to be here.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

Yes, I'm happy as well too. And Elizabeth and I had a phenomenal conversation last time. So ready to delve in a little bit deep, little bit more on an awesome new project, a new book that she's been working on as well too. But of course before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Elizabeth so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Elizabeth is an author, entrepreneur and an award winning business journalist with expertise in finance, technology and international business. She has been on the founding team of four startups including Wealthfront, the first online financial advisor. She is the author of Capital Evolution and the Little Book of Robo how to Make Money in youn Sleep, the latest in the acclaimed Wiley series aimed at helping investor individual investors get the share of returns in the world economy. She is currently a consultant at the World bank in the WeFi Initiative for Women's Finance and she was a guest on episode number 2067 of our RMCO podcast before and we shared loads of great information. We actually found ourselves as being kindred spirits as well too. But I was checking back and listening through everything again and one of the things that she said, which is I think right in line with the book that she wrote, is she says one of the keys to success is being very adaptable. And when I was preparing a little bit for this, this new book actually focuses on that and is a call to action to embrace change, rebuild trust and ensure capitalism remains the most dynamic force for progress the world has ever known. The future isn't a choice between old ideologies. It's about evolving to meet the needs of a new era. So everything is all aligned. Love everything you're doing. Elizabeth, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community again?

Elizabeth MacBride 02:32

I am, yeah. It's a great community. You know, I really grew up being a journalist talking to entrepreneurs and small business owners. So it's one of my favorite audiences.

Gresham Harkless 02:42

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like, you know, we were chatting a little bit before, you know, we popped on this, and I was like, hey, I think the last time you might have been working on this, I can't remember, you're like, yeah, this has been three years in the making. So outside of that, in addition to that, I would love to hear a little bit more on what you've been chatting about, what you've been working on. And so since we last chatted, I'll.

Elizabeth MacBride 03:00

Show you what I've been working on. So this is the book. This is a pre release copy of Capital Evolution. I think the publisher, which is Ben Bella Books. Matt Holt is the imprint within Ben Bella. The book actually launches on December 9th, so that'll be in the past when people are listening to this. But it's a pre launch interview. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 03:21

I mean, I would love to hear more about that process and everything for you, like, what led you to get there? Cause I know, I imagine at the heart of entrepreneurship and getting started, capitalism plays a really big part of that. But I imagine in this book you delve way deeper than probably we kind of even consider. And I feel like it probably arms us with a great understanding and ability to be Even better, like CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

Elizabeth MacBride 03:43

I hope so. The book really grew out of my first book, which was called the New Builders Face to Face with the True Future of Business, which I wrote with Seth Levine, who's a venture capitalist in, in Boulder, Colorado. He runs Foundry Group, which is a $4 billion VC firm. The first book, the New Builders, was an unexpected success. Unexpected success and important in the economy because we actually set out to write a coffee table book about small business and entrepreneurship. And it ended up that we gathered up all this research and then the pandemic hit. And because of that, we were sitting on a real trove of research about what the small business community in the US Actually looked like, which was women and people of color. Like, by far, they're starting the most businesses, but they also have trouble accessing capital. So that book was really about that new future of American business. And because it came out in the pandemic, it had a big impact on policy in the U.S. so the U.S. senate, you'll know this name, but Tim Kaine, his chief of staff, emailed me at some point during the first few months of the pandemic and said, hey, we used your research to help reshape the small business aid bill.

Gresham Harkless 05:03

Wow.

Elizabeth MacBride 05:04

And so that was major. Right. I'm a journalist. I really care a lot about having a good impact in the world. And that's the. You know, I wrote a book that had an impact that was $250 billion. Right. And touched millions of small businesses. So out of that, I thought, well, you know, I'm not going to give up writing kind of serious policy books because I thought it was important. And so Seth and I decided to write this book, the one I just held up because of that early success with the new builders. And so, you know, we just start. We decided that the most important thing to write about would be the future of capitalism.

Gresham Harkless 05:48

Nice. I appreciate you so much. And drilling down on, like, what came about and like, how all these are that common thread. It's. I think Steve Jobs has that quote where he always says, you can sometimes just paint, you know, the picture of your life, like, looking backwards and sometimes we don't realize. But as you start to lean into that expertise, that knowledge, and be very much so like a journalist and ask questions and say, hey, I wonder why this, I wonder why that, and not just leave it there, but actually lean more into it, sounds like that's what's been, like, an underpinning in everything you've been doing.

Elizabeth MacBride 06:15

Yeah. I'm a really curious person, and I really. I mean, I've probably interviewed over the course of my business journalism career, like 10 or 15,000 people. Right. All over the world. And at a certain point, I just realized that the people who are at the very top, we also talk to some. To small business owners. But what I've realized from talking to people from, like, refugee business owners who are literally running a stand by the side of the road is that there's not nearly as much difference as you think between people. And so what really determines the shape of your life is partly about how hard you work and how smart you are and strokes of luck, right place, right time. But so much of what determines your life path is just the system that you are working in. And so thinking about that and think about how do you really create your own life and be a part of creating the system that governs all of our lives? That's really what capital evolution is about. Like, what actions do you want to take to shape this economy in a better direction for all of us?

Gresham Harkless 07:27

Yeah, absolutely. I almost wonder, do you feel like that's been like a great ability of your, your secret sauce in and of itself is the ability to be. You've had so many thousands, thousands of like interviews and conversations around that. I think so many times when you are going through success or going through failure, we can be very kind of narrow in how we define that you succeeded because of this or you failed because of that. But understanding that there's so many different factors. You feel like your ability to understand that is like part of what you feel like might be your secret sauce.

Elizabeth MacBride 07:57

Yeah, I mean, if I have a secret sauce, it's probably just keep, I just keep adapting. Yeah, I, I think I probably shared this before, but I'm a military brat. Right. I moved 11. 11. I always say I moved 11 times before I was 17. So yeah, it's just, you just change if it's not. There's just a lot of different moments in life and you can just turn and change. Sometimes I feel like I do that to a fault. Right. Sometimes you do have to stick with something. So we all have our different, like we all have our different faults. But yeah, I do. I. If I have a secret sauce, it's probably being able to adapt and being able to build relationships with people. Cause that's like a cross cutting skill, you know, that works in every environment. I do wish, I wish for the entrepreneurs that I know that they realized how much of their success and failure is not determined by them. So many of the entrepreneurs that we read about and who are held up as models for us actually started out pretty wealthy. And that just makes all the difference in the world. Right. It's a lot easier to take a big risk to make decisions that are really at the edge if you know you've got a strong net.

Gresham Harkless 09:13

Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of that, I would love to drill down a little bit more and hear like, what advice might you have for people? This could be like the CEO hack that would come from that book. Like people that are listening to this say, hey, I do want to try to make a change. I do see that this is not going the way that I wanted to go. What would you say are like maybe the first few or a couple things that people can do that, you know, you talk about in the book as far as like leaning into, like, I want to be the change I want to see in the world.

Elizabeth MacBride 09:40

So we are evolving away from a system of what they call shareholder primacy, which is a pretty limited way of looking at economics and capitalism. That said, your only purpose as a, as a Company builder is to produce profits for the owners or the shareholders. But that's really not very realistic. Right. We know now after decades of research and how people actually work, that the people are quite community oriented, that people in fact are values driven, that we care about each other. We all know that from the pandemic. Actually when our community got taken away, we all suffered for it. And so I think now we are going to see a shift. Especially when you're seeking funding for your company, whether that's from venture capitalists or from banks, that they are going to be paying more attention to what your values are. You have to have the bottom line, but that's becoming more like poker stakes. So you gotta have the bottom line, but you also have to be able to articulate the vision and the mission of what you're working on and whatever that is. So we talk about that a good bit in the book, right? It could be you're a very employee's first company. That's sort of like the easiest thing. I think you're creating jobs, you're creating decent jobs, you pay people decently. Like you're committed to, you know, whatever those good systems are to lift your community up. I think that's a value that a lot of companies now are adopting and being much more transparent about. But I also think environment's a huge one. And in that space it's really helpful to have an environmental mission because consumers have more power today. And so being able to demonstrate that you can be in touch with a group of very motivated consumers who are going to see stick with you through thick and thin. We have the example in the book of Patagonia. This is a very famous example of a values, you know, company that just adopted environmentalism as its thing and found its customers and boy, they stick with it. But there's tons of it. Doesn't have to be environment. It can also be. We talk about Hobby Lobby, which is a company that. Whose values are not aligned with mine, but they definitely have a strong sense of values and they found their consumers. And so that's another example of this, the world we're moving toward. Right. I think you have to have both the business model that works, but ingrained in that is this values driven approach to business.

Gresham Harkless 12:15

What would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Obviously it could be something from your book, but what's something you would tell somebody that's reading or listening to this or potentially your younger business self.

Elizabeth MacBride 12:29

I would tell my younger self, well, going back to the flaws I think that I carry, I would say stick, stick to your idea, stick to your purpose, but be flexible about how you're enacting it. Right. Don't get too rigid about the form it's taking because you should take what's offered to you. Right. Take the opportunities of what's offered to you. That's the advice that I am trying to enact in my own life now. And that's what I would say to my younger self. And that's also what I would say to business leaders and business owners. You know what your values are, so stick to those. They're at your core. You know what your advantages are as a person, what your best qualities, best skills, best attributes are. Stick to them. But don't be so rigid about they have to take the form of a big company or they have to be in a regular corporate job, or they have to be this or that. Right. Your opportunities are wider.

Gresham Harkless 13:33

Yeah, absolutely. Well, now I want to ask you one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And I know you've talked with so many different CEOs, like you mentioned in so many different brands. So how would you define being a CEO?

Elizabeth MacBride 13:46

I define being a CEO. I think the person, the definition that comes closest to me is being a servant leader. Right. I believe if courage is the father of all virtue, then humility is the mother of all virtues. And I think if you're a CEO, you recognize that you still have a lot to learn and your job is to take care of the people around you.

Gresham Harkless 14:13

Absolutely. Well, Elizabeth, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want you to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get ahold of you. Find out about the new book, the other books you've written, and all the awesome things that you're working on.

Elizabeth MacBride 14:32

Oh, thank you for. I. Well, first of all, appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate that you give a platform for people to talk and to have these meaningful conversations. So you can find my work at my. If you just search my name. Elizabeth McBride. I have my own website. There's also a website for Capital Evolution. And we obviously appreciate it if you would order the book and if you do order it, read it and like it. If you will leave a review on Amazon that helps the sales of the book a good bit. It is a centrist book, which means that, you know, it's got a harder road in the world because people enjoy being more divided right now. But we're trying to build a conversation in the center. And so we hope a lot of people will buy the book and be part of that centrist conversation.

Gresham Harkless 15:21

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate that. Of course, to make everything easier, we'll have the links and information show notes as well too. But I think some, to some degree, it's very, very sad, you know, that in a world where we want to be more divided than we want to be united. And I think a lot of times when we have those conversations, as you said so well, we start to realize that we're a lot more alike than we are different. But that only happens by being willing and open to having those conversations and realizing that, yeah, I might disagree with you on this or disagree with you on that, but at the end of the day, we're still very human. We still have probably a lot of the same fears, aspiration, goals and all those things. So I think and love that you've been able to kind of write this book, to be able to create that narrative around there and be looking forward to the next thing. The thing after that, we continue to kind of collaborate with me too.

Elizabeth MacBride 16:06

I'm looking forward to that too. Thank you.