– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

This Man created the ethernet that cable

you plug into your Wi-Fi boxes to gain

access to the internet so you can watch

this video and he did it while working a

9 to5 today we sit down with Bob medf a

Pioneer who transformed how we

communicate we learn what it takes to

invent a life-changing product we had to

kill two monopolies we had to kill AT&T

and we had to kill IBM in order to build

the internet the advice that Steve Jobs

gave him what kind of advice did he give

that anything surprising about what he

advised you on most people think that

Steve Jobs is the best CEO in the

history of the

world but an interesting fact about that

is that

he and whether the hard work and

sacrifice was all worth it in your

career do you have any regrets would you

change anything was it worth it

uh let's hear the story of the man who

revolutionized the

internet so jumping right into the

questions um how did you make your money

how would you answer that uh or how did

I make my money I invented something

then I started a company to

commercialize it and

succeeded and went public and sold some

stock now I have more money than I can

ever spend the thing I invented it's

called ethernet I invented it at Xerox

research in paloalto California on May

22nd

1973 I guess what I'm curious so you

made your money inventing something but

you invented it as an employee or were

you inventing it yes I did I invented it

as an employee of Xerox Corporation I'd

like to correct what I said by the way

I've uh I didn't make much money by

inventing ethernet I made most of it by

selling ethernet which is different and

uh now there one fed into the LED into

the other but it was the selling process

which took the time and the effort so

I've been to every remata in in the

world selling ethernet as an employe do

you think I'm going to get rich off this

or as you were creating it like hey this

just part of my job no I um I was

employed by Xerox they paid me well I

had a lot of fun there and invented this

thing and then left Xerox and returned

to ask to propose that they license me

the

patents and in fact license everyone the

patents in order to make ethered into an

industry standard we figured we'd have

to make it not a proprietary product of

Xerox Corporation and they agreed so uh

my company became one of hundreds to

license Ethernet from Xerox why'd you

leave I left xerx

twice and uh it had to do with career

considerations I was I had I was there

two segments of four years in research

for four years and development for four

years and uh I just got done

with just got done with what I was doing

and it was time to move on and then when

you're in Silicon Valley the you start

companies in when you're in Silicon

Valley you're supposed to start

companies so in 1979 I left Xerox with

the intention of pursuing

entrepreneurial interests and I had no

clue what it would be but a few months

later I started 3com how did you even

figure out how to start it I I was in

Silicon Valley surrounded by people who

knew how to start companies so uh I got

a lot of advice on VCS and and Steve

Jobs he called me in in uh I mentioned

him cuz he was one of my mentors an odd

Mentor situation since I'm 10 years

older than he was he called me in four

five days after I founded 3com and

invited me to join apple and I turned

him down and then he did a very

interesting thing he helped me for the

next 10 years all through the 80s to

build my company he in other words he

didn't get all all huffy and storm off

he was great why do you think he help it

I don't know I think he something about

entrepreneurship he liked that and uh he

could see that I I had just founded the

company a few days before so I guess he

was you know interested in that what

what would come of it plus I pitched him

I wanted to sell him a product so I came

to we had lunch on Stevens Creek

Boulevard in Cupertino California at a a

hippie

restaurant where everything was vegan

and uh I proposed that I would sell him

a network to this company had called

apple and they had these Apple twos so I

said you need a network and I here's the

I happen to have a design for a network

for you and I call it

Orchard you see the little marketing

flare there he he listened to that

proposition for about four

NCS before returning to the discussion

of my becoming a networking guy at Apple

he had no interest whatsoever in buying

Orchard I think maybe the the fact that

I tried to be a marketing person and

call it Orchard may have offended him

yeah what kind of advice did he give

that anything surprising about what he

advised you on verus what you were doing

I've come to realize this uh

retrospectively the key thing he taught

most people think that Steve Jobs is the

best CEO in the history of the

world but an interesting fact about that

is that he founded Apple in 1976 and he

became CEO in

1996 and so what he did what in Silicon

Valley is uh he appreciated adult

supervision that's the term adult

supervision so from the very beginning

he had people involved in his company

who were at with him for him so I did

that so I as soon as I raised Venture

Capital went out and recruited Bill

Krauss to come and be our CEO I didn't

know how to run a company let alone

start a company yeah I I I think the two

things you said that really really

resonate with was one is selling not

inventing like anyone can invent but

actually get people to buy and make it a

business to selling yeah and I just had

this realization over and over is that

it's it's very hard to be successful

alone mm right like you did have to

Steve found people to support him in

different areas you found sounds like

this Bob cross guy when you what made

you think to start this business over

other things and like did you expect it

to be as big as it got or what was the

expectation for you well as a grad

student so I graduated from MIT in

electrical engineering and management

1969 I went to Harvard immediately hated

Harvard but the project that was funded

at AR at both Harvard and MIT was a

thing called the arpa computer network

named after the advanced research

projects agency of the Department of

Defense

arpa and a wise graduate student will

choose a field where there's money

because that will fund the PHD research

that you do and so that I got into

networking right then and so then I was

in networking for four years with Mi I

worked at Mi it but got my degrees from

Harvard and then I spent eight years at

Xerox building an internet inside of

Xerox so then when I left Xerox in 79 to

start my own company what what company

was I going to start or had to have

something to do with all that and it did

so the company was called 3com computer

communication

compatibility and our goal was to

network um diverse computers together

and most people forget this but prior to

the internet every computer manufacturer

made their own networking if they made

any networking at all they were all

incompatible so the 3com was founded to

solve that problem

and uh we were the first company to ship

TCP IP which is the uh Court protocol of

the internet and we were the first ones

to ship a commercial version of that and

and we did ethernet and we adopted Unix

and Ms Doss and off we went what did you

expect 3com to become 3com yeah it

started Life as a uh consulting

company immediately profitable I hired

recruited a dozen people and we did

Consulting on networking and we were uh

profitable and we all had company cars I

had a Mercedes and but then we noticed

that um other people were starting

silicon classic Silicon Valley startups

with venture capital and one of them was

unerman Vass which you've never heard of

but Ralph ungerman and Char bass and I

discussed starting a company together

but our egos were too big so we started

two separate companies and then he

raised venture capital and then he

started bragging about having invented

all the stuff that I

invented so it annoyed me so then I put

together a business plan in in September

of 1980 and began raising money and in

in February of the next year I raised

$1.1 million for a third of of the

company which are these are laughable

numbers to yeah how much did that third

go on to be at its peak you think say

again how how much did that third go on

to be at its peak it's kind of funny

remember you don't remember the internet

bubble you probably weren't born yet

right at the I was in high school but

there were a lot of super valuable

companies and mine was among them and

for a few nanoseconds in 1999 with 5.7

billion in

Revenue U and I had left the company I

wasn't there

it was worth $ 52 billion inflation

adjusted but only for a few NCS you if

you look at the graph it

goes like

this and I didn't even get half of that

$ 52

billion that was wild that was much

later I left three years later than I

should have I left after 13 years and I

realized the last three of those years I

was hurting the company rather than

helping it I was in the end I was VP of

corporate

marketing and my principal activity was

arguing with our regional managers over

advertising they all wanted to have

their own ads write their own copy

choose their own logos their own colors

everything and I was the corporate um

brand Nazi and I had traveled around the

world convincing French people that they

should use our brand you know our logo

here's the here's the artwork for our

logo you should use this

and that was uh not work that I was

uniquely qualified to do but I did know

the difference between sales and

marketing and that's that's one thing

you need to learn early what's that well

many there are many many differences

there not the same thing most people

think sales and marketing are the same

thing but marketing has most is mostly

uh incoming and sales is mostly outgoing

two things I'm curious for there is like

how did you figure out was time to go I

think for a lot of people especially

you're starting a company you're like am

I quitting too soon in it have I stayed

too long in it yes how did you know that

all right so in uh

1980 uh two I convened a meeting of the

board of directors of which I was the

chairman and a large shareholder to

decide who is going to be the CEO and we

decided Bill KRA was going to be the CEO

and I was not going to be so that was

the first time my board rejected me and

then 10 years later I came back as

similar this is how I left uh three of

us were designated as Su succession

candidates and uh and I was surprisingly

I was one of the three I was running the

biggest Revenue generator of the company

the hardware

division all those other guys like

software and but I generated all the

profits but I didn't win Eric won so

twice my board of directors chose

somebody else uh to run the to be CEO of

the company and both times they were

right in in uh the way it played out

there two very good choices were made

and I'm not surprised because I built

that board I recruited those board

members one by one uh so I guess I was

proud of the board and it one of the

important functions of a board is to

um tell you the

truth self-awareness is so

hard very rarely to someone say you know

I really can't do this job anymore I

don't have the skills and plus I'm

getting tired no one never does that you

have to fire their asses and that's the

purpose of the board is to fire your ass

when uh when you're uh no longer good

you need to be firing on all cylinders

it's the job of the board to be sure the

big cylinder is firing correctly so

twice a board that I recruited chose

somebody else to be the CEO and it

worked and both times I I can attest

they were

right uh Bill Krauss the first time and

Eric benamu the second time and the

company went like a rocket ship after

each of them took over so it was great

did people treat you differently before

and after 3on before and after you made

you earned money yeah yeah I became

famous and I I had to develop tests for

you know that goes to your head I

watched I watched as little as

$100,000 going to one of our Engineers I

watch it ruin his

life just a 100 thousand so not not

Millions just 100,

so I began as I got richer over time

trying to figure out how not to get uh

corrupted by it and here's there here's

a simple example a simple rule if

there's a bunch of you standing around

and everyone's introducing hi Tom hi

Noah good see Noah and that all finishes

if you haven't said your name during

that introduction period you need an ego

fix right there cuz you assume that

everyone knows who you are so that's a

little test I perform I watch did you

say your name or do you assume that

people uh know who you are cuz you're so

important yeah yeah it's very easy uh to

be corrupted by money as and as I said I

remember this kid

Sunny engineer 100

Grand

drugs

disappeared and it was just 100K that

got

him a sad story so uh yeah you have to

guard I think you have if if you're

going to be successful and you start

succeeding then you have to start paying

attention to succeeding

well Bill Gates actually Bill Gates who

I admire greatly even though I

frequently criticize him uh he once said

a wise thing was it would be harder for

him to give away his money well than it

was to make

it he's doing a damn good job of giving

it away right now I

think by the way he and I are not close

I when I was a

columnist uh I attacked Microsoft for um

Andy trust Behavior andic competitive

behavior and Bill and I had a falling

out at that time in your do you have any

regrets would you change anything was it

worth it it worked out so well for me my

life is so good I am reluctant to answer

any questions about the past and

changing it or regretting it

cuz it's just hard to imagine it working

out better but uh a partial answer to

that question is I wish I had learned

how to sell

earlier so I was forced into the job of

head of sales and marketing as we were

running out of cash in 19 1982 so we

were heading toward uh

fume and uh I got replaced as CEO

and given the job of head of sales and

marketing with zero

revenue and uh so I grew revenue from

zero to a million a month in two years

and then we went public so that was my

contribution but had I been better at

selling before that uh life would have

been easier for example IBM gave me two

chances they paid me two grand each time

to come to IBM and convince them to use

ethernet and uh I didn't do any research

I didn't unearth their considerations I

didn't know who the decision maker was I

didn't know I didn't know anything I

just want and gave a speech twice once

in Franklin L Lakes New Jersey and once

in Research Triangle Park North Carolina

and I was great I won the argument but

as you know from selling you can win the

argument but lose the sale and that's

what I did I didn't ask for the order

for example I just gave my speech about

how cool Le it was then I IBM went off

and did a a a competing technology which

it took me couple couple of decades to

kill we had to kill two monopolies we

had to kill AT&T and we had to kill IBM

in order to build the internet kill the

monopolies of those two

companies so show the competition no was

there anyone close to like killing you

guys or you're like oh my God like this

oh Cisco is the one that got away so

Cisco was founded the year we went

public uh we had an we had an observer

on our

board when we went public he left our

board and founded

Cisco and then

Cisco passed us after a while maybe 10

years

later they were the one that got away

and so Cisco still exists obviously and

they're big successful and 3com is now

part of HP is there other

recommendations where to learn sales it

turns out when I worked for Xerox part

of Xerox it was big Monopoly very

profitable company it had uh development

for its employees so I took a course

called Xerox selling

skills at this course uh there's you can

buy it today it exists today but there's

lots of books about

selling so xero selling skills was

the and then I took the course at Xerox

had a university in its own University

sales for not sales training for

training in general so I took managing

tasks through people

and I took Xerox selling skills at Xerox

not at MIT not at Harvard not at

Stanford at zerox for someone starting

out in their career um or things you

wish have known and sounds like one of

them is selling selling is what are

there other things you would for your

kids or you know people let's go back to

selling there's many kinds of selling so

there's being VP of sales and marketing

and knowing the diff knowing the

difference between sales and marketing

for example spal and then there's being

a sales manager but then there's being a

salesperson but then there's selling

yourself in a job interview or so

selling is a very big word and uh my

regret is I didn't know that earlier I

would have uh been uh a simpler

life is that better or worse I'm sure it

could have been

better going with

that I think if I had been able to

convince IBM to use ethernet my life

would have been easier as I spent the

next Imagine going to work every day

with your wife and your board of

directors and your customers all telling

you that your invention and your

principal product is going to be killed

shortly by

IBM every day and then 10 years goes by

and the

numbers oh look at that we

sold a million of them we made a card in

in 19 uh September of 82 we shipped a

card the first you plug it into your IBM

PC and it puts the IBM PC on the

internet on the ethernet and thereby on

the

internet and we uh we started selling

those cards for about $1,000

each and uh I remember we started

selling hundreds per

month whoa would take a hundred multipli

by a thousand that's pretty good A

couple years later we were selling a

million a

month and uh that's when the company

became a multi-billion dollar company

after the company went public how did

money improve your life well before we

went

public I had a round of Finance it's

complicated how it happened but in short

I went to every employee there was

roughly 35 employees with a yellow graph

pad and I wrote their name and I asked

them how many shares of the company

would they like to buy if they could of

course it's very it's very unusual usual

for employees to buy at that early stage

but all 35 of them went back to their

families and they came back with a

number the number of shares they wanted

to buy from me

personally and so I uh I was able to

sell

$250,000 worth of stock to so every

employee had all the stock that they

could afford and by the way the big

buyer was our receptionist she

syndicated so so I had 250 $1,000 and I

went and deposit at the Bank of America

and then I went to the

ATM in Stanford Shopping Center yeah

where I live quite near there and uh

went to the ATM and withdrew $500 just

to see if it would work you know like is

the money actually

there that's sort of a comment on how

unaccustomed I was to having money is I

wanted to prove that I actually had it

and there it was

uh so we bought a big house

and had got marri had I was married

already but we had

children

uh and I bought a

Corvette Summer House in

Maine we go to Maine every summer

now I have a boat I've had it for 20

some years her name is enthusiasm and

bought her she's a great

vot um but I have I we've taken care of

our kid going back to the you know money

the the kids are now taken care of we've

set up trust funds for them modest and

now our goal is to spend all of our

money before we die and the big problem

is we don't know exactly when we're

going to die so that's the problem well

we could arrange it we could set a date

certain and then just spend our money on

until we ran out on that date certain uh

we could do that

[Laughter]

uh um and we're we make big donations to

various things my my specialty is

professorships at MIT I'm in the process

of end I have just finished endowing the

third so there's three professors at MIT

who are endowed by

me and I like to do it now but while I'm

still alive a lot too many people don't

money after they die that's no fun at

all yeah but I I got three professors at

MIT and I call them up they answer and

when I ask them what they're doing they

tell me and it's great to find out and

it's it's I'm a trustee of MIT so I

continue to be involved there and having

my three professors by the way they're

not my professors but they do occupy and

endowment over which I have no say

whatsoever do do you remember your first

salary after you graduated I do remember

my sophomore

year I had started work and I was a a

programmer and uh I hadn't gotten into

Hardware quite yet so I was still in

software and uh my dad who was a gyro

who was a gyroscope technician in the

Aerospace industry on Long Island saw my

pasta and I was making more money than

him and his reaction was funny he was

happy happy he had succeeded other words

one of his goals was to launch his

family and his son was now making more

money than he was and that was my

sophomore year

1966 what's the silliest thing you spent

on it the silliest thing personally yeah

well I almost killed myself with a fast

boat I bought a 50 knot boat and in

Maine there are very few sandb bars it's

all Granite that comes to the surface

and I always hit one at 50 knots and if

you hit a granite ledge at 50 knots your

boat virtually

explodes and I managed to at the last

minute so he sold that boat immediately

after I almost killed

everybody uh I had to get better at

navigation I got better at navigation

what got invented was the GPS this was

preg GPS so I was using you know this

kind of navigation and I didn't see the

yeah and I didn't see the rock there so

I'm whizzing 50 knots Bam Bam Bam and

then the water looked funny

it just looked funny so I powered down

swerved to the right and I could see the

as the boat turned I could see the rocks

of the

water that was a silly purch going to

your question that was a silly purchase

so I my current boat cruises at 12 knots

which is plenty what's been the best

things you spent money on well our kids

went to good schools that was the best

investment uh we were uh we were living

in silic Sil Valley and our kids were

attending very good Tony Silicon Valley

schools and one day we realized as I'm

dropping the kids off that all the other

people dropping the kids off at this

school were

blonde uh uh Child Care Professionals in

German vehicles and I'm online with my

old Mercedes and the kids and we decided

that we didn't want to raise our kids in

that environment with all the nannies

involved and catered birthday parties

and all that stuff so we moved to rural

Maine that may have been a silly thing

to do

well U because the schools in rural

Maine were terrible so that backfired so

then we started going to private schools

in Maine and then finally we moved to

Boston and and sent our kids to prep

schools in the Boston area that was

money very well spent I was thinking

about how you showed your dad your pay

St for one your kids show you one day

their pay St well my um daughter went to

the University of Southern California

after um prep school and then uh she

went to work for Facebook and she worked

there for eight years there's a funny

coincidence in our family and that's one

of the four she worked at Facebook for

eight years then she left and now she

has she started her own little company

our son went to Boston

University and then went to Apple and he

worked at Apple for eight years and then

he left after 8 years and now he's in

business with our daughter my wife it

turns out when she graduated from

Michigan she went to work for Sunset

magazine in Meno Park California where

she worked for eight years I after

graduating from the Harvard University

and MIT went to work at Xerox for eight

years so there's a pattern there in our

family yeah it's like it's like at it's

like post it's a post

post or a graduate school eight years

and then you're ready to go off and do

business what kind of business are your

kids starting so they're working

together on on a new company yeah they

do it's it's called The Working team

it's the two of them and they do MVPs so

people want to start companies they go

in and Julia is the chief product

officer and he's the coder and they go

into a small company and they develop

the MBP with the by the way it's

different in every case but it's uh in

short they team up with the company to

do the MVP they get offered equity and

they agonize about whether to take

Equity whether to take cash and the

first few Deals they took equity and now

they wanted now they're realizing that

they would like some cash too so they're

looking for mixed

packages and uh and it's kind of fun

every once in a while one of them will

call me up for advice how did you check

your ego explore your career in life

after WS after 3com how did you do how

did you check your ego cuz like I know

for me with Sumo and I've had it in the

past we like am I the CEO I'm the

founder who am I now and and then also

how to explore you know where to take

your career afterwards so I left 3om uh

when Eric uh took over as CEO it's it's

good practice for people who might

conflict with his authority to leave the

company so I left to get out of the way

I was still the founder of the company

and Eric did Fabulous work so the so

then I became a journalist and I wrote a

we Calum for a million

people and uh that was really fun and

then after that I became a venture

capitalist for 10 years and that was

really fun and then I became a professor

for 10 years 11 years and that was fun

and now I'm looking for my next 10year

gig how'd you figure out these careers

how' you figure out what to do oh it was

like a it was like an attempted docking

you know you just try to dock with very

various opportunities and then one of

them clicks and locks in so the there's

no one thing I'm pretty sure of is I've

gone to meta I mean I was an engineer an

engineering manager division

manager

CEO journalist venture

capitalist I am I Am So Meta now so I

want to go I'm pretty sure I want my

next game to be less meta so to I don't

want to be Professor again but I would I

do am interested in doing research so

maybe doing being a non-press

professorial researcher might be you can

give a fourth chair for

yourself

yeah you can do that actually I'm sure

they have ways of taking money there yes

they're very resourceful and taking your

money but I'm not going to do that what

are your most proud of moments of your

career uh going from zero to a million

dollars a month as head of

sales during that time I had to figure

out how to sell I had recruit a sales

team and uh we U we did it and if you

want a full summary of the best

takeaways from this conversation I have

with Bob metcafe then click the link

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Noah loves you and I'll see you out

there PE pew

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
invent /ɪnˈvent/ B2	verb - to create or design something that has never existed before
ethernet /ˈiːθərˌnɛt/ C1	noun - a system for connecting computers in a network using a protocol for data transmission
company /ˈkʌmpəni/ A2	noun - a business organization that sells goods or services
sell /sɛl/ A2	verb - to give something in exchange for money
money /ˈmʌni/ A1	noun - a system of currency used in a particular country
CEO /ˌsiːiːˈoʊ/ B2	noun - Chief Executive Officer, the highest-ranking person in a company
patent /ˈpætənt/ B2	noun - a legal right to make or sell an invention
license /ˈlaɪsəns/ B2	verb - to give permission to use someone else's product or invention noun - official permission to do or use something
mentor /ˈmɛntɔːr/ B2	noun - an experienced person who advises and helps someone with less experience verb - to guide or train someone as a mentor
advice /ədˈvaɪs/ B1	noun - an opinion or suggestion about what someone should do
venture /ˈvɛntʃər/ C1	noun - a risky or daring journey or undertaking verb - to risk going somewhere or doing something dangerous
capital /ˈkæpɪtəl/ B2	noun - money or assets used for business
regret /rɪˈɡrɛt/ B1	verb - to feel sorry or disappointed about something noun - a feeling of disappointment about something that happened
profit /ˈprɒfɪt/ B2	noun - money made by a business after paying expenses
revenue /ˈrɛvəˌnu/ B2	noun - income generated from business or other sources
equity /ˈɛkwəti/ C1	noun - ownership interest in a company, typically in the form of shares
trust /trʌst/ B1	noun - a belief or confidence in someone or something
endow /ɛnˈdaʊ/ C1	verb - to provide with money or assets, especially for a specific purpose
professor /prəˈfɛsər/ B1	noun - a teacher of the highest rank in a college or university