00:04[APPLAUSE]
>> Need me to sit right here?
00:10>> Yep, that's right.
00:11So Ariana welcome to Stanford.
00:13>> Thank you so much,
what a fabulous auditorium.
00:16>> We handpicked them
specifically just for you.
00:17>> [LAUGH]
>> So you often quote a Persian poet
00:22who encouraged us to live our lives as
though they were rigged in our favor.
00:29Now as it is often easy to
proclaim the fact after success,
00:32it appears as though you actually
embodied this mindset from an early age.
00:37But not just you, your parents, too.
00:40So, I was wondering if you could take
us back to Greece where it all began.
00:44And share with the audience a story
as to how your parents met and
00:49how they came to be in Greece.
00:51>> Well, first of all Liv, thank you so
much for starting with my favorite quote,
00:58which I carry with me
laminated in my wallet.
01:02And which I keep bombarding my children
with, in fact my oldest daughter,
01:08Christina is here, so
she's heard it many times.
01:12It really did all start with my mother,
01:16because we lived in a one bedroom
apartment in Athens, Greece.
01:22And one day, I saw a picture in
the magazine of Cambridge University.
01:28And I said to everybody who could listen,
I really want to go there.
01:34And everybody said don't be
ridiculous you don't speak English.
01:38We don't have any money and
01:40it's really competitive to get into
Cambridge even if you're an English girl.
01:44But my mother said,
let's see how you can get there, and
01:49that involved going to the British
council and taking my GCS.
01:53Which as you know since
you're an Oxford girl,
01:57it's what you need to take as
the first step and borrowing Money.
02:01And then one thing which I kind of love,
is that she said, one day,
02:05I got us these cheap tickets and
we can go and see Cambridge.
02:09It was just kind of an early
visualization trip.
02:13We're not going to see
anybody at Cambridge.
02:16We're just, we're going to see Cambridge
and kind of make it more real for
02:21me that I could go there.
02:22And to cut a long story
short I got an exhibition,
02:26which is kind of a scholarship,
a version and a scholarship.
02:31I remember getting the telegram
saying awarded exhibition and
02:35I have to find out what
the hell was exhibition.
02:39[LAUGH] And to Cambridge and
that definitely changed my life.
02:45It was kind of the unexpected trajectory
02:51that made a lot of other things possible.
02:58Especially because I fell in love with
a Cambridge union, the Debating Society.
03:04And I really, really put a lot of
my energy into learning to speak.
03:12And whenever anybody says,
well I can't speak or
03:17I'm terrified of speaking,
apparently public speaking is,
03:23in terms of fears,
higher up than death by mutilation.
03:28>> [LAUGH] Okay, so this is not good for
me right now, then.
03:33>> [LAUGH] So I started literally
by writing down every word.
03:37I would be called in
sometimes after midnight.
03:40And because I was so bad and
also had this heavy accent which was even-
03:44>> Accents are good.
03:45[LAUGH] Accents are good.
03:46>> Well maybe now, maybe in America.
03:48But you know perfectly well,
not in England.
03:52Anyway, so [LAUGH]
>> You've
03:57got to take whatever card you can play so
I'll take the British accent here.
04:01>> So I spent an enormous
amount of time at the union.
04:05In fact, I spent more time at
the union than I spent studying,
04:10which is why you got a first at Oxford and
I only got a two one.
04:14>> Okay, and that's why you're sitting
in that chair and I'm right here.
04:18>> Well, you are 3,000 years younger so.
04:25>> So on that point, in Thrive You,
one of your best selling books,
04:30you talk about having this inner voice,
that sort of obnoxious neighbor.
04:36And yet, from the outside,
04:38you look as though you have
this remarkable self belief.
04:40Because you not only went to Cambridge but
despite a glorious accent,
04:44you decided to run for
president of Cambridge.
04:47And became the first foreign lady or
foreign lady at all to become President.
04:53That continued thereafter whereby
after your first successful book,
04:58your next one was
rejected 36 times before.
05:02And then even with the Huffington Post,
you launched it to a backdrop of critics.
05:07So this perseverance appears to be
a common thread throughout your journey.
05:11How much of that spun from
drive of being the underdog, or
05:16was it a mindset that you
taught yourself over time?
05:19>> Well, it was a mindset that
was very much something that
05:24my mother kept talking about.
05:26One of her favorite sayings was failure
is not the opposite of success.
05:31It's a stepping stone to success.
05:33But the obnoxious roommate,
that voice of doubt and
05:38self-judgment, remains very loud.
05:41And people don't write about it.
05:43But I can tell you, I can still hear it.
05:46I can still still hear, for example,
05:49when I gave my first big speech at the,
what do they call?
05:53Do they still call it a paper speech?
05:55>> They do indeed, yeah,
traditions die hard.
05:57>> Meaning that you actually are one of
the main speakers as opposed to somebody
06:01they call on after the main speakers.
06:04And I was speaking on
the same side as JK Galbraith
06:09against William Buckley and
I remember every detail.
06:15And the topic of
the speech was The Market,
06:18meaning the flea market is a snare and
a delusion.
06:22And I was sitting next to Galbraith and
while Buckley was speaking,
06:27Galbraith leaned over to me and
said, can you stand up.
06:31You have the right at the union to stand
up and every speaker has to give way for
06:35the point you want to make.
06:37So can you stand up, he said,
and interrupt him and make it.
06:40And he mentioned some kind of
recondite econometric point,
06:45which I stupidly stood up and
interrupted Buckley with.
06:49And then he turned to me and
said, well madam,
06:52I don't know what market you patronize and
brought the house down.
06:56And I sat down feeling
completely humiliated,
06:58which would have been neither here nor
there.
07:01Except the obnoxious roommate, for
the next week, I'm not exaggerating.
07:05Was replaying that incident
as though this was the end,
07:09not just of my career, but my life.
07:12And looking back, of course,
it is none of the above,
07:16but that's what
the obnoxious roommate does.
07:19And it kind of basically tears you apart,
and I've had so
07:24many experiences like that,
07:27where all my energy would be
absorbed in listening to that voice.
07:32And that's why I've spent a lot
of of time in my life trying to
07:37evict the obnoxious roommate from my head.
07:40And I'm doing a pretty good job now but
it took many, many years.
07:44And it changes your life when you
don't have to waste your energy
07:49dealing with that voice but
you can actually go on with your life.
07:54And recognize that sometimes thing
are not going to go well, and
07:58sometimes you're not going to perform
at your best and that's part of life.
08:03It's funny you say that because I read
somewhere that you appear to be in your
08:08own person from a very young age.
08:10Would you mind sharing the story
about your fifth birthday party?
08:13>> [LAUGH] Yes I always love to read.
08:17I love to lose myself in books.
08:20And so from my fifth birthday party,
my mother had invited my best friends.
08:26And I told them they had to go home
because they were interrupting my reading.
08:35>> Yeah well this is clearly a passion and
08:38although you've written 15 books to date
now across a wide variety of topics.
08:44It seems to be politics that's kind
of captured your attention the most.
08:49What is it that drew you to the political
sphere, especially in the discussion and
08:53>> So, it was politics and
as the Dean mentioned,
08:58the Third World America book was
09:02very much sort of my deep concern about
what was happening in the country.
09:07And how we are not paying
sufficient attention, and
09:11that remains a very deep concern of mine.
09:15But, I now feel increasingly that
the thing we are most starved for
09:23in our political lives as well as
the rest of our lives is wisdom.
09:28And I feel that we're kind of drowning
in data and starved for wisdom.
09:34And so my passion now is,
how can we connect
09:39with that part of ourselves that
is the wisest part of ourselves?
09:44And whether we are politicians or
business leaders or media leaders.
09:49There are huge problems in front of us.
09:52And if we don't connect to that part,
we are going to be operating and
09:56making decisions from the surface.
09:59And as a result missing the opportunity
to really come up with big solutions.
10:05And I was fascinated by
10:09how leaders that we admire throughout
history have done that in the past.
10:14Like one of my favorite stories that I've
included in my new book, is about FDR.
10:19In 1940, when there was all this
pressure on him to enter the war.
10:26But the American public was completely
opposed to it, so he didn't literally,
10:31he didn't know what to do, and what he
did would never have happened today.
10:36He took ten days off and
went on a naval ship around the Caribbean.
10:44And Eleanor would send him
letters saying things,
10:48I'm so happy to think of you sleeping and
refueling.
10:54And his aids afterwards have
written how he truly refueled and
10:59in the process of refueling.
11:01He came up with what was a political
masterpiece of a solution.
11:05The land lease program that allow
the America to enter their war and
11:12at the time when otherwise public opinion
would have been completely opposed to it.
11:16And I feel we all need to do that.
11:18And we need to validate people
who do that as opposed to judging
11:24politicians who gone vacation or
who play golf.
11:29Who do anything to refuel and
therefore ideally come up with
11:35the solutions if they are really
at the heart of leadership.
11:38>> It's interesting because some may say
that the reason that it doesn't happen
11:43is because of this 24/7 media commentary.
11:46And increasingly it's thought
in some circles that media is
11:51increasingly shaping politics as
opposed to just reporting of it.
11:56So, how do you think through and try and
control that with your curation and
12:01So you mean it's our fault, right?
12:03[LAUGH]
>> I was trying to be diplomatic.
12:06Certainly not myself but some.
12:07>> [LAUGH]
>> So I think we first of all,
12:12we are not going to avoid the 24/7
nature of media and the internet.
12:18This is whether you,
even if you never go the Huffington Post,
12:22or the New York Times site, or any site.
12:25You have your Facebook and
Instagram and endless social media.
12:30So that's going to be the nature
of our lives going forward.
12:34So that's why it's even more imperative
that we learn to set our own boundaries.
12:41And that we need to
stop giving in to FOMO,
12:46the fear of missing out
>> We don't know if that is here totally.
12:52>> [LAUGH]
>> Because in the end what
12:54we're missing out on is our life.
12:57And that is something which will
require a major culture shift.
13:02I mean we can do it individually and
a lot of people are doing it.
13:07And ironically there is now more and
more technology that paradoxically
13:11is helping us deal with technology.
13:16But in the end, it will require
some support from the culture,
13:22whether it's culture at school,
at college,
13:26and the workplaces where we are and
our families.
13:31So I feel that we are in the process
now of a major culture shift,
13:34and we're in the middle
of this transition.
13:37And like any other transition,
a lot of different types of
13:41behavior are valued and
not exhibited, all at the same time.
13:47And whether you're optimistic or
pessimistic depends on what you focus on.
13:52>> So this Fourth Revolution
has been a big topic at Davos
13:55amongst many of the world leaders.
13:57And you ran for
governor of California once but
14:01haven't returned to
politics directly yourself.
14:07What caused you to run then and
why not since and
14:09would you like to bring
about the 4th resolution?
14:12>> [LAUGH] No, I have,
I would rather have five hour root canal.
14:20>> [LAUGH]
>> There's
14:25very few things that I can categorically
say but I would never run for office is
14:30one of them which I'm sure Christina
my daughter will be happy to hear.
14:34She was very opposed to my
running in the first place.
14:38I would never run,
first of all because I feel
14:42I can contribute more with what I'm doing.
14:47And secondly, because politics at
the moment is completely poisoned and
14:52I think that's one of the problems
that really we got to the point where
14:56anybody who can do anything else is not
going to enter political life anymore.
15:01So we would definitely need
to change the system so
15:05that we can bring in
better people to run but
15:10I am definitely not
going to be one of them.
15:14Maybe you, maybe you decide to-
>> Well you'll certainly do without
15:17me bumbling along and
making a mess of things.
15:20Okay, so let's talk about the platform
from which you're currently able to
15:25shape the view, the Huffington Post.
15:28So you established this back in the day,
it was a revolutionary online platform,
15:33mix or original content,
aggregation and blogging.
15:37Yet you were at the time neither
part of the media establishment nor
15:42a common man that the bloggers
represented nor a tech person.
15:46So how did the idea come about and how
did you get it off the ground initially?
15:51>> So the idea really came
about because I could see that
15:55the conversation was moving online, and
15:59I wanted to sort of Elevate
the online conversation,
16:04because as you said, at the time,
16:07bloggers were perceived as
people who couldn't get a job,
16:12in their pajamas,
in their parent's basement.
16:17>> [LAUGH]
>> And I want to demonstrate that,
16:21in fact, it could be different.
16:24And so from the beginning,
my aspiration for Huff was,
16:28remember we started with five people
out of my home in Los Angeles, but my-
16:33>> In the basement, in their pajamas.
16:35>> [LAUGH]
>> No, not in the basement,
16:37a rather nice office but [LAUGH] but
still, a tiny operation.
16:43But the goal was to ultimately become
both a journalistic enterprise
16:48of the kind that we did become,
we now have 850 reporters,
16:53editors, engineers in 15 countries,
we won a Pulitzer.
16:58So, to become a really substantive
journalistic enterprise, but
17:03to also be a platform.
17:05And that was just as
important from the beginning.
17:11And on day one,
I had an amazing roster of bloggers.
17:17I had emailed everybody I knew and
had said if there is anything on your mind
17:23that you want to write about it, please
write about it on the Huffington Post.
17:28And we're going to make it super easy for
you.
17:31I know all of you could be writing for
The New York Times,
17:36because I invited people
like Larry David and
17:40Ellen DeGeneres and,
this is how long ago it was, so
17:45many of them are dead now,
Walter Cronkite.
17:49[LAUGH]
And basically,
17:53we had this amazing first day
when a lot of these people,
17:59everyone I just mentioned, was on the
first day of the Huffington Post blogging.
18:04So suddenly, blogging was elevated
into something which you could do,
18:09even though you could
actually write an op-ed
18:12that would be accepted in
the Financial Times or The New York Times.
18:16And the reason why they would do that
is because it was so much easier.
18:21They would just write something and
we would post it and
18:24they wouldn't be edited and
they wouldn't go back and forth,
18:28asking them to make it shorter or
longer or whatever.
18:31And, in fact,
we created a little concierge service
18:35where people in LA could
literally dictate.
18:38They could call us from
the phone from their cars and
18:41we would take dictation and then send
it back to them to make any edits.
18:46And I think Larry David, everything he
wrote, he would dictate from the set.
18:50Ari Emanuel, who I remember, call me from
the golf course, and say I have this
18:54idea about Mel Gibson, it's terrible
that Hollywood isn't going against him.
18:59Remember when he made his
anti-semitic comments and
19:01Hollywood was giving him a pass?
19:03And, literally, Ari called me on a Sunday,
I took dictation, and
19:07I sent it back to him,
he made a couple of changes,
19:10we posted it and
it changed the climate in Hollywood.
19:14Suddenly, Disney announced we're not going
to be doing his next movie, etc., etc.
19:19So people began to see
the power of blogging and
19:23the power of just expressing an opinion,
having it up immediately.
19:29We had, from the beginning,
our comments were pre-moderated,
19:33because I wanted to keep a civil
environment and avoid ad hominem attacks.
19:39Because I felt like I was inviting
these people to come to my home and
19:43express their views, and
19:45I owed it to them that nobody was
going to suddenly start trashing them.
19:49And we had very little money, we started
the Huffington Post with $2 million,
19:55which I collected from my friends, and
my partner, Kenny Lerer, collected.
20:00Actually, my first investors
were Laurie and Larry David and
20:04when they got divorced they split
[LAUGH] the Huffington Post investment.
20:08[LAUGH] And so
I remember paying my daughter's $5 each
20:14to moderate comments,
they were in their early teens.
20:20[LAUGH] And basically we used everything
we could to create from the beginning
20:25a civil environment in which these
people would want to return.
20:30And probably the breakthrough
moment was when,
20:35who was the identity of
deep throat was revealed.
20:39Do you remember that?
20:42And Nora Ephron was in high demand,
everybody wanted her to tell her story.
20:49What did she know, when did she know it,
because at the time she was,
20:53because she had been
married to Carl Bernstein.
20:56And so she calls me up and
she says, you know what,
21:00I don't want to go to CNN and
get in makeup and I don't want to have to
21:05bother with a New York Times op-ed,
I'm sending you my blog.
21:10So the fact that Nora Ephron chose
this new platform to write something,
21:16which was then everywhere,
21:19made people realize that if it was
something that was newsworthy,
21:24they could write in the Huffington Post,
then it would be everywhere anyway.
21:31CNN and the New York Times and everybody
would be compelled to link to it,
21:35because that was the only
way to get the story.
21:39So that was when we really
kind of arrived in a way,
21:44in terms of people coming to us to write,
21:47and that has remained kind
of a big passion of mine.
21:51Recruiting people,
interesting voices, in fact,
21:55I want to invite all of you to write on
the Huffington Post, and I always make it
21:59super easy by giving you my email address
so you can email it to me directly.
22:04Now, we give people we trust passwords,
so you can post directly,
22:10and then our editors ,front page and
social, and we translate the best,
22:16so my email address is
arianna@huffingtonpost.com.
22:20That's one of the good things when
you found a company you get a good
22:24>> [LAUGH]
>> So we are now up to
22:29100,000 bloggers and
our goal is get to a million.
22:34We're creating a lot of new
technology that will make
22:39it easier to post and
to navigate the site, etc.
22:44>> Good luck getting sleep after 500,
600 people email you their blogs.
22:48But before we move on,
just on the point of the platform,
22:52given that it was always
meant as this medium for
22:55anyone to share their opinion and
voice pretty much unfiltered.
22:59What led to the decision to share your
name with it, knowing that your personal
23:04reputation will be associated with the
material posted on the website, and how,
23:09if at all,
has that effected the curation process?
23:12>> Well, I was always, like all in.
23:15[LAUGH] There was never any
question of my separating
23:20myself from the Huffington Post.
23:23I have to say that my daughters begged
me not to call it the Huffington Post,
23:27because they thought it was just going
to be an embarrassing failure and
23:31they would not be able to
show their faces at school.
23:35So I remember tearful
moments with Christina and
23:37Isabella saying you can't call it the
Huffington Post, that's so embarrassing.
23:42[LAUGH] And Isabella, my younger daughter,
23:47announced that she will never blog,
and she hasn't.
23:52>> [LAUGH]
>> And so that, for me,
23:57it was all like saying, I'm all in.
24:00This is it and And curation though has
always been a very important part of
24:07it from the beginning even though
the platform was open we have ground
24:14rules like we will not
publish conspiracy theories.
24:19Like if you think 9/11 was an inside job,
24:23we're not going to publish
it on the Huffington Post.
24:25We're not going to publish
cookie medical theory.
24:29So we create a set of boundaries,
24:35that you may disagree with
people who are writing but
24:40it's not going to be
because they are insane.
24:43[LAUGH]
>> It's always helpful,
24:46a good boundary to have
in life in general.
24:48>> [LAUGH]
>> So, some of your recent books lament
24:53the lack of surprise in the modern world
and yet, I know that this is a reason from
24:59the fact that an online content is
filtered based on preexisting preferences.
25:05So how would you think through the fact
that some platforms similar to
25:09Huff Post are responsible for
creating this bubble effect and
25:14kind of narrowing our preferences and
are you
25:17thinking of ways to introduce serendipity
again online as browsing once did.
25:21>> Well, right now actually,
what is happening is that
25:27the majority of people don't receive that
information by going to a destination but
25:33through social, even the heart of
the Post, which is probably the last
25:38big destination site, and
that's now the majority of
25:44our traffic through social Through people
posting something that they've read and
25:49happened to post on Facebook,
or tagging their friends.
25:53This is kind of a revolution
in how we create a site.
26:00I tried to convince friends of mine,
for example, who.
26:06I started a new business and
I invested a lot of money on the website.
26:10How useless that is.
26:13[LAUGH]
I actually say to them
26:17that if I was launching the Huffington
Post today there would be no website
26:22because it's all social.
26:25And I think one of the reasons
why we succeeded at remaining at
26:30the forefront of this business is
because we changed our strategy.
26:38because I woke up after eight hours
sleep feeling completely recharged,
26:44I could see the iceberg that was
about to hit the Titanic And
26:48the iceberg was that people were not
going to be coming to the Huffington Post
26:52directly in the large numbers they were
coming to the Huffington Post directly.
26:56We had, our operation was being
driven very much around our Splashes.
27:01We launched the idea of the Splash early
27:07on in the life of the Huffington Post,
which was again very radical and
27:12controversial at the time because the idea
was that you needed to put as many stories
27:16as possible at the top, kind of above
the fall, to drive traffic to them.
27:22We are going to announce what we consider
is the most important story of the moment.
27:30We may change it ten times in
the course of the day, but
27:33it created a sense of drama.
27:35It made people keep wanting to come
back to see what's the big story now.
27:41And we hired editors
who really knew how to
27:47create amazing headlines that were
a little playful and not conventional
27:53One of my favorites was when
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested.
28:00Our headline was OMG, IMF.
28:06so the point, though,
28:11was as things change
>> We decided
28:16to stop prioritizing
our other front pages.
28:21We still prioritize the front page because
we're still getting enough traffic to it.
28:25But we stop prioritizing the splashes
of what by then we had 70 sections
28:32at the Huffington Post covering everything
from, Colleges to wellness, to business.
28:38And editors would spend a lot of time
creating beautiful splashes which would be
28:43seen by fewer and fewer people,
so we, made different teams
28:49that instead worked on how
to make content be social.
28:56But here's another thing we discovered.
28:58Normally we think of content
going viral as being
29:02cats on skateboards or cute animals, and
29:07we discovered that the content that goes
most viral is content around solutions.
29:14Things that people want to share
>> Positive stories, yeah.
29:17>> And so we have now focused our
coverage in three main areas,
29:24you know, the first is obviously news and
politics, where we take our own,
29:31you know, I would consider our job
to take stands We don't consider it
29:37our jobs simply to blindly kind
of just write what's happening,
29:42because we feel you can
get that anywhere now.
29:45Why come to the Huffington Post
if you just want to know who won
29:50First of all, you'd have gotten
it from your Twitter feed.
29:55So for us, I mean, just one of the most
controversial thing we did that
30:00everyday that passes,
I consider one of our best decisions, was
30:05covering, at the beginning,
Donald Trump in the entertainment section.
30:10[LAUGH]
And then on the day that he announced
30:17that his proposal to ban 1.6 million,
30:22billion Muslims from this
country to start covering him
30:26under a clear present danger
who then editor's note appended
30:32Underneath each story were his name
appears that says, we would like to remind
30:36our readers that Donald Trump regularly
advocates balance at his lies.
30:44Which people forget.
30:45People forget that his still believes
Obama was not born in this country.
30:49Wants to ban at one point
six billion Muslims,
30:52a serial liar, misogynist and xenophobe.
30:56So-
>> Quite subtle.
30:58>> It's very subtle.
30:58[LAUGHTER] So basically we have
no opinion on Donald Trump.
31:05>> And really, I think the key here
was that in a way, you think how can
31:10you cover both entertainment then a clear
and present danger, king Kim Jong Un,
31:15you know, somebody who is
both a buffoon and a danger.
31:20The two things are not contradictory, and
the two of them really exemplify that
31:24fact, so that's one bucket
The other bucket is solutions and
31:29why we have a dedicated
section called What's Working
31:32who brought in a great journalist from
The Guardian Jo Confino to run it.
31:37And in every area whether it's business,
31:39the environment, workplaces,
we focus on what is working.
31:44What are the solutions that are working
and this is the content that goes more
31:50viral than anything, it's absolutely
amazing and the third market is Wellness.
31:55>> Just on that point again, a lot of the,
even through your Facebook feed and
32:00so forth, comes again from
your Preconceived tendencies.
32:04So when certain articles pop up,
for example, someone searches on
32:08the immigration crisis, would it not be a
case of having on one side, the story, but
32:13then on the other,
something like and by the way,
32:16here are the great immigrants that build
America like Steve Jobs was Syrian?
32:21And so forth and having them side
by side such that it's almost
32:23put in front of every reader,
regardless of what they search for.
32:26>> Well absolutely we would be
covering the basics of the story.
32:31This is not kind of
an alternative to that.
32:34But so often media cover the crisis, the
problem, without also covering the fact
32:41that There are solutions to most problems
that are actually happening somewhere.
32:46But they are just not scaled enough.
32:50So, I know you do a lot of work here.
32:52But how do you scale something good?
32:54So we feel that by putting
the spotlight on why this is working,
32:58we can help them scale.
33:00We talk about copycat crimes,
how about copycat solutions?
33:06So I think that for us, the larger
point here is reimagining journalism.
33:12So that in journalism schools,
33:13right now you are taught
that if it bleeds, it leads.
33:18And of course if anybody's unfortunate
enough to watch local new,
33:23you would've thought that the only things
going on the communities are burglaries,
33:28rapes, murders, and
this is just the choice of the outlet.
33:32They think that's the way to drive people
to their broadcast, but I think the fact
33:39that now most people receive their news
through social is changing the dynamic.
33:45>> So, on the topic of solutions,
a lot of your current book is around
33:50kind of helping us as individuals
become better at what we do.
33:55Now what many may not know given your long
string of successes is the continuous
33:59stream of personal hurdles that
went on in the background, right?
34:03You very unfortunately had complications
with your first pregnancy,
34:08you had a breast cancer scare, I believe.
34:11You had a public divorce,
34:15within the family, certain issues
around substance abuse and so forth.
34:21And yet you continue to go on and
be successful.
34:24To what extent was work a distraction
to help get through these moments?
34:30And why was it that it took a literal bump
to your head to get you to kind of wake
34:35up and reevaluate, and now help us to
avoid that situation in the future?
34:39Sorry for the question.
34:41>> No, that's great.
34:41I think that work was never a distraction
because I always kind of loved my work.
34:49I think what lead to my
collapse in 2007 and
34:53my breaking my cheekbone on the way down,
34:57was that I had completely
bought into the collective
35:02delusion that burnout was
the way to achieve things.
35:07That yes, I know I'm exhausted and
I know I'm kind of sleep walking
35:12through my life but hey,
I'm building the Huffington Post.
35:16And I had the delusion that so
many entrepreneurs have.
35:20That nothing could be done except by me.
35:23[LAUGH] And therefore,
I had to be up all the time and
35:27driving this third baby that I
considered the Huffington Post
35:31while my first baby, Christina,
was on college tour with me and
35:36she had asked rightly that I should not be
on my Blackberry while we were together.
35:42Remember, that's 2007, so
just a Blackberry time.
35:46And when she would go to sleep,
I would start working and
35:52to cut a long story short,
I ended up back at home collapsing.
36:00But in a way I feel very, very grateful.
36:02Speaking going back to Roomie and
36:04living life as if everything
is rigged in your favor.
36:07I honestly believed I
would either be dead or
36:10have had a heart attack if
I had continued that way.
36:13Because these things become cumulative,
so the price you pay,
36:18it's not obvious right away.
36:21Things seem to be working
until they stop working.
36:25And the great thing about
last year was that it was
36:29the year when executive after
executive collapsed, and
36:34either died or
ended up with a heart attack.
36:38Most recently the CEO of United Airlines.
36:41And if you read his schedule before
his collapse, you can see why.
36:48He's back at work now but
he ended up with a major heart attack.
36:53The CEO of BMW collapsed
during a press conference.
36:56The head of MMA at JP Morgan,
Jimmy Lee, died on his treadmill.
37:03And I mean, I could go on and
on and what is interesting
37:08is that we've kind of convinced
the world that exercise and
37:14nutrition are important,
whether we do it or not,
37:19we kind of recognize they're important.
37:23But the third leg of the stool is sleep.
37:26And you have people who
are literally put the alarm on and
37:31they wake up exhausted,
then drag themselves to the gym.
37:35Which now every sleep scientist, and you
have some of the best here at Stanford,
37:39will tell you it's just a terrible mistake
for your health and for your weight.
37:43If all you care about is your weight,
sleep in.
37:47Don't wake up sleep deprived and go the
gym, because your body is going to crave
37:51carbs and sugars in order to be
able to function during the day.
37:57>> It is somewhat ironic
that in the Valley,
37:59we have sheer panic attacks when our
iPhone depletes in energy down to like 7%.
38:05But the fact that we're charging and
38:06running around at 2% doesn't
seem to affect us at all.
38:08>> That is such a great point in fact,
if you think of it,
38:12we do take better care of our
smartphones then we take of ourselves.
38:17>> [LAUGH]
>> Because as you said I actually begin to
38:21panic at about 13%, is yours 7?
38:24Mine barely gets turned on so I'm okay.
38:26>> I normally travel with about three
portable chargers just in case.
38:30And yet, if they had asked me the day
I collapsed, Ariana, how are you?
38:35I would have said fine.
38:37Because exhaustion had
become the new normal.
38:41And do you know now,
that if you go on Google,
38:44at least when I last checked a week ago,
and you type out why am I,
38:49the most common auto-complete
is why am I so tired?
38:53And the second most common
auto-complete is why am I always tired?
38:59I like your mantra of encouraging
us all to sleep our way to the top.
39:03>> [LAUGH]
>> It's not my words, credit goes to you.
39:13Obviously, it's all good and well, kind
of raising awareness among the rank and
39:17file, but the challenge is
the environment in which we operate.
39:22So to what extent to your point around
all these CEOs kind of waking up and
39:27literally smelling the coffee,
39:29do you think that there should be an
equivalent of the giving pledge for sleep?
39:33Whereby you kind of shame everyone into
getting rid of that social stigma,
39:39writing on paper their commitment
to adopt the third metric,
39:44embody a work environment
which rewards people for
39:48coming in rested, auto-deletes
emails when they're on holiday.
39:54>> [LAUGH]
>> Gives you taxis to get home at night
39:58when you're sleep deprived and-
>> What are you doing when you graduate?
40:03>> [LAUGH] These are brilliant ideas.
40:06I love the equivalent of the giving
pledge, let's talk about that afterwards.
40:13I think this is a really
fantastic idea because really,
40:17we are talking about the need for
a culture shift, and there are pioneers,
40:22who are leading the way, and
removing some of the stigma.
40:27When, for example, Satya Nadella,
when he became the CEO of Microsoft,
40:32told Business Insider that he sleeps for
eight hours, and
40:37could not be an effective CEO if he did
not, that was pretty revolutionary.
40:42Because in the past, and
when I say in the past,
40:46I mean a year ago, before he said it,
40:49even if a CEO was sleeping eight hours,
he would never admit it.
40:55Because the whole idea was the Jon Bon
Jovi song that I'll sleep when I'm dead,
41:02or you lose you snooze,
you snooze you lose.
41:06Or congratulating people for
working 24/7, which now sleep scientists
41:11will tell you is the cognitive
equivalent of coming to work drunk but
41:15that has been the prevalent culture.
41:18And now, I mean, actually, last week,
[COUGH] too late to include it
41:25in the book, was a real tipping point.
41:28And that was a McKinsey
study that they extracted
41:34part of the Harvard Business Review, I
don't know why they didn't do it for you.
41:38>> [LAUGH]
>> And [COUGH].
41:40>> We were busy sleeping.
41:41>> A mistake, a clear mistake,
which the title first of all,
41:45when you saw the title, you would
have thought it was from The Onion.
41:50The title was The Proven Link Between
Effective Leadership and Sleep.
41:57And it was co-written By the Mackenzie
Chief Global Learning Officer and
42:05a woman who was identified as
Mackenzie's sleep specialist.
42:10The idea that Mackenzie has
a sleep specialist, to teach you
42:15not how to do without sleep, but
to teach you the importance of sleep.
42:20Shows that we are in
an amazing site guys moment.
42:25And once I stop kind of pinching myself,
42:31I celebrated the part of this had happen
and reach out of course to the people who
42:35wrote it to have them write about it on
having them first, which they're doing.
42:40And incidentally, the sleep specialist
has now been hired by Facebook
42:46to give these workshops at Facebook.
42:50So this is all an amazing new phenomenon
and what I love about this piece,
42:54which I highly recommend,
42:56is that they walk you through what
happens to the prefrontal cortex.
43:01Which is where the leadership functions,
43:03that's what it called the executive
functioning is housed.
43:07And how incredibly degraded they
are when they are sleep deprived.
43:11And then I was co-hosting
Squawk Box on Tuesday
43:20and I asked Mark Marburg one of the good
things about co-hosting and he said you
43:24can invite people that you want to bring
these messages to the financial community.
43:29And I invited Mark Bertolini,
the CEO of Aetna
43:33because I wanted him to talk about the new
initiative that he started at Aetna.
43:40And the third largest
health insurance company,
43:44which is he asked his employees to
track their sleep with the Fitbit and
43:50anyone who gets at lease seven hours
a night gets $25 for each night.
43:58And that's kind of again
an amazing statement,
44:01by this sea of health insurance company.
44:04And then he has Duke tracking the results.
44:07And they are finding a 7%
reduction in healthcare costs
44:12in all the wellness programs they have.
44:15And a 62-minute a week
improvement in productivity.
44:21So it really helps dispel
all these illusions that
44:26in order to be productive you
have to cut down on sleeps.
44:30>> So I hope all my professors
are listening because I often email them
44:32saying terribly sorry it's late,
I overslept, and they're like Leigh,
44:36the class is at 3:30, and
I was like I was having a nap, you know?
44:39>> [LAUGH]
>> Now I can just forward them and
44:40tell them I was decreasing my study.
44:42>> You're increasing your performance.
44:43>> Exactly, exactly.
44:44>> Is that this afternoon?
44:46>> I have a conversation here at Stanford,
44:49if you have woken up from your nap,
you going to come.
44:51>> [LAUGH]
>> I set the alarms.
44:53>> With Ingrid Iguodala,
the MVP from the Golden State Warriors,
44:59and the conversation's being
introduced by Emmanuel Mignot,
45:04Head of your Stanford Sleep Center.
45:07>> And he's going to talk about
how sleep changed his game.
45:11And he has tracked it,
he has all the data.
45:16And he in fact, Instagrammed himself
holding his MVP while sleeping.
45:21Because he feels he only got that because.
45:24His game is so dramatically improved
when he started getting enough sleep.
45:29And I love pointing to athletes,
because all they care about winning.
45:35So, those in business school
who only care about winning.
45:38I hope there's nobody here like that, but
let's say, that's all you care about,
45:43succeeding, winning.
45:45>> Getting to the top.
45:48>> Sleep is a performance
enhancement tool.
45:51>> Yeah.
Well clearly I've been dozing a bit on
45:53stage because we haven't
got that many minutes left,
45:56but we'll turn to the audience for
some questions, and
45:59they'll be two microphones roaming
with Kara at the back there to start.
46:03>> Great,
we'll start with a question from Twitter
46:06>> What do you think is the future for
46:08online content creation?
46:11>> Well, the future is incredibly bright.
46:18I think what's happening now is
that we are all content creators,
46:22it's not just publishers who
are content creators, anybody can
46:28be a content creator whether
you're a student and
46:33entrepreneur or a brand.
46:36In fact brands increasingly now,
46:39have entire departments that
are about content creation and
46:45we're talking earlier backstage
about native advertising.
46:49For us of their having their posts,
native advertising and
46:54it has become a major
source of monetization.
46:58And what we have finding is that
we have a separate department,
47:03separate from editorial.
47:05But informed by the same beliefs.
47:08And standards that creates contents for
brands.
47:12We, for example,
made a very profitable idea
47:19with Sleep Number, which is a mattress
company with embedded technology.
47:25And we have a dedicated section,
47:28it is transparently labeled
as a sponsored section.
47:33But again, as we're discussing backstage,
47:37that doesn't stop people from
wanting to consume the content,
47:41provided the content is good,
credible, and well produced.
47:56Thanks so much for joining us.
47:58There is an article out today in
the New York Times playing on the growing
48:04wealth disparity in this country
that also says that the richest
48:09people in the United States far
outlive the poorest people.
48:14This is not necessarily new but
that gap is widening.
48:17Part of the reason for this is stress and
unhealthy living habits.
48:23And so I wonder what you're doing as
you're promoting this message of wellness,
48:27including sleep, that there are a lot
of people who can't partake in, and
48:31that's not accessible to them.
48:32So how do we make sure that we're
not just continuing to grow
48:37this divide where those of us in this room
get to be healthy and happy and wealthy.
48:45And there are a lot of people who
don't experience those benefits.
48:48>> That's a great question and, in fact,
I tried to cover this in the book.
48:55And two weeks ago,
we had a clinic in Harlem.
49:02We took over a church.
49:04And invited people from
the community to come in.
49:08And we had a group of doctors, Dr.
Oz actually filmed it and it was an entire
49:13hour on his show last week, to talk about
the health and their sleep specifically.
49:21And what is fascinating is that
the delusions that we talked about,
49:27that permeated the top,
have actually permeated also
49:33the bottom socio-economic class and
49:39unfortunately with even worse
information being given to them.
49:44I talked to multiple people.
49:47Most of them significantly overweight and
a lot of them suffering from diabetes.
49:52And we're talking about
people in their 30s and 40s.
49:56And most of them told me the same story.
50:01I have two jobs, I have three jobs,
I sleep for four hours a night.
50:06And I really blame myself
everyday because I'm exhausted.
50:11And they thought that if they
were a Wall Street high flyer,
50:13then wouldn't be exhausted.
50:15So that's how they had
interpreted our delusion.
50:25you sort of ask more question, what would
happen, let me just give you a one story.
50:29This was a woman in her early 30s
was a pastry chef and a babysitter.
50:36And she said I would come
home after my jobs and
50:39that was my time to watch my shows.
50:44So that was her reward and
what she didn't realize is
50:48that she was short changing herself of the
one thing that was freely available and
50:53that she desperately needed,
and that was sleep.
50:56So sometimes, she said,
I would watch for four hours and
50:59then fall asleep with the tv.
51:01Then the tv would wake her up and
then she said I would be so tired.
51:04But yet I couldn't go back to sleep so I
would go and have something sweet to eat.
51:10So the vicious cycle was perpetuated.
51:13So there's a lot that needs to be done.
51:16You know, we need to raise minimum wage,
we need to deal with the dangers of
51:22technology taking away so many jobs for
51:25that people being retrained,
there is a lot we can do.
51:28Sleep alone is not going to
solve all of these problems.
51:31But here is something which is freely
available that would dramatically change
51:36the health equation and the resilience
of people who are struggling.
51:41And so that's definitely part of
the campaign that we are running now
51:47which is focusing on these groups and
on colleges.
51:52And the reason we
are focusing on colleges,
51:54we're doing sleep fairs in 100 colleges.
51:56It's because this is the generation,
52:01it's your generation that's
going to change the culture.
52:05And so, in this league first, we are,
as well as giving a lot of free things
52:12that make sleep easier, including pillows,
let's say sleeping our way to the top.
52:18>> [LAUGH]
>> And we also are offering,
52:22which are available at
Stanford all this week,
52:26free Uber rides at night by Toyota.
52:31All you have to do is
put the promo code in,
52:34if you're a Stanford student
it's ToyotaSafetySU.
52:40And Toyota is offering this because
they're partnered with Uber and
52:45the Huffington Post in underlining
the dangers of drowsy driving.
52:49And because what's happened,
again part of the culture with
52:55drunk driving,
we've kind of won the battle.
52:58The numbers are going significantly down
because people are much more reluctant
53:04to get behind the wheel
when they are drunk.
53:06But not when they are drowsy,
the numbers are going up.
53:09So it was 1.2 million crashes
last year and 8,000 deaths.
53:16So we have a PSA about it,
Travis Kalanik and I on tomorrow.
53:23We are doing ride alongs with Uber
drivers, so you can actually request us
53:28you can, the promo code is-
>> You've gotta do selfies and
53:32take videos while that's happening.
53:33>> Yeah, right, having it, and
then we take you where you want to go,
53:37we don't kidnap you.
53:38>> [LAUGH]
>> But in this process, you have Travis me
53:42talk to you about not driving while drowsy
and any other of your bad sleep habits And
53:48we give you a big fabulous bag
with a lot of good things in it.
53:52>> I think it's a very
interesting question though,
53:53because one is almost
driven by necessity and
53:56the other is almost like a privileged
choice that we end up in.
53:59But suddenly we've run
out of time Arianna.
54:02But I just want to mention a story as
we close to kind of just share with
54:07the audience how from dark places
come great things like Ariana.
54:13We didn't touch it on the beginning, but
the story is to how your parents met.
54:18And it was at a hospital in Greece,
where I believe your
54:23father was recovering from
the Nazi concentration camp where
54:28he'd been taken as he was
a journalist back in the day.
54:33And at the same time her mother
was fleeing from Russia and
54:36in there recovering from TB thinking that
she'd never be able to get pregnant.
54:40So just to show, from despair come
wonderful things like Arianna.
54:43She's been delightful, so please join me
in thanking her for being with us today.
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