Naveen Jain on Solving Any Problem

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1:38Jason:I wonder if you have a different way of steering people into looking beyond the obvious.

1:45Naveen Jain:And I think it is to go back and become a two-year-old child. And if you can learn to be a two-year-old child, you actually will understand what I'm talking about, right? So what happens is anytime, Jason, I don't know if you ever had a two-year-old, it doesn't matter what you tell them. The first thing they say, but why? Every time someone says this is what it is, you say, but why?

2:09Jason:Running a business means solving problems. I tell you how the smartest entrepreneurs do it. Hi, I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, and this is Problem Solvers.

2:23Jason:Do you have that person in your life who every time you talk to, they just say something that you think, I'm going to be repeating this for like the next 10 years? Just that person who has figured out this, I'm going to use the word counterintuitive. You'll know why in just a second. this really counterintuitive way of approaching life and business. And it has succeeded so wildly for them that you have to say, you know what? This must actually be the way that this counterintuitive way in which this person thinks is something I need to calibrate my own brain to. Do you have that person? Because I do.

2:58Jason:And guess what? I get to talk to him right now. His name is Naveen Jain. Naveen and I have known each other a long time. This guy has built businesses to billions of dollars multiple times. He is the author of multiple books, all of which you should read, but most recently, Naveen, Counterintuitive, Unconventional Principles for Success in Life and Business. He is the most recently founder and CEO of Viome. And Naveen brings to business, and he'll tell you himself, this attitude of, look, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, you shouldn't be the smartest person in the room.

3:36Jason:You should just be the person who's able to look at things differently. And that is what I want this conversation to be about today, is looking at things differently. Naveen, always great to talk to you. Welcome to Problem Solvers.

3:47Naveen Jain:Well, first of all, what an honor and a pleasure to be with you. You bring so much positive energy to every conversation we have, and I just really look forward to it.

3:58Jason:Oh, I really appreciate that. And you too, which is why we have been talking for years. Okay, Naveen, so you've said this to me many times, but I want you to set us up here and talk about why you've written this book. You say, look, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I just ask better questions. And I think then people ask themselves, well, okay, what are the better questions to ask? And how does that lead to a new way of seeing opportunity?

4:27Naveen Jain:What is really interesting is that what is intelligence? I mean, let's just start with a basic, simple thing. What is an intelligence, right? When people say, this person is really intelligent, what they really mean most of the time is he's very knowledgeable. That means they have a certain subject, they're extremely knowledgeable, and if they're really knowledgeable, you call them intelligent. And I think they are very different things. People who are absolute expert in their field, they're extremely knowledgeable. they may or may not be intelligent. And they're two separate things. A person who is really intelligent is able to come into a completely different field, a completely different subject.

5:09Naveen Jain:And after a few minutes of listening, to be able to ask the really questions that are so deep, the other person says, wait a sec, are you an expert in this field? Because you have no idea, but you're challenging that foundation that most people just assume. Wait a second, nobody ever asked me that this person must really know something because why is he asking such in-depth question? And you're asking because you're just naive, you don't understand, right? So it is that naivety, it is that idea of challenging the foundation of everything that experts have taken it for granted is what makes you to some extent an expert.

5:51Naveen Jain:So you are an expert, but you're an expert in a different thing. You're an expert in actually distilling the concept of what everyone would actually miss out on.

6:02Jason:Do you think that you can consciously become one or the other kind of person? Because in a way, what you're describing is someone who is able to specialize in a specific area, which is valuable. That is a valuable person, right? But then there's this other kind of person who can walk into any arena because their skill set is different. Their skill set is not a deep knowledge in one specific space. Their skill set is, I suppose you might say, a kind of pattern matching, a kind of curiosity, an ability to draw out and reorganize information. Do you discover if you are one of those two people or can you consciously become one of those two people?

6:41Naveen Jain:And answer to that is actually, yes, you can consciously become one of the two people because to become an expert, you have to dedicate this 10 ,000 hours learning about that thing. That doesn't make you any better. It just makes you a different person. So this idea that if you want to be good at something, you have to spend 10 ,000 hours doing something. And to me, that's a fallacy. That is a fundamental thing that I think needs to be challenged. So if you go back in the last century or even last two decades, the most successful people were the ones that actually had all the answers. They were the expert.

7:22Naveen Jain:They knew exactly what to do in healthcare. They knew exactly what to do in the year. And what's really happening in the age of intelligence, the most successful people are not going to be the one that have all the answers. They're going to be the one that have all the right questions. because at the end of the day, answers are going to be available to you. What matters is what questions are you asking? So think about when you say the Buddha got enlightenment and I'm going to just simply say that what if there is a God GPT out there? And it's a matter of Buddha sat there for 10 years and say, God, what question would I ask this oracle?

7:56Naveen Jain:And he thought, a thought, a thought and came up with a question and the God said, here's the answer. He said, oh my God, what an enlightenment I had, right? So it was all about thinking for a long time to ask the right question. And that is where it is going to be, is what questions are you asking? When you have 20 billion people on planet Earth, are you going to be asking how to grow more food? Are you going to be asking the question, why do we eat food? And neither question is wrong, but they get to a completely different way of thinking.

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8:58Jason:It's true. And, you know, I realized, Naveen, when I introduced you that I didn't give your whole bio, which may not even be necessary because so many people know you, but it's worth noting that you, in talking about being a person who can navigate different spaces, are absolutely that person. You've worked in so many different fields and built success across space, across the internet. You helped grow the XPRIZE, Singularity University. I mean, there's so much that you've done. And that is all you're saying about asking these questions that don't just get to the function of something, right? I like your example there.

9:40Jason:How do we either make more food or why do we eat is really interesting. So it's like one is about the function. How do we improve the function? The other is about almost trying to get underneath the premise of a question to see if underneath that is an opportunity that everyone else is missing. Is that right? Yes.

10:00Naveen Jain:So a lot of the people either end up solving the symptom of the problem and they never understand the root cause of that problem, or they believe the symptom is the root cause. And they simply, anytime somebody describes a problem. So for example, if someone walks into your house and you say, look, my carpet is always dusty. And what vacuum cleaner should I buy? There is an expert who will tell you which vacuum cleaner to buy. Or someone would walk into the house and say, it's not the problem with the vacuum cleaner. Your vacuum cleaner is totally fine. It's your windows that are a real problem because that's where the dust is coming from.

10:39Naveen Jain:If you fix your windows, you don't need a new vacuum cleaner. And that's a completely different way of looking at the thing and say, is it, are you simply saying, hey, let's buy a better vacuum cleaner because now you still have a dust. You're just saying, can I get the dust out rather than solve the underlying problem of why the dust is coming into the house to begin with?

10:56Jason:I really love that. I'm trying to think as you're talking about maybe a simple starting point so that people can do that. And the thing that popped to my mind, and I do a version of this with many of my own projects, is I ask the question, is this actually the problem? because if you're looking at a problem and you're saying, is this actually the problem? It's worth then considering, is the thing that I'm looking at actually the symptom of a different problem? Is this actually a limited way to view the opportunity? So that's something I do, but I wonder if you have a different way of steering people into looking beyond the obvious.

11:36Naveen Jain:And I think it is to go back and become a two-year-old child. And if you can learn to be a two-year-old child, you actually will understand what I'm talking about, right? So what happens is anytime, Jason, I don't know if you ever had a two-year-old, it doesn't matter what you do.

11:52Jason:I have had two two-year-olds who are now seven and 11, but yeah. So not that far away.

11:57Naveen Jain:So remember, when they're two years old, it doesn't matter what you tell them. The first thing they say, but why? But why? But why? And when you get to the three whys, you're starting to get to at least somewhere close to the root cause of that problem, right? So that means the thing is, every time someone says this is what it is, you say, but why? And that is what most people miss out on. So when you ask them, is this a problem? The answer is, yes, it is the problem. Is it? But why is this the problem is really the right question, right? So when you tell someone, is fresh water a problem where people don't have access to fresh water and people get sick, is that a problem?

12:37Naveen Jain:The answer is, yes, it is a problem. But when you ask them, why is that the problem? You will see because majority of the freshwater is used for agriculture. So you say, oh, is that the reason why we have the lack of freshwater? Until you realize majority of the agriculture is used for actually feeding the cattles. So you say, is that really the problem? And my point is that is where you start to see a freshwater problem starts to become a really a synthetic biology problem rather than some type of nanofiltering problem, right? And that is really the understanding of what is the things. And I think you and I talked about in the past that even when I started Viome, it actually was the same thing.

13:16Naveen Jain:Well, everyone in the industry. So here is the problem. So, you know, I think we talked about this framework in the past. Why this? Why now? Why me? And this book, Counterintuitive, actually goes deeper into that idea of a framework. But anytime you want to have this idea of solving any problem, ask yourself, why should I solve this problem? So why this? And then is this now the right time to be actually attacking this problem? And the last thing is, what is it about me? What questions am I asking which are different from what everyone else has been asking? That means, am I looking at this problem completely differently than anyone else?

13:59Naveen Jain:because your perspective of that problem changes the problem, right?

14:02Jason:Yeah, and by the way, this is, I said in the beginning that you say things that I then go repeat for the next 10 years. And this is one of them. I've quoted you on this many times, probably on this show. Maybe people have even heard me do it. But I just want to unpack that a little bit more because it's so impactful. So, right, so because it's why this is really evaluating whether or not this is a big opportunity worth solving. Why now is a really interesting question because what you're really interrogating is, has something changed recently that enables you to solve this problem? Now, is there a new technology?

14:33Jason:Has something changed in culture, consumer behavior? And then why me is fascinating because the way in which I think most people would approach that question is asking whether or not I have the particular talents or skills or knowledge base. But what you're saying, which you said earlier in this conversation, is throw that out the window. Actually, why you is, are you able to look at this differently than other people, which sometimes means that actually your skill or your value that you bring to it is that you are unfamiliar with the space and therefore you're not trapped by the common assumptions that everyone else inside the space would have.

15:11Naveen Jain:That is correct, Jason. So I think, you know, the minute you become expert at something, you focus. And this is where I think most people who are entrepreneurs go wrong is they focus on how to do something rather than what problem need to be solved. So when you come into a problem, you never should focus on how to do something. You should focus on what is it that problem that needs to be solved. Because when you focus on how you limit yourself to what you know, when you focus on what you say, great, here is a problem that needs to be solved. I don't know how to do it. It doesn't mean a problem can't be solved.

15:49Naveen Jain:That means now you're saying, okay, hey, what team do I need to assemble that can help me solve the problem? But I am absolutely convinced that is the problem that needs to be solved. The thing that you think is your liability can actually become your asset. And that is really the thing is not knowing something about the industry is not the liability. It is your biggest asset because you are able to now challenge the foundation of everything that every expert has taken it for granted. And that is where the deception comes from.

16:19Jason:Right. And I love that counterintuitive, if you will, way of thinking, which is I think people often hold themselves back from pursuing something because they think that they have some weakness that will inhibit their ability to succeed. But it's always worth asking, and I tell this to founders all the time. I'm sure you do too. So it's always worth asking, is there a way in which you could view that thing that you see as a weakness, as a strength, and then present it that way to other people? I'm not your expert, but I am your guy who can look outside of the space and see what you might be missing.

16:56Jason:At which point everyone's like, okay, we're in. Tell me what's going on. Because I'm owning what I don't have and then turning it into something that they need.

17:06Naveen Jain:Actually, in some sense, it's not really about thinking outside the box. It's really thinking in a different box because you have all the different boxes, the knowledge of 100 other boxes. And now you're saying, hey, can I – which of these knowledge can I apply to this new box that I know nothing about? Right. But you've seen hundreds of boxes.

17:26Jason:Right, right, right. Right. Right. So, you know, you called the book counterintuitive and the word counterintuitive built into it, of course, is that there is a intuitive way that people either all naturally understand or have all recognized to be right. And I'm sure that throughout your journey in business, you're just constantly identifying and collecting these things that people take for granted or aren't really questioning the intuitive parts of business that you feel like aren't actually correct. What do you tend to see when you talk to a founder who's trying to build something and is looking at things too, quote unquote, intuitively?

18:06Yeah.

18:07Naveen Jain:So here, so first thing is your belief system. So, you know, people say, I believe it when I see it. It turns out what really happens is you see what you believe. And that's really very interesting. So it's not you believe what you see. you actually only see things that you believe because you're never seeing the reality. You're seeing a perception of that reality. And let me give you an example. If you have 10 people walk into the room, all 10 people you ask them when they leave, what they saw will be completely different things. Even though they were the same door, same thing they walked in, and they will see completely different things because they are pattern matching.