Jorge Paulo Lemann on building a more equitable future in Brazil | Homeroom with Sal

Support all of you in other ways with daily class schedules to kind of approximate keeping the learning going on during the closures. Webinars for teachers and parents, and also this home room is really just a way to stay connected, talk to interesting people about interesting topics, and answer any questions you have.

So over the course of this conversation, I have a very exciting guest today. I'll give a proper introduction in a few minutes. I encourage you to put any questions you might have on Facebook or on YouTube, and our team is going to be looking at them and getting to as many of them as possible. I will give my standard announcement: Khan Academy, just a reminder, is a not-for-profit. We only exist because of philanthropic donations. We were running at a deficit even before the COVID crisis, and you could imagine now that our traffic, our usage is almost 3x of what it typically is. Registrations are 5 to 10x of what they typically are, and we're trying to accelerate a bunch of programs. Our costs have gone up even higher and so if you're in a position to do so, please think about making a donation.

I want to give a special shout-out to several corporations that have stepped up in just the last few weeks to help with this effort, including Bank of America, AT&T, Novartis, Fastly, and Google.org. So thanks to all of them, and for our long-time supporters, obviously many foundations and corporations. But we do need more help, so if you can, please think about donating.

So with that, I'd like to introduce our next guest who has actually played a huge role in Khan Academy even existing. He's been a supporter of Khan Academy from really the early years: George Apollo Lemon.

"Uh, nice to see you, George Apollo."

"Hi, are you?"

"Excel. I'm doing all right. And you know, I thought there are a lot of interesting things for us to talk about over the course of this conversation, over the course of the next 30 minutes or so. You've done very well from a business point of view; you've been a very active philanthropist. I think you have some very interesting life stories. We have a lot of young people who watch this live stream who are really just trying to figure out how to navigate their own lives. So maybe that's a good place to start."

"You know, I was reading some of your bio, and obviously we've known each other for many years now. But talk a little bit about your early start. You know, it sounds like you were a very good student, an amazing tennis player. And then you got to college and it sounded like you weren't a—ah—you were into fish and water initially. You had some hard times."

"So I went to college when I was very young, 17. I had never been to the United States before and I was basically a surfer and a tennis player. College was tough in the beginning. I wasn't used to studying, I wasn't used to reading, so it was very tough. But I made it through. Adapting that first year was one of the many crises I sort of went through in life. I was making a list of all the crises I've gone through in the last 80 years, and I guess it started when I was born five days before the Second World War. But even when I was four or five, I remember my family listening to the Voice of America and finding out what was going on in the war. And so every sort of eight to ten years, there's some sort of a crisis that comes up, and you learn how to live with them. You learn how to adapt. On each one of the crises, I think I've come out a better informed person or better prepared person, or like that. And this crisis we're now undergoing is one of the toughest ones. But you know, we'll make it out of it, and I'm trying to figure out what are going to be the learnings and how can I come out of it better than I was before. So this is one more crisis."

"Actually, no, that's a good way to think about it. And you have more experience to draw from than I do. But it does seem like it feels around roughly every decade something comes up either personally or in the macro picture as a whole. But I want to double click on what you talked about your early life because I think there's so many students who, even before the COVID crisis, were feeling a little bit lost. They feel a hunger to make something out of their life, have a purpose, but sometimes don't know what it is, how to discover it. And then obviously in times of crisis like now, things can get even more difficult. So in those early years, as you mentioned, you're coming from Brazil, you're a freshman in Boston, you didn't like the weather, you were having trouble getting used to just even how things worked. What were you telling inside your head? Or what do you think it was the traits or the muscles that you had that allowed you to persevere through that and not essentially give up?"

"Oh well, my family thought it was important. I actually wanted to quit Harvard, but you know, my family kept saying, 'Ah, Harvard is so important, get it done and get it over with,' etc. So after my first year at Harvard, where I flunked a lot of courses and almost got suspended and like that, I decided I made a very stupid decision. I decided I would go back and I would finish the next three years in two years. So I sort of buckled down, took twice the number of courses I should normally be taking, and so I got out of Harvard and I passed. But I didn't really learn as much as I could have learned or as much as I should have learned. I was just there to get it over and done with, etc. And only later did it become clear to me how much more I could have learned if I had taken more time, if I had socialized a bit more, if I had met a few more of the professors that were teaching the courses and things like that. And basically, I was there to get it done with and get out of there. So it wasn't a good decision. But that's what happened.

And then I went to Europe to work for a bank and I worked for about seven months in this bank, and it was very, very boring. I always played a lot of tennis, and all my grandparents are Swiss, my parents are Swiss, so I have a Swiss passport. So I got invited to play the Swiss Nationals in tennis and I won the Swiss Nationals, which sort of surprised everybody, including myself."

"You say that very nonchalantly."

"Yeah, I got invited and I won. And then they invited me to play tennis for the Swiss national tennis team, Davis Cup and all that. I was then 21 and I thought that was much better than working in a bank. And so I did that, and I played Wimbledon and Roland Garros and all the big tournaments in Europe and Davis Cup and like that.

Meanwhile, my family was sort of wondering, 'Is this guy just going to play tennis or is he going to do something else?' Eventually, I came back to Brazil and started working, etc. But that was sort of my early start."

"And then?"

"Yeah, and then when I came back to Brazil, I joined all these Ivy Leaguers—guys from Harvard Business School, Princeton and like that—who had set up a finance company. I thought, you know, it looked very good and all of them had graduated from good Ivy League schools and like that. Well, the result of that was we went broke in three years, so that was a very traumatic experience. So you know, crises are always there and you learn something in every one of them, and hopefully you come out better. And you know, in hindsight these are fun stories because, you know, many of us know where you ended up. But at the time, what were you feeling? Was it like a crisis of confidence where you said, 'I'm not going to be able to make something out of this?' Or did—were you pretty, you know, how did you pick up the pieces and say, 'No, I'm going to keep working on this,' and especially keep working in finance?"

"Oh, I was depressed for a while, and you know, I graduated from Harvard, I thought it was pretty good. And then I go broke at 26, having just gotten married. Like that was not a good experience. I was invited by a few large organizations to go and work for them, and I didn't like that. I like the liberty of being in a smaller company, being more of an owner, like that. So I didn't join any of the larger organizations and actually joined a small brokerage house in Brazil. And then it went reasonably well, but I really wanted to run my show. I didn't want to be part of somebody else's show and like that. So after a few years of doing that, I bought my own brokerage company and set up what became a successful investment bank later."

"And what takeaways would you have?"

"I think my playing tennis—when you play tennis, you don't win all the sets or all the games; you lose. And so that sort of taught me that if you don't do well, you can do better next time, you can practice more, or you can figure things out better like that. So that's been with me all my life. I think always trying to do better and to learn from your mistakes. And boy, do you learn a lot from your mistakes."

"No, it's usually the time we learn the most. And there's two questions from YouTube that I think are related. One, Marcella Carter asked, 'What was your biggest lesson in life?' And from YouTube, Matt Gray asks, 'Who was the most influential person in your life?' So you're going through this journey; I'm sure there's a lot of actors there. But I guess what advice would you give to a young George Apollo or someone like you who's, you know, in that position now? And then who are your influencers? Who kind of got you, kept you on the trajectory?"

"Well, you know, what I learned—and it took me a while to learn—I was a tennis player or a surfer, and then went to the financial market and was basically a trader in the financial market. So all of those things basically made me a short-term thinker. I didn't think very far ahead, and only with time and with some of the mistakes I made did I learn that, you know, what's going to happen in 24 hours or in the next week or next month is not really that important. You've got to figure out where you're going for a longer period of time. And so as time went by, my thinking became much more long-term oriented. It took me a while to learn that. And then, you know, it sort of clicked. Some of the things I began doing when I was already 40 or getting close to 50 were really long-term ideas, and they actually turned out much better than in my trading days when I was thinking of the next week or 24 hours or things like that.

In terms of the most influential person, my father died when I was 13. My mother was a very strong personality. Yesterday was Mother's Day, so I thought a lot about her. And she was very influential, very strong personality. I only had a sister who was 10 years older than me, so I was sort of like an only son, and my mother and I were very close. She was very ambitious for me, very loving also, but gave me a lot of liberty. She trusted me entirely. I could sort of go out and do anything I wanted on my own, and that helped me a lot in figuring—going through experiences which were not necessarily always good or like that. But I think the liberty she gave me and the love she showed in backing me up was very important in everything else that I was able to do later."

"No, that's super powerful. And you know, now you mentioned that long-term thinking, which I agree with you. You don't see enough of it, and I'm guessing you'd pinpoint that as one of your differentiators and what allowed you to do well. You know, putting that same hat on later in life, you've become very active in philanthropy, and that's how we connected almost ten years ago now, eight, nine, ten years ago. What got you so active in philanthropy? You know, a lot of ways—for those who don't know, you're one of the most active philanthropists in Brazil, especially with the focus on education. What got you interested in this problem?"

"When I was building up our brokerage company in Brazil, I had no competitive advantage in terms of having a name or having money. I figured out that the only way I could really be competitive would be if I hired and attracted the best possible people to work with me. So I made a big effort in looking for these people. I would interview hundreds of candidates per year and pick the best, even when we were hiring 10 or 15 people per year. That became very important for us in building up the brokerage business.

And in doing that, I met a lot of really spectacular people who had not had the proper education or have not been trained properly, and like that, they were pretty exceptional. And so I figured that besides trying to improve people who were working with me and giving them a better education, maybe I could do it for other people. So I set up these foundations which basically give scholarships to people who want to study abroad. At that point, there were very few scholarships for people wanting to study abroad, and so this foundation, which was called Study, became quite important. Over the years, we have sent many Brazilians to U.S. colleges, and they've come back to Brazil, they've built businesses up. Lately, I've been giving a lot of scholarships to people who want to come back and go into public service or to government. I figure we got enough good businessmen, and we need better people in government and in the public sector. So that's how I sort of got going in terms of trying to get people more educated or give them worthwhile experiences by studying abroad.

And then from all that, we evolved to trying to improve education in Brazil in general. Brazil scores very badly in all the international tests, and we should do better. I'm a big believer that countries do as well as they have educated their people, so for Brazil to do well in the future, we have to educate more people and educate them better. So my foundation now, beyond giving scholarships to people wanting to study abroad, we have teacher training courses—we work in partnership with you so that people can learn more online. We try to work with governments in terms of improving their teaching standards like that. We give courses to school principals so that they can manage the schools better, and we make a variety of efforts.

Recently, there is one small city in Brazil called Sobral; it's a very poor city in the northeast, but for the last 10 years, it has scored really high in the national test of how public schools are doing. We have now hired some of the people that set up this system in a city of 200,000 people, and we're trying to duplicate what they have done in other small cities of less than 200,000. It's much easier to introduce education systems in small cities than in big cities. So something very practical, they were successful, and we're now in another 25 cities. If that works, we will duplicate it to 50 cities.

So we have a lot of things going on besides what we do with the Khan Academy, which I think is really important. I think online learning has a big future in Brazil and in poor countries. I think being able to access online learning in poor countries is really very important because it gives you a chance to reach the people who really don't have a chance to go to school or have access to terrific teachers or like that. So anyway, that's—it's all I do is a little drop in the bucket of what Brazil needs to improve education, but I, you know, I'm trying—I'm trying to do my best."

"No, well I think you're being slightly modest there. But you know there's a question from YouTube that Susanna Garcia Dominguez is asking, and this is actually something I've always wondered, actually. How did you learn about Khan Academy? How did it show up on your radar? Because you were one of the earliest philanthropists to really reach out to us. I mean, this was back in 2010 or 2011."

"We were reading about the Khan Academy and I said, 'Gosh, this makes so much sense.' I read a few things that you had written or that you had spoken, and I thought it made so much sense. And, you know, I guess we tried to establish some contact with you. And then what happened was the President of Brazil called me up once and said, 'Do you know this guy Sal Khan? I think he's very interesting. Can you get him to come to Brazil?' I said, 'I don't know, but I can try.' And so we actually—we were already talking, but then we said, 'Sal, don't you want to come down here? The President of Brazil wants to talk to you.' And so you came down and, you know, talked to the President and like that, and I got to know you a little bit better. And that's how we sort of got going."

"No, I tell the story a lot. It’s actually those early days. I mean, for those who don't know, I mean, back in 2010, I think Khan Academy was about an eight-person organization. We were above a Chinese tea store in downtown Mountain View here. And it might seem—I have an extroverted nature, but I'm actually very introverted, so I really enjoy kind of being by myself. I think I was recording a video or something, and someone said, 'Hey, we have this delegation from Brazil that is here.' And I was like, 'Oh, but I need to finish this video.' And I was kind of in a grumpy mood because I wanted to finish like an organic chemistry video or something. And then we met, and I remember that room. It was like there were like 12 of us packed into a room that could probably fit five people. But who would have thought? I remember y'all—you know, we were very intrigued by the notion of being able to work in Brazil, but it felt like we were small at that point. But y'all were really pulling us in, and I have to say if not for that push then—and then obviously we started working together over the next few years—I don't think Khan Academy in Brazil would be the most built-out Khan Academy outside of the United States, and it wouldn't be if not because of that first meeting and y'all's desire. So y'all have been supporters not just in Brazil but, you know, Khan Academy globally. So that was one of those meetings that definitely have been logged in my memory bank. And then obviously had a wonderful, wonderful trip to Brazil."

"Well, one question, you know, from YouTube. Actually, there are two questions I think they're related. Josie Mubarak asks, 'What advice would you give to graduates?' and when related that, Nikhil Governor asks, 'How do you build great leadership skills?' And I'll add to that—you mentioned you realized the success of your orgs were hiring the right people, and maybe training the right people. How—what do you look for? Are there signs that you see in young people that you say, 'Hey, that person is on to something; this is the person I want to invest in and work with'? Are there other signs you see in people like, 'Ah, not so sure; I think I'll pass on them'?"

"I don't think there's anything very special the way we went about hiring people. You know, the first thing I learned—or I learned in my Ivy League partnership which didn't work out—is to run a business or to run anything, you have to have different types. If everybody's the same, it won't work very well. So, you know, I made an effort to have different points of view, and we like people who get things done, people who work as a team, but also, you know, will individually try to get things moving or going. We don't tolerate bad ethics at all. I mean, there are some people who are brilliant, but their ethics aren't good. And if you know, that doesn't work in an organization. So if there's any sign of ethical misbehavior like that, we don't tolerate it. And basically, we like giving people experiences that they can test them, and the ones that do well, we promote very fast. The ones that don't do well stay behind, etc. And so, you know, in our organizations now, we have over 200,000 employees, and we always know who is on a fast track. Every organization of ours, on a yearly basis, looks at everybody who's on a fast track and figures out what they should be doing for these people. So we're always trying to pick the exceptional ones and giving them a chance to do something bigger. And so that's how it has basically worked."

"And you know, I think, like I say, you learn a lot from your mistakes. So I'm talking about what worked well. And maybe I should talk a little bit about what didn't work well. Over the last five years, our companies have not done as well as they did in the first 25 years, like that. And what—so like I said, we've always been very people focused, and always focused on people who are ambitious, want to get things done, cut costs, look at goals, and have very clear goals and like that. And we missed out a little bit in terms of the world becoming much more consumer-centric in terms of the clients and public having much more—many more choices of what they want to consume. We're basically a consumer goods business, and so we didn't pay enough attention to what our buyers or what our clients really wanted. At the same time, we did not utilize what is available nowadays in terms of artificial intelligence to know more about our clients and where they are and what they want and like that. And our culture was a culture very much—we got to reach the goals, we got to produce more, we got to produce cheaply and like that. But we missed out a little bit on what the client really wants and figuring out what he really wants with the modern techniques that are available. So we're catching up now; we're going in that direction. But you know you have to have good people, and you have to have good people who are up to date on what is going on in the world, and we didn't have enough of those because our culture was so successful and doing so well for a while that it took us a little while to realize that we had to go in this direction. So we're correcting."

"For those of y'all who are watching, you know George Apollo, I think very intentionally keeps a fairly low profile. But some of these organizations include things like InBev and Anheuser-Busch, Burger King—so very, very large global brands that folks might be familiar with. I mean, given your lens on the global economy but especially the Brazilian economy, what's your sense of the short and long-term economic implications of the crisis we're going through?"

"Oh, I think, like I said, I've been through various crises, and this one looks like it's going to last longer. And it's going to be tough on the emerging markets because the emerging markets really lack the organization to figure out who is sick, who isn't sick, what to do about it. Emerging markets have slums, people living very close to one another. It's very difficult to have lockdowns. The people need to make money—many of these people in the slums are sellers in the streets and like that—they're not able to go out now so they can't sell anything. They are desperate to get out there and sell. So it's going to be messier in the emerging markets than the more developed countries, which is very sad. I think it will take a little while longer than most people in the stock market or financial markets think that it will take. You know, many people think, 'Oh, three or four months from now things will start moving again.' But yeah, they may start moving, but it will take a lot longer to—things really falling into place again."

"And so what advice—you know we have so many young people watching and we have a lot of questions. I haven't gotten to anywhere close to even the majority of them, but there's so many young people who are always uncertain about their future. What should I do? And there's a lot of questions about your life and a lot of interest there. But especially in a time of uncertainty like this, what advice would you have for them?"

"Don't give up. Hang on. Things look pretty bad. You sort of think the world is coming to an end or everything's coming to an end, but you know eventually they sort of right themselves. And there are many opportunities in crisis. I'm not only talking about financial opportunities, but there are a lot of opportunities to learn, to learn different things, to do things in a different way, to think in a different way. So you know, think about it. Think about how you can adapt and what you really want to make out of your life and how this crisis can perhaps help you achieve what you want to achieve."

"Wow, that's great advice. Well, you know, I just want to thank you, George Apollo, for—I don't think I've ever had a chance to do it, but I'll do it in a very public setting. Khan Academy would not exist in the way it does today if not for your support and your foundation support. And it for sure would not exist in the way it exists in Brazil if not your kind of, you know, really pushing that in a very, very early stage. So thank you, and I agree with everything you said. It's going to be interesting times in the next few months, years, but there are problems to be solved. And we look forward to partnering with you and your team to get that solved. So thank you so much for being part of this."

"Thank you. It's been a real pleasure to work with your organization over the years. We have a feeling that we're getting something done or improving things in Brazil and the world, so let's keep working and we'll have a better world."

"Sounds good to me, thank you so much. Bye-bye."

"Bye. Thank you. And so thanks everyone for joining. As you can see, I feel lucky. I've said multiple times I feel very fortunate to have the role I have. Obviously, I like to geek out on academic stuff and work with our team here at Khan Academy making the product better, making the experience better. But another joy of this job is being able to have really amazing partners like George Apollo, who I consider a mentor, who push us to do more things, who allow frankly a lot of what we do to be possible. So, you know, I think I get disproportionate credit for the work at Khan Academy. It's a team of 200 full-time folks, thousands of volunteers, hundreds of thousands of folks—many of you donate—and many really great partners like George Apollo and his team. So with that, thank you for joining this live stream and I look forward to seeing all of you tomorrow. Have a good night, afternoon, day."