Transcript
Ben Nadelstein sits down with Alexander McCobin, CEO of Liberty Ventures, for a deep dive into his personal journey and insights on building a movement for capitalism. Alexander shares how a life-changing birthday gift—Atlas Shrugged—ignited his passion for philosophy and libertarian ideas, which led him to found the University of Pennsylvania Libertarians and later Students for Liberty. He recounts his evolution from feeling isolated as a young thinker to creating influential organizations that have impacted protests in Brazil, sparked unicorn ventures in Silicon Valley, and attracted top business leaders like John Mackey.
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Transcript
Ben Nadelstein
Welcome back to the Gold Exchange podcast. My name is Ben NadelStein of Monetary Metals. I am joined by Alexander McCubbin, CEO of Liberty Ventures Alexander, welcome to the podcast.
Alexander McCobin
Thanks for having me, Ben. I’m excited to be here.
Ben Nadelstein
For those of our audience who don’t know you, which should be a vanishingly small number. Can you give us a bit about your background, maybe your philosophy, and what drew you to these ideas and how have you evolved over time?
Alexander McCobin
So for me, it all starts when I turned 14, my dad gave me a copy of Atlas Shrugged for my birthday, and it took me a month to read over the summer. But once I finished, I thought to myself, this is what I’ve always believed put into words. And I was hooked. I spent the rest of high school reading as much on philosophy, liberty, objectivism as I could.
Alexander McCobin
And when I went off to college at the University of Pennsylvania, I thought, this is the first time to be surrounded by so many other intelligent people. And finally going to meet others who think the same way I do and develop them for me. But I see you shaking your head, you understand, for the first two years, I didn’t meet a single other person who thought the same way I did, and I began to feel so isolated and alone.
Alexander McCobin
I actually started to think to myself, Alexander, maybe you’re crazy. Maybe you should just give up and become a socialist and make your life easier. But thankfully, instead of that, I decided to take a chance and start a group on campus at the University of Pennsylvania Libertarians. And within a year we had over 200 members on the list.
Alexander McCobin
Serve students. Even professors came out of the woodworks, and I realized there had always been other people who shared these views. But we needed an organization to bring us together in order to find each other. So after doing that for a year, the summer before my senior year of college, I was interning in Washington, D.C. and met other students from other schools running their own libertarian clubs and thought, this is a great opportunity for me to learn from them, for us to share ideas and best practices.
Alexander McCobin
And so organized a 12 person roundtable discussion. And that was just absolutely illuminating and invigorating. And from there, I said, what do you guys think about making this a slightly larger roundtable? 30 students coming together that ended up drawing 100 students from 42 schools in three countries and became the first students for Liberty conference. And the impetus for starting a nonprofit organization, students for Liberty, to help introduce the principles of a free society to young people around the world and provide leadership training for them to go and make a difference in the world.
Alexander McCobin
Now, I did all of that after I left Pan and went to graduate school to become a philosophy professor as a volunteer for a long time. But eventually it became apparent that I was having a bigger impact and actually a lot more fun building up students for Liberty than just reading and writing papers. I would be lucky if a dozen people were impacted by.
Alexander McCobin
And as much as I love philosophy, still dropped out of graduate school to focus on students for Liberty. But while doing that and working with incredible young people around the world, doing everything from leading protests in Brazil that led to the impeachment of the president Dilma Rousseff, for corruption to starting unicorns and Silicon Valley like thumbtack and panda dock.
Alexander McCobin
I was working with business leaders who were donating to the organization, including John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods. And after he published his book Conscious Capitalism, about elevating community through business, basically encompassing the Whole Foods management philosophy. He started a nonprofit organization to spread that and tapped me to go and run that. So for six years, I had the chance to not only work with John, but hundreds of other incredible business leaders and left a few years ago for two big reasons.
Alexander McCobin
One being that my purpose today is to build the movement of capitalists for capitalism. And to do that, I think we need to be very explicitly pro capitalist and pro liberty without any question of that being there. Unfortunately, too many people hear the term conscious capitalism and think it’s a critique of capitalism rather than a defense. But secondly, it was apparent to me that if we’re really going to build this movement, we not only need to have a space for business leaders to talk about capitalism and liberty, the ideas, but to actually practice them, and that means getting an ROI from being in relationship with each other and actually building businesses that are making the
Alexander McCobin
world freer and more prosperous. And that was the impetus behind starting Liberty Ventures, which is my focus now, which is a network of like valued capitalists for capitalism that we help connect with each other, that to scale impactful businesses and advance freedom in the world. And that involves everything from investing to advising to providing talent, to just putting on events and making sure that they are connected with each other to build their businesses and other initiatives that are making the world freer and more prosperous.
Ben Nadelstein
A question I like asking people in this space is, what do you define as success in advancing your cause, if that’s liberty or capitalism? But is it policy wins? Is it a cultural shift? Is it a personal conversion? Is it ROI? Is it something else? So for you, what do you see as success?
Alexander McCobin
So I think there are a lot of people on a lot of initiatives that are doing great work to advance liberty in the world. We’ve got efforts already in place to work with young people, to work with academics, to work with state policy wonks, with politicians, with journalists. The thing that’s really been missing for a long time has been an initiative to get business leaders to actively advance capitalism.
Alexander McCobin
And at one level, that seems ironic, since you would imagine most people in business are pro capitalism. But I think you and I both experienced this firsthand. That’s not actually the case. There are a lot of capitalists who feel guilty for being successful and so are willing to criticize capitalism. There are a lot of people in business who didn’t build the businesses up, and so and so don’t really understand the system they’re a part of.
Alexander McCobin
And there are just a lot of business people who are so focused on their individual enterprise. And so don’t take the time to think about the larger system that they’re a part of, or even don’t really practice capitalism. They’re engaged in rent seeking more than value creation, and so don’t support a truly capitalist free market system. So it’s important for us to actively cultivate this movement of capitalists, for capitalism and success, for me, and for what we’re doing with Liberty Ventures is building this movement.
Alexander McCobin
Our goal is to build up a million capitalists for capitalism, make sure that they’re connected with each other and building up impactful businesses, deploying $1 billion over the next ten years into values aligned businesses so that they’re able to make money together, they’re able to make the world a better place and leverage that that position, that influence those connections.
Alexander McCobin
And the bully pulpit in order to make the world freer. That’s what success is for us.
Ben Nadelstein
One thing I like about that very strong and objective measurement of, hey, a million businesses, a billion funds. It gives you an actual goal post to look at. So can you talk about a little bit the difference between nonprofit organizations, for profit organizations? When someone says, hey, I’m starting a for profit business, basically everyone knows what the deal is, right?
Ben Nadelstein
Hey, there’s got to be profits at the end of this. But for a nonprofit, sometimes it’s a little bit more amorphous. So can you talk about the difference between those two?
Alexander McCobin
Well, honestly, I don’t think there is much of a difference between the two other than a tax status. They’re both organizations in a capitalist system that do both rely on making a profit. It’s not called that in nonprofits, but they’re always looking to have more money in the money out every year in order to survive. And they have and they often have pretty similar business models.
Alexander McCobin
The only difference with nonprofits is that you have two customers. You’ve got the donors who are one customer, and even though they’re not receiving the goods or services, and another group, the the audience that they serve who aren’t paying for things but are receiving the benefits versus in the for profit system, your customers are the same people who are paying as are getting the value from it.
Alexander McCobin
And now the challenge there is that it can lead to some mal incentives in the nonprofit space where you are, where you’re trying to get money from one group and serving another. And so you may not be creating as much value as you really think or as the donors are actually hoping for. But but other. Whereas in the for profit space, your customers are telling you if they’re getting value or not.
Alexander McCobin
So it’s a much more straightforward feedback loop for what you’re doing. But I actually think there’s a lot for nonprofits to learn from, for profits and for profits to learn from the higher purpose of nonprofits. And really, we should. We want to look at both types of entities as engaged in making the world a better place and actually functioning very similarly to one another.
Alexander McCobin
Now, in Liberty Ventures, we do focus on for profits because we want to build up the movement of business leaders, but we also have nonprofit leaders involved, and we want to make sure that we’re supporting great nonprofits that are advancing liberty and are still making the world more prosperous.
Ben Nadelstein
Let’s talk about that idea of a higher purpose. Right. Hey, I might be really interested in my business, but what do you see the difference between a win win mindset where, hey, I’m winning my customers winning. Everyone’s happy here versus a win win win mindset. What’s the big difference there?
Alexander McCobin
Well, I think those are actually two different things. The higher purpose that you first asked about really is the driving reason for business to exist. And I think any business, if it’s going to be really successful and sustained, needs a higher purpose. It’s not about just making as much money as possible. It because that’s money is great. If profit is fantastic, you need that to survive and should be maximized.
Alexander McCobin
But that’s the means of achieving the higher purpose of the business. That’s and the higher purpose is what attracts people to the cause, especially when you’re in the early days of a boat, both when you’re in the early days of a business and you’re just trying to get people on board and you don’t have money to offer everyone, or you’re saying they’re long term returns here, that purpose is going to be what draws people in and get some excited.
Alexander McCobin
But even later on, as companies grow and sustain themselves, that purpose reminds them why they exist and helps keep an organization focused on what really matters. Instead of chasing short term distractions that can actually be really damaging to the business. So that’s one thing. Then thinking about stakeholder orientation, as it’s called in conscious capitalism, or the win win win mindset you’re talking about really is understanding that every one of business impacts is part of an interconnected ecosystem.
Alexander McCobin
And the most successful businesses are creating value for everyone that they touch in order to keep them engaged with the business and keep them supporting it. So it’s not the case that businesses are that a really successful business is actually making a lot of trade offs and just thinking about one stakeholder group at the expense of others, but it’s really thinking about, okay, how do we help everyone?
Alexander McCobin
How do we help employees, customers, suppliers, the community, and of course, the shareholders in order so that everyone benefits. And so once the business to continue to succeed wants the business to grow because they’re all benefiting from it, you need both of them to have a long term, really successful business.
Ben Nadelstein
And if there’s a business owner listening now and they think, okay, why does my business exist in the first place, what are some other questions that you might have a business owner ask themselves? Why does my business exist? What are some other questions maybe they could be thinking about in terms of this capitalism mindset.
Alexander McCobin
So that to from one perspective, to really nail down the purpose of the business, I think it’s important to ask the five whys, you know, don’t just say, why does the business exist? You ask yourself, okay, well, why did I say that? And then why is that important? And go as deep as you can to really understand that purpose, and also not just ask yourself that, but also ask the others who are involved in the business.
Alexander McCobin
Ask other other executives, other team members, ask customers, ask shareholders to really understand why it exists. Because this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s it happens in engagement with everyone else who is impacted by the business. But another way to think about your question, perhaps, is what else matters beyond just what the purpose of the business is? And for that, I think to really understand why businesses exist.
Alexander McCobin
And what’s powerful about them is to go back to the principles of capitalism, because, look, let’s actually define this. Capitalism is a system of economic cooperation that relies on voluntary production and trade of goods and services, and that has certain principles baked into it to make capitalism actually exist, like real value creation. That’s different from just trying to take as much money as possible from others, like others, like other economic systems out there, it’s not about moving money around.
Alexander McCobin
It’s about creating new value that didn’t exist before. So a good question to ask is what value is this business creating that did not exist before, that would not exist if the business wasn’t around, and lean into that? Another another important principle of capitalism is respect for individual autonomy. The idea that people can make voluntary choices about what they buy, where they work, how they spend their time is foundational because every person is an end in themselves, and we want them to be able to choose what they do.
Alexander McCobin
So really asking yourself, how do we lean into that? And how do we make sure that we are giving people the greatest advantages and benefits from the existence of this company, so that they will choose to support the company time and time again is an important part of this. And we can go down the list. And actually we’re about to come out with a manifesto articulating these principles of capitalism that’s come from our network of like valued business leaders.
Alexander McCobin
But it’s something that every, every leader should really think about. What, why is capitalism important? What are those principles and how can can we continue to build up businesses based on those principles, not just thinking it’s about short term returns.
Ben Nadelstein
And if you hear some business leaders, some CEOs saying things that if you want to call them anti-capitalist mentality or saying, well, you know, taxes or things like that, so do you. What percentage of that argument do you think is them kind of, making sure, hey, I hope people don’t come after me. And if I say the right things, maybe I’ll be on good footing.
Ben Nadelstein
And what percent do you think actually believe? Hey, listen, you know, this is unfair. I just, you know, I was way too lucky. And, you know, my my business is one of many. What what percentage of these CEOs, these business leaders do you think actually enjoy? You know, the the ideals of capitalism and, like, talking about it versus the ones who just have no idea?
Alexander McCobin
It’s tough to give. It’s tough to give numbers to that. And I’ll say that of those capitalists who don’t really support capitalism out there, a big portion of them are just, attacking capitalism to keep their heads down and avoid criticism. That is absolutely a big part of it. Another part, another part of of those individuals definitely do critique capitalism, and some of them are rent seekers rather than real value creators as a justification for it.
Alexander McCobin
Others just feel guilty because they’ve done well. Yeah, but there’s also another segment that honestly just hasn’t considered it much. They just go along to get along and they are so, like I said, so focused on their individual business or their individual personal interests that they haven’t thought about the system at which in which they operate, in the higher level order of what the principles are that allow them to operate as a business leader.
Alexander McCobin
And that’s why it’s really important for us to have a movement of capitalists who are openly speaking out in defense of capitalism. Not only is that educational, but it also provides the peer group of people that they respect and look up to that they want to emulate, and it gives them it gives people confidence in speaking out. You people want to be the first mover or the only person sticking their neck out.
Alexander McCobin
They feel much more comfortable doing what they see other people do, especially others that they respect and want to be like. And so the more great business leaders we can get talking out, talking out about capitalism and working with other business leaders who really do believe in capitalism, the more we’re going to see other business leaders go along as well.
Ben Nadelstein
I think Elon Musk is one of the CEOs who has really, you know, put his neck out there for better or for worse. But a lot of the things he’s saying, people now feel comfortable, you know, copying whether that’s good or bad. But, this, this kind of idea of a private truth, but a public lie, which I think is the name of a book by Tim Moore.
Ben Nadelstein
Karen, talking about, well, you know, maybe everyone believes it. Maybe the Emperor really does have no clothes. But if I stand up, I’m going to look like an idiot. So one one big benefit of having a group of people. Well, okay. Yeah. So what, a group of people. Well, it makes other people more likely to join. Say, hey, maybe I do like some of this stuff or maybe I can get on board.
Ben Nadelstein
So have you seen people saying, listen, I, I’ve always thought this for years and years and years, but finally I’ve been able to kind of speak out.
Alexander McCobin
100%. It’s it’s funny you mentioned public, private, private truths, public lies, because Marc Andreessen just recommended that book to the world on X, and I’ve got it on my nightstand. Actually, I’m going through it right now. It is so on point, I can’t recommend it enough. And I am starting to see this from people that I’m actually honestly surprised to see come out of the woodworks and say, I’ve really thought this for a long time, but it’s been too scared to speak out.
Alexander McCobin
Or I thought I was the only one and what’s interesting for me about this is that’s the same thing I experienced when I was a student in college, and so many others did. That’s why what led to students for Liberty being so successful. We created the space to find peers to who shared the same views and give each other the courage, the training and the support to go speak out.
Alexander McCobin
And business leaders are humans as well. They want that peer community. They want that support. They want that backing, for speaking out for these principles, too. And that’s what we’re here to provide, or one big part of what we’re providing.
Ben Nadelstein
Yeah. And one benefit I think about the internet is that you might be that one soul kid in West Virginia or Massachusetts and you think, well, I’m the only weirdo, you know, reading these books or interested in these comics or whatever it may be. But then you go on the internet and you see, oh, there’s thousands of people who are interested in this book, or thousands of people who love the same comics as I do.
Ben Nadelstein
And it makes you say, oh, I’m actually not a weirdo. You know, I’m interested in a and maybe a niche topic, but there’s other people interested in that niche and that other people can be millions of people. For example, e-sports of gaming. I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know anything about it. But they’re making millions and millions of dollars in huge arenas and big stadiums, and people are professional video game players.
Ben Nadelstein
Well, okay, if you’re a kid sitting alone in your room thinking, I’m the only one who likes video games, well, maybe you’re not thinking that now. So let’s talk a bit more about Liberty Ventures if you haven’t started yet far away. Let me just.
Alexander McCobin
Jump in on that for a minute, because you’re absolutely right. And what’s really powerful about the internet and building up these movements is that they don’t just have to stay on the internet. In fact, they can’t if they’re going to be really successful with iGaming, you have in-person tournaments around the world for people to come together and play on computers together.
Alexander McCobin
And you might ask, why do you need to do that when you can play computer games online? Well, because there’s something visceral about being in the same physical space as other people. It recharges the batteries, it builds up the excitement. And that’s one of the reasons why perhaps we’re going to get to this in a moment. Liberty ventures puts on so many events we want to bring, like valued business leaders together.
Alexander McCobin
That’s one of the reasons, because it shows that these are real people. It gets everyone more excited, but then it also just leads to deeper relationships and ideation that can spark new business relationships, new opportunities, so that we’re not just talking about the ideas of capitalism, but actually helping people practice it more effectively together from those in-person interactions.
Ben Nadelstein
And that is one thing I want to bring up this difference between, you know, the online business world, obviously, we’ve seen a lot of work from home shifts, which, you know, 20 years ago, ten years ago, people would have thought were impossible. But also there’s now maybe even more impact and even more value meeting someone in person, shaking their hand and networking.
Ben Nadelstein
So can you talk about the changes you’ve seen in terms of networking, making a business connection? Do you think it’s even more important to meet someone in person nowadays?
Alexander McCobin
I think it’s as important as it was before. It’s actually just a lot easier to do that now, because you can start a relationship online and then carry it forward in person. You know, when we were starting students for Liberty back in the day, Skype was the standard mechanism for talking to people. We didn’t have zoom at the time, and it was just a phone call.
Alexander McCobin
It wasn’t video, and that was revolutionary. We were able to do virtual trainings with young people around the world. But I’ve got to say, now that we’ve got zoom and we’ve got slack and we’ve got all of these other communication tools, you can ramp up training so much more effectively. You’re able to have more in-depth conversations much faster and with less friction, and that then encourages more in-person connections and opportunities.
Alexander McCobin
I mean, with the same thing goes with remote work. I’ve been a proponent of that long before Covid and the organizations I ran. And what I love about it is that people can spend most of their time working wherever they want, whether that’s living the nomadic life, going from city to city, or having a home base in rural America like I’m in my I’m at the old family farm right now in Pennsylvania.
Alexander McCobin
But then instead of spending money on an office space, you spend the money on retreats for the team or going to conferences where you’re able to do rapid fire connections and relationship building, or have those important meetings to come up with ideas. But then say, we’ve gotten a lot done here. Let’s all go back for a little while, actually do the work on building these ideas out and building up the businesses, and then get back together again when it’s time to do so.
Alexander McCobin
That’s that’s the huge opportunity with remote work and telecommunications.
Ben Nadelstein
Now let’s talk about a business summit, a meeting. Let’s say you’re meeting someone in person for the people listening. Some of them are great. Networkers are just naturally good looking like myself. Big smile. Dad’s a dentist, you know? Lucky kid. And other people are very nervous about meeting people in person. They’re not sure about, you know, making a business connection, reaching out to someone on LinkedIn.
Ben Nadelstein
So what would be some advice you could give to people, all ages and all walks of life in their business career?
Alexander McCobin
You know, I think I think networking is underappreciated. And I still love that term because you start building relationships by actually developing your network. And deep relationships often begin with informal connections. And I think a lot of people are perfectionists about this. They think if you don’t do it exactly right, you shouldn’t do it at all. Or they’re they are nervous to just put themselves out there.
Alexander McCobin
I was one of those back in the day as well. But the most important thing that I’ve seen, and it has been true in in building up my network and building out Liberty Ventures and and building this movement has been the importance of just reaching out. No matter, no matter how you do. So, do it obviously with the right intention, not there to just suck someone’s time and not there to just demand things from them.
Alexander McCobin
If someone goes in and just starts demanding, an investment or demanding someone become a client or take or take a lot of their time, that’s the wrong way to look at it. But go into reaching out to someone and ask and offering something and giving some kind of value first. Elevating them, providing a platform for them to share their views, even just giving them an opportunity to provide feedback and input on what you’re building to that might be valuable for them in the future can be invaluable.
Alexander McCobin
But I think more more people should just put themselves out there, whether it’s at a conference, just literally go up to someone, stick your hand out and say, hi, my name is Alexander. What’s yours and what are you doing here? Or even just send a cold email introducing yourself and not ask for something, but just explain what you’re doing and either and either, perhaps gather some feedback or offer to give them something.
Alexander McCobin
And you might be, and they might be surprised at how positively people respond, because most everyone wants to help others out. And real and real capitalists understand this is a value for value exchange, and they want to build their networks to find opportunities out there and work with great like value people.
Ben Nadelstein
I want to hear you talk about this quote, which is work hard, be nice, find opportunities. Other overlook. So let’s talk about each of those in turn. Work hard. Be nice. Find opportunities. Other overlook. So for some people that like I’m a workaholic, that part’s easy. They’re being nice. Okay, maybe I could do a little work there, but find opportunities other overlook.
Ben Nadelstein
So can you tell us a bit about this quote and what you think about it?
Alexander McCobin
Sure. So this actually came from Rick Rhule who’s in the Liberty Ventures network, Famous mining and natural resources investor and just incredible entrepreneur and individual who spoke at a Liberty Ventures meetup just last week. And he and I had a 30 minute Q&A and conversation with with the meetup there. But afterwards, he I asked if he would condense it down.
Alexander McCobin
So like 30 seconds, and he gave me a five second overview of everything he had said. And that’s and those three points are it. And working hard is obviously really critical. A lot of people misunderstand business leaders. They think they’re a that everyone needs to be ruthless, vindictive and mean in order to be successful, though. But he was emphasizing and what I’ve actually seen from the most successful business leaders in my career, or that they’re actually really nice.
Alexander McCobin
They are kind to other people. They recognize that this is more collaborative than competitive, and they’re finding ways to support and work with others. And that’s an important mindset, I think, to be really successful. But then finding opportunities others overlook, you know, it’s tough to give an algorithm or an instruction manual for what to do there because other people are overlooking these opportunities there.
Alexander McCobin
If it was well known what to do, then everyone would be doing it. But the great entrepreneurs and great investors do is look out in the market, look out of what other people want that no one else is doing and no one else has perceived yet, and say, I’m going to go and take advantage of that. I’m going to provide this new value.
Alexander McCobin
I’m going to invest in this area that no one else is doing to create new value and to get the best returns from it. And it really does require a mindset of just being on the lookout for that. And then when you when you develop a hypothesis of what others have overlooked, well, then work really hard and be really nice to other people as you’re building it in order to get them on board with helping you accomplish.
Ben Nadelstein
That, I want to ask about a person who I think completely embodies this mindset, which is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. He said, hey, listen, there’s this entire kind of network. I can start here where I can give people convenient, affordable goods through this massive global worldwide marketplace. In my opinion, one of the best businesses markets to ever exist.
Alexander McCobin
And yet I think it’s people argue with that.
Ben Nadelstein
Yeah, it’s tough to argue with that as well as the market cap, but, people hate Jeff Bezos versus someone like a Trader Joe’s, which I couldn’t even potentially name the CEO of Trader Joe’s. People love Trader Joe’s. So in terms of the value creation, I think Amazon has created a lot more value than Trader Joe’s. But why do you think there’s such a difference?
Ben Nadelstein
This is a CEO and entrepreneur who saw a market niche, took it, and created tons of value for people around the world jobs, opportunities, businesses, of course for consumers, convenience, affordability. And yet a company like Trader Joe’s, people just happen to like more. So why such a big dichotomy?
Alexander McCobin
I mean, I think a big part of that is people know more about Jeff Bezos and Amazon than they do about Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is a private company. It you know, when I don’t I actually don’t even know who the current CEO is. You said you don’t either. And I know the former president of Trader Joe’s.
Alexander McCobin
He’s a friend of mine. Really good guy, conscious capitalist. But I don’t think most people know his name. I don’t think people. And if people don’t know who who that person is, they don’t know how much money trader Joe’s is actually making or what it’s doing. It’s a harder target. The other thing is, I think more business leaders should be out there really telling their story.
Alexander McCobin
And Jeff has been fantastic at explaining what’s led to Amazon success, his growth mindset and what he’s doing. I think he could do a better job actually talking about his personal story and building up the Amazon, why he’s doing it a higher purpose than just creating a marketplace, which I think is valuable enough in and of itself. But it doesn’t connect with people the way that it should.
Alexander McCobin
And the more that we’re able to humanize business, instead of people thinking that it’s just evil, greedy individuals focused on the numbers and nothing else but that there is this higher purpose to what business leaders are doing and what business is doing. The more that they can resonate with it.
Ben Nadelstein
I think my favorite example of this is the Girl Scouts. Everyone loves the Girl Scouts. They’re selling cookies, right? That cookies aren’t free, right? If you’ve seen a box of a Girl Scout cookies, those those are becoming a little bit pricier. But everyone loves the Girl Scouts, right? Because, you know, it’s, you know, for a good cause or whatever.
Ben Nadelstein
You don’t even know what it’s for. Just few girls scouts, you know, selling whatever cookies. So let’s talk about that storytelling aspect. The Girl Scouts have great marketing, right? It’s a great story. You’re helping the Girl Scouts and you know, you buy some yummy cookies in the meantime. So what are business leaders missing in terms of the storytelling of saying, hey, you love the marketplace, you love the platform, you love the product, but there’s something actually even more to the story that you’re going to love as well.
Alexander McCobin
It’s about the ultimate impact of what the business is doing that needs to be focused on why are the Girl Scouts so compelling? It’s not just that, it’s the it’s that the girls are the ones selling the cookies. It’s also that the money is going to help them develop skills that are going to be valuable for them in life.
Alexander McCobin
A friend of mine who was in leadership the like national leadership, a Girl Scouts, explain this to me. This is actually one of the big differences between the Girl Scouts and what the Boy Scouts used to do, where the Girl Scouts really did focus on being an entrepreneurial training school for for young women and that’s what the whole point of the cookies are.
Alexander McCobin
And that’s what people, I think resonate with even more. It’s about it’s understanding why these cookies are being sold, what this is doing and why that matters. And more and more businesses, I think, can learn from this. And really explaining the ultimate reason that they exist, the value that that’s their higher purpose and how they’re creating value for their other stakeholders.
Alexander McCobin
And yes, guess what? The Girl Scouts are making a lot of money. There are a lot of people making good money and their leadership, even as a nonprofit organization and the national org, it has a great reserve. As a result of their cookie sales. But there’s a clear purpose to what they’re doing. The more businesses lean into that higher purpose and tell that story and talk about the people that they impact, the more people I think will trust them and will be inclined to support them.
Alexander McCobin
And that’s what I think more businesses can learn from this.
Ben Nadelstein
Researching for our interview today, I found out that the current CEO of Walmart actually started as an associate and climbed his way up to be the company’s leader. He is now the CEO and started as an associate. So when you think, wow, maybe this is a story that is, you know, new to you or new to some of our viewers, and this is not widely known, it feels like there is a complete marketing failure in terms of what these companies could achieve versus someone like a Tesla.
Ben Nadelstein
Elon Musk CEO, where people go, wow, I know this guy’s story in and out. Whether you love him, whether you hate him, a mark Zuckerberg where it feels like the CEO is really, you know, a big part of the company. So if you are a CEO of business, if you are a business leader, how should you think about telling your own story, saying you know where you started from without it being tacky, without it being like an egotistical play?
Ben Nadelstein
Where can we weave in the storytelling with the business?
Alexander McCobin
I think it comes down to each leader, figuring out where their story fits into the business, because there is an important difference between Ellen and Zuckerberg, versus the CEO of Walmart, and that Mark and Ellen were the founders of their companies. And it’s actually a lot easier for the founders to interweave their story in with the business, because they’re talking about their motivations for being in there.
Alexander McCobin
But that’s not to say that the CEO of a public company or someone who was hired by a board or a family to run a private business can’t tell their story as well. They have to be a little more careful because they they need to answer to other people here. And the business is separate. It’s about the longevity of the business.
Alexander McCobin
But talking about why the company matters to them, the opportunities that they’ve gotten from that company and actually connecting it with that business, I think can be done and is really powerful. And oftentimes I think we actually see CEOs brought in to public companies who can’t weave their story and with it, who are just looking at it by the numbers that lead to the bigger disconnect and perhaps aren’t as successful.
Alexander McCobin
You know, the outgoing CEO of Starbucks who who was let go last year, I don’t think he really weaved his story yet with what Starbucks is all about. And there wasn’t a clear connection there. And that’s not only something that led to a disconnection for a lot of people with Starbucks, but it led to him not being a successful in there.
Alexander McCobin
So I actually think this isn’t just a nice thing to do for the PR or the image of capitalism. It’s actually a really effective business strategy for leaders to think about as well. How does their story connect with the business and connect with capitalism to resonate with more people and to be more successful?
Ben Nadelstein
I want you to touch a little bit on the point that you just mentioned, which is, hey, this isn’t just a dumb marketing ploy for no reason. This is actually a good thing to do. As well as being good for the business. I remember having a conversation with a friend many years ago and she said, well, you know, the CEO at this company, he decided to just double the pay of his workers and give everyone health benefits.
Ben Nadelstein
And the company became more profitable. And I said, well, that’s great. That’s you know, if that’s a strategy that other companies can use, they should just mail him a letter and say, hey, you have billions of dollars, you know, of potential profit on the table by, you know, doing this, whatever, raising salaries or doing some employee here.
Ben Nadelstein
So let’s talk about, you know, some people think, well, if I’m doing this, this is bad for business or, well, if I’m going to be conscious about my business, then I have to go down this whole rabbit hole of just giving the whole business away and not focusing on profits. So what are people missing when they think that?
Alexander McCobin
I think there’s a real problem in the business world of just following standard operating procedure from other businesses, from industries, or what’s taught in business schools. There unfortunately aren’t that many people who actually come in with really creative ideas or are thinking about the higher the higher order goals of the business, even thinking about how to be more profitable.
Alexander McCobin
And this, this really comes down, comes back to the same reason a lot of business leaders don’t speak out about capitalism. They’re human. They it’s so much easier. Just do the same thing other people are doing to avoid being criticized, to avoid being penalized if something goes wrong, then if you go and do something different from everyone else, whether it’s speaking out about a philosophy or the economic system in which we operate or the business strategies employed, if, if imagine if that same CEO had doubled the salaries of employees and given health benefits and profitability tanked?
Alexander McCobin
Well, that was outside of standard operating procedure, what’s recommended by other businesses. And clearly it’s because you did something different that it was wrong. And but imagine but if you just stayed with what everyone else was doing and profitability didn’t increase in what in the real situation? Well, he’s not going to be penalized for doing what everyone else is doing because that’s standard operating.
Alexander McCobin
That’s what that’s what we expect. And this actually even gets at one of the things that people criticize CEOs for so much compensation packages. I have to say, I believe any executive who is delivering outsized performance and returns for businesses should be given outsized compensation. Absolutely. But that’s not what’s happening with a lot of these pay packages. Most of the time, it’s just boards hiring outside consultants to come in and tell them what industry standard is and then saying, well, we need to give above industry standard because we don’t we want an above standard CEO and the pay package reflects that.
Alexander McCobin
And if we’re paying less, we’re saying there are less qualified CEO and what that reflects on the business as a whole. And so it creates this trap where compensation keeps going up and up independent of performance, which is absurd. It’s we need to find some way for business leaders to be willing to do what’s best for the business and for all their stakeholders, even if that’s different from what everyone else is doing and to and to encourage businesses to look at their own performance more than anything else, and how they can do better in order to accomplish that.
Ben Nadelstein
One thing I think a lot of people want to know about is they hear in the news, well, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, only gets paid $1 as a salary and he’s avoiding all these taxes and stuff. And, you know, Warren Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary. So can we talk a little bit about the pay packages that people are getting, why it feels unfair, and what it means to align the incentives of the person running the business, or the founder of the business, and the actual profitability of the business.
Ben Nadelstein
Why does it matter that these incentives are aligned?
Alexander McCobin
Well, here’s the interesting thing we need. You want aligned incentives for people who really should be taking ownership of the business for its long term success. And that means sometimes they do. They do really well. If the business does well, they also do really badly. If the business does badly. And we and a lot of people miss out on the fact that there are a lot of executives out there or founders and people involved early in a business and startups especially, that don’t do very well because the business doesn’t do very well.
Alexander McCobin
It’s risky. We’re looking at we’re cherry picking the people who have done the the best year. But there are also there’s also a need to make sure that there’s stability for some people, especially those who who aren’t making as much and don’t have higher level positions. They they’ve got bills to pay, they’ve got families to feed. And so it’s really important for them to, to have regular salaries and income in order to support them.
Alexander McCobin
But this is really different. But that’s a different question from tax structure. I think we do have a really backwards tax structure in the US right now that should be standardize much, much simpler for people to understand and be a lot fairer. But but that doesn’t require us to to to complicate it more actually requires us to simplify it when it comes to the ways that people actually generate income.
Alexander McCobin
But then, of course, the last thing I have to say here is you’re always able to give more to the government than what they ask for. People forget this if they want. If they think they’re not paying enough in taxes, they can always write another check to Uncle Sam. That’s perfectly allowed and actually used to happen from some wealthier individuals in the country.
Alexander McCobin
So that’s always on the table.
Ben Nadelstein
Yeah. And one thing I like in this discussion is you’re saying, hey, maybe the tax system needs reforming, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is that there is a certain level of risk that a business owner takes on. And if we’re using selection bias and saying, well, this guy was successful, but there’s something called a risk adjusted return, which is that it’s not just the return period, it’s the risk adjusted return.
Ben Nadelstein
And so someone like a Warren Buffett or, Mark Zuckerberg, they didn’t know if they were going to ever get paid versus the assistant or the secretary or the guy, you know, cleaning the gutters. Well, he knows he’s getting paid because he’s employed by the business. He gets a paycheck no matter what. The guy who says, listen, whatever’s left over is mine.
Ben Nadelstein
Sometimes there’s stuff left over. Other times there’s not. So let’s not just say, well, because someone took a risk and they were successful, they need to be just as successful as the person who decided, hey, I prefer a little less risk and a little more, guaranteed return. So, Alexander, I want to let you comment on that, and then we’ll get into a lightning round.
Alexander McCobin
Well, I like the point to emphasize here is that it’s not just about preference. It’s that honestly, you you need a more guaranteed income if you don’t have as much. It’s not something that can be risky or wait until the end of the year to see how things go or anything else. So that is really important to have the right balance between guaranteed income versus risk based income.
Ben Nadelstein
Alexander, we’re going to now get into a lightning round. I’m going to ask you a question. You are allowed to answer as short or as long as you want. You can go from one word to, you know, two hours. So let’s start with which thinkers or books had the most profound influence on your intellectual development.
Alexander McCobin
Obviously, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand was the is the number one that I have to mention. Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey is up there as well. I, you know, I wanted I want to reference one more recently perhaps that I think, is that I think is valuable for people to read. And. Well, I got to say, Saleem Ishmael’s exponential organizations is, is something that I thought most business leaders have read by now, but apparently haven’t.
Alexander McCobin
And I think it’s absolutely critical to understand where the economy is going, in the future, even though was written ten years ago. But it’s just absolutely profound.
Ben Nadelstein
Next question. What are the biggest blind spots that you see entrepreneurs having?
Alexander McCobin
I don’t know if I have anything unique to say about this, but the biggest challenge with entrepreneurship is product market fit. Too many entrepreneurs have a great idea and think this should exist in the world, and if people don’t understand that, that’s their own fault. Instead of realizing no, you actually need to figure out what your customers want, but people are willing to pay for what?
Alexander McCobin
Because that indicates the real value that they’re getting, and it’s the way to make it sustainable. So really, digging into that product market fit more than finding investors, more than having a the, a flashy website, and more than just doing something that you built before that you think is really cool. Focus on what you’re doing to create real value for other people, because that’s what product market fit really comes down to.
Ben Nadelstein
I’m friends with people who are in the crypto space, and one of the one of the funny quotes I’ve read recently was, you don’t need a token, you need a business. And this is obviously talking about the the product market fit, right? We don’t need a token for everything. You need a sustainable, profitable business. Okay. Then maybe we can talk about a token later.
Ben Nadelstein
So now let’s let’s talk about the crypto world. Do you think that this is overhyped a bubble or do you think. No, there’s actual real value creation happening in the crypto economy.
Alexander McCobin
Really. There’s some places that are bubbles in. A lot of the alt currencies really aren’t that. And people need to be careful about those alternative coins. But I do think cryptocurrency as a concept is here to stay. I it’s something I admittedly, I was skeptical about when I first learned about it. My biggest regret in life is probably going to be that I did not buy Bitcoin at $5 when I had friends who were doing so and who were telling me, this is the future, and I was skeptical about it, I but I will say, I think there are a couple that are really good.
Alexander McCobin
Bitcoin obviously, I is going to be here. I think Ethereum is actually stronger than a lot of its, they sayers would suggest. But we but we also need to establish rules of the road for how this works. And blockchain technology in general is just so powerful. I love the idea of putting all government spending on the blockchain that’s publicly accessible going forward, and hope that actually happens.
Ben Nadelstein
Next one how do you measure impact in an area which generally is is often slow to change and has some non-linear results? So for years and years you can toil away at something. It can seem like nothing’s happening. And then the next thing you know, exponential growth. So what’s a way that you measure impact in the space?
Alexander McCobin
Depends on what you’re trying to do. I mean, there there is nothing that happens overnight. Everything takes a long time. And then it seems to happen overnight. So as an individual, I measure my own effort and my energy to keep up with something, knowing that it’s going to take a while to come to fruition. If it’s a long term goal.
Alexander McCobin
But that but in terms of an organization, I think it requires businesses to say to them to really figure out for themselves what they want to accomplish and define a metric. Don’t let it be amorphous, even if it’s the wrong goal to start with, and learn over time that it’s the wrong thing. Adjust the metrics for what you should really do, and that doesn’t mean if you’re not hitting goals.
Alexander McCobin
Say we need to change the metrics because it’s not working. It actually might be. We’re hitting our goals, but not with the metrics. But it’s not achieving the the purpose. We’re here for. Maybe we need to change that, to challenge ourselves more, to accomplish what we want. But having something is so much more powerful than having nothing.
Ben Nadelstein
If you had to start Liberty Ventures again from scratch today, what would you do differently this time?
Alexander McCobin
Well, I mean, we’re we’re less than two years old right now. We’re still basically restarting it every month as we keep figuring new things out. And that’s a really important part of entrepreneurship. You pivot, you figure out what to do. So we’re still in that process. But I will say one of the big things that we’re going to do differently in 2025 that I haven’t shared anywhere else, it’s an exclusive for monetary metals, is we’re going to be leaning a lot more into just being a publisher or a site, a source of information about what values aligned business leaders are doing, because we’ve realized that there is an interest in a demand for that out
Alexander McCobin
there. No one knows what like value business leaders are up to, and it’s so much cheaper and easier to do that now with social media. And if we can be the clearinghouse for people to discover what new startups are developing from these leaders, what innovations are happening, what challenges people are facing that they want to solve, what opportunities are out there, then we believe we’re going to be able to build this community out.
Alexander McCobin
We’re going to be able to make more of the right connections, and we’re going to be able to capitalize on those opportunities.
Ben Nadelstein
What’s something you think the business world needs right now that it doesn’t currently have.
Alexander McCobin
Liberty Ventures, or at least a bigger Liberty Ventures network? That’s why we’re here. The business world needs more capitalists who believe in capitalism to do business together and to be connected to each other, and that’s why we exist.
Ben Nadelstein
There are more of us out there than you think. Okay, next question. What are some of the more exciting entrepreneurial ventures that maybe our audience does not know are happening right now?
Alexander McCobin
I mean, there are so many out there and they may have heard about this, but perhaps it’s not getting the mainstream media attention that it deserves. Number one, boom supersonic, an incredible startup that’s developing supersonic jet travel again, overcoming all the regulatory hurdles that brought the Concorde down decades ago and actually developing technology that’s mind blowing. They’re actually breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom.
Alexander McCobin
And and they are just getting going. They expect to roll out commercial supersonic jets in the next five years. Just absolutely love them. And Blake is such an amazing values aligned founder. Second Angel Studios. They have just upended the media industry with their guild system that brings all the audience in to evaluating movie and television ideas before they go into production.
Alexander McCobin
That’s led to absolute monster hits. They’re growing so fast, and I just love the their founders, the Harmon brothers, and what their and the whole team and what they’re doing over there. They are well worth joining the guild system to be a part of. And the movies and TV shows are just top notch. Worth watching.
Ben Nadelstein
Okay, next one for you. If you had to bet on one emerging technology, which is going to enhance human flourishing in the next decade or so, what do you think that technology would be?
Alexander McCobin
AI, robotics, cryptocurrency? The blockchain, these are all still here. I think we’re going to see some new technologies come out of all of this that we don’t know about yet, which makes me even more excited.
Ben Nadelstein
Let’s talk about something on the negative side. What’s an emerging regulatory threat that you think most businesses are not aware of or paying enough attention to?
Alexander McCobin
That’s a really interesting question. And the landscape is changing in America right now. So admittedly, I’ve been focusing on all the positive things happening more than the negatives when it comes to regulatory threats. But I think more I think a lot of business leaders are thinking about globalization and tariffs and, and those issues, which maybe are regulations, maybe not.
Alexander McCobin
But I’m just going to say I think that’s going to be an increasing threat to business going forward. Regionalization is going to be a bigger issue, and more leaders need to take that into account in their strategies. In building their businesses up, there is not going to be a universal, global standard for how to conduct business the way that it used to be in my in my estimation.
Alexander McCobin
And there are going to be more challenges with international activity.
Ben Nadelstein
What do you think about the idea of business dynamism being in decline? First of all, do you agree that this is happening? Second of all, do you even think this is necessarily a bad thing? Clearly, we could reframe this sentence and say business churn is in decline. So is that maybe a good thing? What do you think about this business dynamism aspect?
Alexander McCobin
I think it was in decline for a while. It’s changing in a matter of months. So there there does seem to be a vibe shift in America right now where and it’s not just policy, it is cultural. There is a newfound appreciation for entrepreneurship and business in the last few months that didn’t feel before, and I think that’s really important.
Alexander McCobin
Churn is not necessarily a bad thing. It means that there are new businesses starting, and it’s just really tough to figure out. We need dynamism, we need new ideas, we need new attempts. And this is actually one of the things that has been critical to America’s success and is a part of our cultural DNA. I have had the fortune to travel to many countries around the world, and for a long time I didn’t appreciate how different America was until the last few years.
Alexander McCobin
But as I visited more countries, as I’ve really spent more time in other countries, not just visiting for a conference, but living for a few weeks or a few months at a time in other places. There’s something about being American that makes us optimistic, that leads us to take risks, to try things and to be okay with failure.
Alexander McCobin
Actually, to celebrate failure as part of the learning process that is not accepted in other places. You start a business and you fail. You’ve got a you’ve got a scarlet letter for the rest of your life. In other countries in America. Well, you’re cutting your teeth. Time to go and start company number two. Time to try again. And that is such a good thing.
Alexander McCobin
That is so inspiring. And one of the reasons I am proud to be American and love the culture of this country. And we need to maintain that. We need to advance that.
Ben Nadelstein
Okay, now let’s get to my next question, which perfectly ties in. What’s a country or an area jurisdiction that you think is actually implementing business policies in a way that the U.S. could learn from?
Alexander McCobin
I mean, Argentina is the obvious answer. Lula is doing incredible things down there, and I really hope that our government copies a lot of what’s going on and and actually takes it to the next level.
Ben Nadelstein
If you are a young entrepreneur, come to you, he’s in his teens maybe saying, hey, listen, I like the cut of your jib. I’m interested in this whole business entrepreneurship stuff. What’s one positive thing you would tell them to do and one thing you would tell them to avoid would say.
Alexander McCobin
Go get started, try something out, no matter how big or small it is, and go apply for the Principal Business Accelerator. It’s a free program that we put on, actually, to encourage young entrepreneurs to just go out and get started and connect them with investors and seasoned entrepreneurs who come in and teach to help encourage them. So I would say, just get started with that.
Alexander McCobin
Number one thing I would tell them to avoid doing is thinking about investors. Do not start with that. Start by really thinking about the value that you’re going to create, the purpose behind this existing test, and testing it out. The worst thing that an entrepreneur can do is if they, especially if they’re just starting out, is to think, how do I go and get other people to give me money to build the business?
Alexander McCobin
Not it’s got to be how okay, how do I cut as much of my spending as possible and just build them something as cheaply as possible, almost for nothing, and prove that there’s something here before I go and talk to anyone else about getting more actively involved or investing in this.
Ben Nadelstein
Who, in your opinion, is the best business storyteller of today?
Alexander McCobin
You know, I was going to say that’s a tough question. There are a few really incredible individuals though. I can’t believe I’m blanking on his name, but the founder of the X Prize does a remarkable job telling the stories of the businesses that have come out of that prize and the work that they’re doing, and the reason that it exists.
Alexander McCobin
I think Simon Sinek is doing a terrific job highlighting the higher purpose of businesses and what drives them. And so, you know, whether you like him or not, Elon Musk is doing a fantastic job talking about his purpose and telling the story of his businesses. He has a clear vision for what he’s trying to do, and that’s why.
Alexander McCobin
And that’s one of the reasons so many people resonate with them. But again, whether you like him or not, he’s telling the story.
Ben Nadelstein
We’re going to Mars whether you like it or not. Okay, final question for you, Alexander. What’s a question I should ask all future guests of the podcast?
Alexander McCobin
Why does capitalism matter? And what are you going to do to keep advancing not just your own business, but the system in which you operate?
Ben Nadelstein
Alexander, where can people find more of your work? And of course, find Liberty Ventures?
Alexander McCobin
Does it Liberty Ventures, XYZ? And for anyone listening who is a likely business leader, just let us know you exist. We’d love to get you on the newsletter to share information about what’s happening. We want to share insights with you. We want to plug you into our events in the network so that you can be surrounded by and work with, like the new business leaders.
Ben Nadelstein
Please put your names in the comments so we can see all of you out there. Start a network. And of course, Alexander, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Alexander McCobin
Thank you Ben.
