28 May Which is the best place to come up with a great idea?
Which is the best place to come up with a great idea? According to Brian Chesky, founder of Airbnb, it’s the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco, while Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg does her thinking on the treadmill and Bill Gates finds inspiration behind the wheel of his car. A total of 16 successful entrepreneurs and CEOs answered the same question during an episode of Masters of Scale. In the podcast, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman illustrates how big companies have gone from zero to success, comparing his theories with those of the entrepreneurs. Each episode has a main guest and several “appearances“. In the last episode of the second season (available online), Hoffman says he asked everyone “which is your favourite place to think big?”. Here are the answers.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder: the Walt Disney Family Museum, in San Francisco.
Mariam Naficy from Minted (design e-commerce): a jog on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, does his best thinking while walking on the lawn of his home.
Nancy Lublin from Crisis Text Line, an active 24-hour psychological support service, reflects when she listens and talks with others.
Reed Hastings from Netflix: “In the living room of my home in Santa Cruz”.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal (together with Elon Musk): “Anywhere beautiful in nature”.
Flickr’s Catherine Fake, prefers a time of day more than a place: she thinks and works better between 2 and 5 am.
Evan Williams, founder of Blogger and Medium, goes walking in order to think, doesn’t matter where, «wherever».
Sheryl Sandberg, Coo of Facebook: the best place is the treadmill.
Sam Altman, president of the Y Combinator accelerator: inside a nice office, “like a Japanese wooden teahouse in the middle of a forest”.
Payal Kadakia of ClassPass, an app that gives access to gyms and fitness centres, thinks big in a dance school.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, says that “walking and driving are excellent opportunities for thinking”.
Mark Pincus of Zynga, videogames company: “My surfboard and my bicycle”.
John Elkann, the Italian president of FCA: «In nature, because, on the one hand, you realize how incredibly extraordinary nature is and, on the other, it really stimulates you to think big, to dream and to be ambitious ».
Sara Blakely, creator and CEO of Spanx, thinks a lot in her car, especially on the way to the office.
Even the “conductor” Reid Hoffman gave his opinion. According to him, the best way to think big is to “go to new places”, like a bar where he has never been to before.