Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Extra. It's our weekly podcast bringing you an in
Speaker 1: depth interview you will not hear anywhere else. Well, this
Speaker 1: week we caught up with a venture capitalist. His name
Speaker 1: is Patrick McGinnis, but you don't know him as a
Speaker 1: venture capitalist, and you probably haven't heard his name, but
Speaker 1: I guarantee you you've heard of something he came up with,
Speaker 1: FOMO Fear of missing Out, absolutely FOMO and also FOMO
Speaker 1: now Fear of Better Options. He's also got a new
Speaker 1: book out, Jason. It's called Fear of Missing Out, Practical
Speaker 1: decision Making in a world of overwhelming choice. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting is he really applies it to our COVID nineteen world,
Speaker 1: something to think about as we are all sheltering in place.
Speaker 1: So basically, this book is a reflection of where we
Speaker 1: are today as a society, how we spend our time.
Speaker 1: And I met in FOMO when I was back in
Speaker 1: business school at Harvard Business School in the year two
Speaker 1: thousand and three, before there was any social media. But
Speaker 1: now we're in a place where all of us are
Speaker 1: living with fomo. We were inundating with information and social
Speaker 1: media and all these influences, and so we have to
Speaker 1: find a way to deal with it. Alright, So can
Speaker 1: we go back to that first thing. I can't skip
Speaker 1: past that because I mentioned this to my two teenagers
Speaker 1: that I was going to interview you today and that
Speaker 1: you're the inventor of fomo, and they're like, we want
Speaker 1: to hear more about this. So on behalf of Will
Speaker 1: and Henry. I am asking this question, how did you
Speaker 1: how did you come up with this? What was the
Speaker 1: what was the germ of the idea here? Yeah, so listen.
Speaker 1: I I grew up a small town in Maine and
Speaker 1: it's a very calm place, not like going on. And
Speaker 1: then I lived in New York, but I was working
Speaker 1: all the time, so I didn't have time pomo. And
Speaker 1: then right before I went to business school, there were
Speaker 1: two things that happened in here in New York City
Speaker 1: that really affected me. Number one was I was working
Speaker 1: in venture capital in two thousand and so everything blew
Speaker 1: up and we basically lost all our money and it
Speaker 1: was very traumatic. But far worse than that was I
Speaker 1: lived through nine eleven. I lived in more in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and we all remember what that was like. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, I just wanted to live life to
Speaker 1: the fullest. Was carpet a d M for me. And
Speaker 1: when I got to HBS, you know, it's such a
Speaker 1: choice rich environment in terms of the amounts of classes
Speaker 1: and job opportunities and parties and trips and and all
Speaker 1: of these things were happening, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: do all of them. And even though I didn't there
Speaker 1: was no social media. In fact, Marcu Zuckerberg was across
Speaker 1: the river working on the first version of Facebook at
Speaker 1: the exact same time that I was over in business school.
Speaker 1: Even though we didn't have social media, we all lived
Speaker 1: in such close product proximity to each other and we
Speaker 1: could compare ourselves to each other that I basically felt
Speaker 1: this anxiety that I was never doing enough and I
Speaker 1: couldn't keep up. And I started calling that if you
Speaker 1: were missing out. I shortened it to fomo, and I
Speaker 1: wrote an article in our school newspaper called social Theory
Speaker 1: at HBS Beginnesses, two foes, and I talked all about
Speaker 1: fomo and its culture in our campus wow, and it
Speaker 1: went viral. Well, you know, it's funny. I have to
Speaker 1: thank you guys, because it went viral on campus, and
Speaker 1: then I graduated and forgot about it. But Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine wrote about it in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: in the context of HBS. That's the first time I
Speaker 1: saw it outside of when I wrote about it. And
Speaker 1: then slowly it's sort of crept into the vocabulary because
Speaker 1: you know, every year kids were graduating from business schools
Speaker 1: and bringing it to all of the firms that they
Speaker 1: went to work for. Yeah, all right, well, good, well,
Speaker 1: we're happy to be a footnote in the creation and Patrick,
Speaker 1: you're welcome. But it's but it's such a big thing, right.
Speaker 1: We talked about this like just trying to have balance
Speaker 1: and just being present, enjoying where you are rather than
Speaker 1: thinking about what you're missing. And so how do you
Speaker 1: get to this in a world where like everybody's having
Speaker 1: a hard time about what they're missing right now, you know,
Speaker 1: or what they're going to be missing on the other
Speaker 1: side of this, because we can't go back to life
Speaker 1: as we knew it. It's so true. And listen, it's
Speaker 1: been interesting because in the beginning of the pandemic, we
Speaker 1: all felt, I think a sense of relief that we
Speaker 1: didn't have that social pressure. And you know, it goes
Speaker 1: beyond social pressure. Also is about how we spend our
Speaker 1: money and how we invest our money. It has all
Speaker 1: these other implications. But for that one moment, I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I haven't had fomo in two weeks.
Speaker 1: And then over time, as we started to sort of
Speaker 1: realize this is going to drag on, I think we
Speaker 1: all started to feel it. And the big thing to
Speaker 1: remember with fomo is that fomo is caused by two things.
Speaker 1: Number One, it's the perception that something better is out
Speaker 1: there happening than what you're doing at the moment. So
Speaker 1: perception can be deception. You have to really dig into
Speaker 1: whether something is as good as it looks on the surface.
Speaker 1: And the second is it's about her behavior following the crowd.
Speaker 1: So when you feel fomo, asked yourself, is this something
Speaker 1: I truly want to do because it's something I want
Speaker 1: to do? Or am I feeling pressure to sort of
Speaker 1: keep up with the jones as an external pressure on me?
Speaker 1: Can I just say, what's really interesting is and and
Speaker 1: maybe this is all of a sudden like everybody doing zooms,
Speaker 1: and you know there's tons of now fitness Zoom classes
Speaker 1: when initially there wasn't a lot of things to choose from. Right,
Speaker 1: everybody was ramping up, and I kind of loved it
Speaker 1: because the world became so simple and there weren't a
Speaker 1: ton of things I had to make decisions. And now
Speaker 1: it's like do I want to do this Zoom business
Speaker 1: class or this one? Do I want to do this
Speaker 1: Zoom family meeting or this one? Like it's it's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: how you know, again, fomo hits even in this world.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that kind of blown my mind about
Speaker 1: this is what has happened. Is we so we you know,
Speaker 1: we all stay home. But the thing that provokes much
Speaker 1: of our fomo, which is you know, connectivity and our
Speaker 1: cell phones and social media. We're actually on it more
Speaker 1: now than we were before. My screen time and I'm
Speaker 1: careful about this. Look at your screen time, everybody, Like
Speaker 1: it's frightening how much spending on our devices, right, and
Speaker 1: so we're just we're getting into actually kind of a
Speaker 1: worse place than we were before. I would say, let's
Speaker 1: continue our conversation with Patrick McGinnis. He's got a new
Speaker 1: book out. It's called Fear of Missing out practical decision
Speaker 1: making in a world of overwhelming choice. Johnnys on the
Speaker 1: phone on launch day. As Carol mentioned, he's got a
Speaker 1: big event tonight virtual of course, because that's the world
Speaker 1: we're living in. And Patrick, first of all, thanks for
Speaker 1: sticking with us. And I have to ask you. You know,
Speaker 1: we were starting in the first part of our conversation
Speaker 1: to get into this notion of sort of how the
Speaker 1: world has changed and how FOMO still is creeping into
Speaker 1: what we're doing. What is the effect of sort of
Speaker 1: how we think about missing out or you also talk
Speaker 1: about FOBO fear of a better option. How do we
Speaker 1: think about that differently? Do you think on the other
Speaker 1: side of this as we get to what some people
Speaker 1: are calling sort of the next normal. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: really important question because I think we have a lot
Speaker 1: to learn in this moment, and if we pay attention
Speaker 1: and put down our phones for a minute and think
Speaker 1: about what's going on, we can come out of this
Speaker 1: actually better people, better society. And so I would think
Speaker 1: on the FOMO side, it's really about paying attention right
Speaker 1: now to what you truly miss and what you realize
Speaker 1: you don't really miss. Writing that down actually and then
Speaker 1: when you re emerge into the real world, remembering these
Speaker 1: things like it's incredible the little things I miss. I
Speaker 1: live in New York City. I missed the subway, I
Speaker 1: miss going to a lot of the rest ran into
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. What I don't miss is over scheduling myself
Speaker 1: or being stressed out about some of the things that
Speaker 1: don't really matter. So I think thinking about that right
Speaker 1: now and being introspective about that helpful phobo, which is
Speaker 1: a fear of a better option. This is the other
Speaker 1: thing that I wrote about back in business school, but
Speaker 1: it never got famous. But it's just as bad, I
Speaker 1: would say, worse than fomo because phobo is about never
Speaker 1: sort of accepting a deal, always wanting to trade up,
Speaker 1: always wanting to wait for something better to come along.
Speaker 1: And I think that we've seen in this pandemic that
Speaker 1: the people who were waiting for something better to come
Speaker 1: along when it came to making the hard decisions about
Speaker 1: closing down and social distancing, uh, they found out very
Speaker 1: quickly that delaying decision making actually has terrible effects. I
Speaker 1: totally agree with that. I think that's such an interesting insight.
Speaker 1: Right the amount of time like you stew over making
Speaker 1: a decision. Sometimes you just gotta just do it and
Speaker 1: move on totally. I mean this, this is a great
Speaker 1: example in public policy with whether it's COVID or it's
Speaker 1: or it's Brexit. But it's also if you think about
Speaker 1: you know, entrepreneurs versus incoming companies, these traditional companies that
Speaker 1: they have all this money and resources, but they can't
Speaker 1: move quickly. And the reason why you know, the auties
Speaker 1: get eaten up by the teslas is because the startups
Speaker 1: have to move. They don't have the resources just to
Speaker 1: sit around and weave for something better. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: there's it also feels like many folks are gaining a
Speaker 1: sense of clarity to your earlier point about fomo, about
Speaker 1: sort of what they need and what they don't need.
Speaker 1: But also when a lot is stripped away, maybe you
Speaker 1: stop thinking, well, I'm going to do this thing next,
Speaker 1: and I'm really just doing this until I get a
Speaker 1: chance to do X. And there's also this sense it
Speaker 1: feels like right now Patrick that you know, we're all
Speaker 1: much more aware of our mortality in in some ways,
Speaker 1: and and maybe saying either Okay, I'm gonna make that
Speaker 1: decision to do something different, or maybe I need to
Speaker 1: sort of reassess and and really be honest about how
Speaker 1: I'm feeling about this situation right now and not always
Speaker 1: be a grass is greener sort of person. Now, for sure,
Speaker 1: the reality is that we are having this opportunity, but
Speaker 1: just with as what we lived within nine eleven, there
Speaker 1: was this period of introspection and then we sort of
Speaker 1: resume these sorts of yeas that we wish we hadn't done.
Speaker 1: And so I actually suspect that there will be a
Speaker 1: wave of a massive fomo when we are able to
Speaker 1: live our lives again. And I think it's okay for
Speaker 1: a little while, because when you have fomo means there
Speaker 1: something to miss out on, because that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But we we definitely want to be conscious of what
Speaker 1: we've learned right now because you know, if we learn
Speaker 1: something and pay attention, we can just live much more
Speaker 1: decisive lives. How do you apply fomo in the workplace? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a very anybody been on LinkedIn lately and seeing
Speaker 1: all of your friends with their promotions and you start
Speaker 1: to feel like you're just not good enough. I mean
Speaker 1: that is that is an incredibly sort of active use case.
Speaker 1: But really I think about fomo in terms of not
Speaker 1: only in terms of not being sort of grateful or
Speaker 1: thankful for what you do have and then more fixating
Speaker 1: on what you don't have, but all so in terms
Speaker 1: of running businesses, when businesses start to do things because
Speaker 1: of fomo, when Pepsi brings Crystal Pepsi on the market
Speaker 1: because they want to keep up with sprite, when you're
Speaker 1: doing things for the wrong reasons because you're following in
Speaker 1: the crowd, you are apt to make mistakes. And so
Speaker 1: how do you think We've been asking sort of big
Speaker 1: thinkers that this question, like, what are the underappreciated ways
Speaker 1: that you think we change as either humans or business
Speaker 1: people investors On the other side of this, so, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling, um that it's unfortunate that this whole
Speaker 1: sort of situation has become quite political. And I think
Speaker 1: that we're going to see through the rest of the
Speaker 1: year that the political divide that is created by this
Speaker 1: is going to play out in our election, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to see effects on the election and potentially
Speaker 1: with voting and voting rights and things like that. And
Speaker 1: so I think the big question that I asked myself
Speaker 1: as I look at this pandemic. Is what is the
Speaker 1: role that it will have in effect our democracy? And
Speaker 1: how can we as citizens come together to actually defend
Speaker 1: something that's so precious to us. And I think that's
Speaker 1: going to be the conversation this year. Right now, we're
Speaker 1: all dealing with the medical emergency. Next we'll be dealing
Speaker 1: with the economic impact, and we're gonna be dealing with
Speaker 1: the impact to our democratic systems. And that was venture
Speaker 1: capitalist and author Patrick McGinnis, inventor of the term fomo.
Speaker 1: I have to say I was skeptical going in as
Speaker 1: where my son's but then when he made the case, like, okay,
Speaker 1: that checks out. I mean, fascinating to understand where it
Speaker 1: came from and also how it applies to the life
Speaker 1: that we're living right now. And can we just say,
Speaker 1: you gotta love that he gave props to Bloomberg business Week.
Speaker 1: Be Yes, they wrote about him years ago when he
Speaker 1: created the term fomo. He wrote about it, he wrote
Speaker 1: an article while he was at Harvard Business School, and
Speaker 1: apparently Business Week picked it up and that really gave
Speaker 1: him a lot of attention. So good A love that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for him. It all comes together, all right, you've
Speaker 1: been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra, be sure to
Speaker 1: tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Money through Friday,
Speaker 1: starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser, And this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg h