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May 10, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
17:42
Episode 524 Scott Adams: Steve Wynn’s Philosophy on Culture and Other Fun Things
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Hey everybody! Coming to you from an unusual time and space.
I've got a little treat for you, but I'll wait for a few of you to get on before we get into it.
So, how many of you saw the President's tweet Apparently the administration has negotiated for 200,000 free AIDS drugs from Gilead Pharmacy for people who don't have insurance and can't afford it.
Now, I don't know if you know how big a deal that is, but if I'm understanding this right, I think this is the drug that if you're on it, you don't get it or you don't infect other people.
So if one of the partners is on it, you're usually good.
I think that's how it works. But the problem is that if there are some people who don't have access to the drug, then it's still going to spread.
The way to take care of it is take care of all of it.
And I don't know if this is as big as I think it is, but did Trump just cure AIDS? Now, I realize that's an overstatement.
It would take years to beat it back and it'll still be big in other countries, etc.
But this deal Looks like a kill shot for AIDS in the United States, if it's what I think it is.
I hope I'm not overestimating the power of this, but my understanding is that the current AIDS drugs are so good that they do stop it from spreading.
They don't cure it, per se, but they're also drugs for treating.
So I don't know exactly.
How big a deal this will be in terms of getting rid of AIDS, but between the drugs that keep it under control and keep it from spreading, I'm not sure how many drugs are involved here, it looks like we're right at the point of solving one of the most difficult to solve problems of all time.
So we'll wait for some details on that, but I wanted to tell you a fun little story and then show you something That I think you'll enjoy.
So you'll be glad that you watch this Periscope.
And if you sign off before you see the good parts, you're going to be really mad.
So I was watching a YouTube interview with Steve Wynn.
Now, Steve Wynn is the billionaire who built much of Las Vegas.
So he built a lot of the big name hotels.
He has hotels around the world, etc.
And he was being interviewed about his career in life.
And one of the things he said was that one of the things that makes his hotels work so well is that the culture is good.
And whenever I hear that, you know, remember I'm the guy who writes the Dilbert comic strip.
When I hear any CEO or a founder saying, oh, it's all about the culture, the first thing I think is, Well, is it?
Is it really?
And what do you really do about that?
Is there something you're doing that's making this culture?
So I never really believe it when people say those things.
But then he gave an example.
It was one of the most persuasive things I've ever heard.
So I'm going to share it with you.
And apparently what they do, according to this interview with Steve Wynn, is that each of the work groups get together at least once a day, I think, and they share their, what he calls, stories.
So they're customer service stories.
And he gave an example of somebody who, I guess an elderly couple forgot their medication, and they got to Las Vegas, and they realized they really, really needed it before morning, and it was a problem.
And one of the employees said, I'll take care of it.
Called his brother in whatever city that they were.
Got the housekeeper to open up the house.
Got the meds.
And between he and his brother, they delivered him from, I don't know, Los Angeles or something.
So, and he was saying that was just one example.
But the power of the method is that all the employees hear the story.
And then they see that this person gets a lot of attention.
You know, their photo is put up on the wall.
It's part of the internal communication.
And then people think, well, maybe I could get a story too, you know.
Could be good for my career.
So he makes it competitive without making it competitive.
And a story is really, really powerful.
Compared to a bunch of rules.
So I don't think it's a coincidence, or just luck, as Steve Wynn says of his own success, he attributes a lot of it to luck.
And of course you have to have luck.
But when I hear that kind of technique, that is science perfect.
Because the way people are wired, that should get him exactly the kind of thing that the story sounds like.
Now here's the fun part of the story.
I'm in a Wynn hotel right now.
And we just watched this, Christine and I just watched it on YouTube, and we're down in Vegas right now.
And we got a really nice room, because when I travel, which I don't do a lot, I like to make accounts.
So I always get, you know, pretty high-end rooms.
But we had some concern because we wanted to be away from the nightclub because there's a nightclub on the bottom floor and it can get kind of loud.
So we thought, you know, Christina was making the reservations and she said, hey, you know, can we get something that's higher up or away from the sound?
That's our only concern. So they said, well, how about we upgrade you to one of the better rooms?
And so Christina said, sure, we'll take the upgrade because it got us to the place where we were away from the noise.
And really all we cared about, that's all we cared about, was away from any potential noise.
So I want to show you the room they upgraded us to.
Do you want to see the room?
I know you do, so I don't have to wait for this.
I'm going to turn the camera around, and then I'm going to give you a tour of the room.
All right, here's the view.
Here's the chandelier.
Here's the sitting area.
But, of course, Oh, here's a good view.
You can see the window. You can see how big it is.
Now, this is just one room, okay?
Now, there are other rooms.
For example, this room has two floors, so we're going to take you upstairs in a minute.
But let's take you down the hall so you can see what it looks like.
So that's one wing down there.
I'll take you there in a minute. This is an elevator.
I have an elevator for the room.
The room has an elevator.
This is the man cave.
So I'll hold still so you can see this.
Let's do a reverse view.
Man Cave.
I'll be in here later. We'll take a look in one of the, oh, let's go around the corner.
We've got, as every good room should have, obviously, massage.
And it comes with its own workout device there.
We've got a guest bathroom over here.
Nobody wants to see that.
There's some kind of a butler's kitchen back here.
Butler kitchen. Let's go down the hall.
All right. There are three bedrooms here.
And then there's a stairway.
So I'll take you up the stairway in a moment.
All right. So here's one bedroom.
It's got a little sitting area.
Pop-up. Here's the view.
So we're looking at the part of the strip that's getting some work.
Here's a competitor that's going up across the way.
And then I'll show you the view from here, which is the pool.
There's the pool area.
And here's a reverse of the room.
A little pop-up TV. That TV Pops up.
I just said that twice.
Here's one of the bathrooms.
It's got all the usual bathroom stuff.
Let's go upstairs. Now there's a punchline to all of this.
You have to wait for the punchline.
So we're going to go up the stairs.
So over here is another bedroom that's identical to the one downstairs.
Here's the view off the second floor.
All right, we'll take you down to a guest room over here. we'll take you down to a guest room over here.
So this is the third room.
And then I'll show you a little bit of the bathroom here.
The guest bathroom.
So the guest bathroom has a bathtub overlooking the strip.
So... But there's a funny story that goes with this.
So when we got upgraded...
I naturally said to myself, wow, there must be some kind of a Dilber fan working at the desk or something.
Because I couldn't really explain it.
Because, by the way, we got a really good deal on this because it was an upgrade.
So they don't charge you extra for the upgrade.
So we're just paying our normal room rate.
But here's the funny part.
So I naturally assumed what most of you are assuming right now.
You're thinking to yourself, It's probably because you're a famous cartoonist guy.
But then I thought, well, it might be that, but it could also be that Steve Wynn is a, I think he's a Trump supporter.
And I thought, well, maybe he's heard of me and he's just a Trump supporter and so he's just being nice.
Or there's somebody at the desk who made the reservation who recognized my name as the Dilber guy.
Maybe he was a fan or something.
So I was saying to Christina, so Christina is probably somebody there who just recognized my name and they're just being extra nice to us.
And she says, I booked it under my name.
So they didn't even know I was part of the deal.
She booked it under her name.
It's the only name that they heard.
So getting back to Steve Wynn's So remember, I started this off, if you missed it, I started off by saying that Steve Wynn was talking about his method for building a culture for his employees, and that part of it was that they tell stories about amazing things that they did for guests.
Well, this is a pretty amazing thing that they did for us.
And I'm pretty sure that they didn't do it because they thought we were special.
They did it because we've used this hotel a number of times, which they do now.
So we were just being treated really well.
Now, as far as I can tell, and I'm just guessing, I think they probably just had this room not booked for the time that we're here.
This is just speculation.
And that they like to have it filled.
Because You know I'm going to tell this story.
I mean, I just told it in public and showed it to you.
So, Steve Witten's idea of that if you create stories, they travel.
You know, the story doesn't stay with the person who experienced it.
It becomes part of everybody's imagination very quickly.
And that's what's happening right now.
So sort of as a homage to Steve Wynn, and also a thanks for his staff being so good that they did this for us, they created a story.
It was a story that I didn't expect.
Certainly don't deserve, as I've often said, nobody deserves anything.
So, I thought I'd pass that along because it was a good story.
Yes, you can see...
You want to see Trump's hotel?
So, I don't know if this is a licensed hotel.
So, let's see.
Trump Hotel, you have tea on the top.
His hotel is the most...
Penis-like hotel of all the hotels.
I don't know, maybe that's just me.
Probably just me.
Alright. Somebody says, why am I so darn lucky?
Well, I have a theory that luck is distributed evenly over a person's life.
I had an unusually bad first part, so I think the universe would be a good second part.
So the second part's amazing.
The second part of my life, you know, I have just ordinary days on a Tuesday that's better than most people's best day ever, and I'm completely aware of that.
Can I sit with the window so there's a better view behind me?
I'll do better than that.
I'll just show you the view because you'd rather see that than me.
So that's the view.
Las Vegas looks like a wasteland.
Well, this is the edge of civilization here.
If we were facing the other direction, it would be all impressive, well-lit buildings.
Looks like North Korea.
Yeah, it does. Until they keep building here.
Now, we heard a funny story about this building that I'm looking at.
A lot of people thought that this was another Wynn property because it looks like the kind of buildings that he builds.
It looks like the building I'm in, actually.
And so they had, I'm told, some kind of disagreement with the company building this, and the company had to modify it so it looked less like it was designed by The Wynn organization.
And so I think, I'm just guessing, but it looks like that red thing that they tacked onto the edge was probably just a guess, but maybe that's what they had to do to make it look a little different.
Why not a Trump hotel?
Well, there's only one Trump Hotel here, and they don't have gambling, so there's a little less going on over there.
Did I boo the cats?
I did not. Can I show you the artwork on the walls?
Well, this room has this.
It doesn't have Picassos, if that's what you're wondering.
You know, Steve Wynn's a collector, but they're not in the guest rooms.
Do you gamble much?
I do not. Not a gambler.
We're here for the Spas and the food and visiting locals.
Alright, so that's what we got going on.
I thought I'd share that with you.
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