The race is on: Web3, AI, and super apps with Blake Kuhre

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with Blake Kuhre, Co-Founder and CEO of SWIM. With a background that includes stints at Disney, Meet Group, and ByteDance, Blake has a passion for pursuing the next frontier in tech and entertainment. SWIM is a Web3 company with a new product currently in stealth mode, but Blake gives some hints about their direction in his wide-ranging discussion with Lisa. 

Their talk ranges from WeChat to Twitter to AI  to synthetic influencers and covers the transition from Web2 to Web3 — including the in-between state we’re in now that’s basically Web2.5. With an international perspective based on time they’ve both spent overseas, Lisa and Blake dig into super apps, decentralization and transparency of transactions, and the current AI race (and how maybe we need a kill switch). 

Find Lisa at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisathee/

Find Blake at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkuhre/ and https://swim.eco/

Transcript

00:00:01:28 - 00:00:24:02
Narrator
At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smart choices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being at a crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers, and shakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

00:00:25:03 - 00:00:45:08
Lisa Thee
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Navigating Forward. My name is Lisa Thee and I'll be your host today. We love to collect the most luminary movers and shakers in the industry to help you figure out how to navigate forward in these exciting times. And this guest that I'm bringing to you today is absolutely one of my favorite go-to people when I'm thinking about innovation in the future.

00:00:45:22 - 00:01:08:15
Lisa Thee
Blake Barrett Kuhre is the CEO of SWIM, which is a Web3 company that is really helping to make the metaverse a reality. And I'm so relieved to see him at the helm because we have worked in trust and safety together at multiple companies for many years. And I think he's really going to help people make sure that the metaverse does not become the messy-verse right on the first go.

00:01:08:15 - 00:01:25:19
Lisa Thee
So, for you business leaders, if you're looking for somebody that really understands not only the technology but the governance of the technology, he has navigated these waters in international companies for multiple years, including The Meet Group and Bytedance. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Blake.

00:01:26:20 - 00:01:31:25
Blake Kuhre
Thanks for having me, Lisa. It's great. Thank you for such a warm introduction. Glad to be here.

00:01:32:04 - 00:01:39:11
Lisa Thee
Oh, it's always easy to introduce you. I usually do like to drop your Radio Disney days, too, because that is still a very cool feather in the cap.

00:01:40:03 - 00:01:50:17
Blake Kuhre
Now that that's true. That was where I was ten years ago. I would get up in the morning at 4 a.m. every day and come into work by 5 a.m. 

00:01:50:17 - 00:01:55:29
Lisa Thee
Your get-up-early job was way cooler than mine, managing the assembly line at General Motors. I still think you made the right choice. 

00:01:55:29 - 00:02:05:08
Blake Kuhre
Oh my gosh. Yeah, see, you know what it's like to be an early riser. Anyway, that was kind of my Disney experience, but it really did lay the foundation for my career, and I learned a lot and very grateful for it.

00:02:05:29 - 00:02:29:12
Lisa Thee
Yeah. I think one of the things that I always learn from you is just these forward-looking trends of, you know, when we first met back in 2015, it was how do we take advantage of these trends of live streaming? And then I saw that kind of wave come in and then now I saw you shift a couple of years back into this wave around the metaverse and Web3 and where those experiences can, will be going.

00:02:29:12 - 00:02:44:11
Lisa Thee
So, for somebody that maybe isn't as experienced and being at the leading edge of technology transitions and helping people come along with the change, can you share a little bit about your perspective of why the metaverse is interesting, and what Web3 even is?

00:02:44:11 - 00:03:04:15
Blake Kuhre
Sure. Yeah, it's a common question and everyone's still learning. I mean, I don't have all the answers. I’m in no way an expert in this, it’s just a field that I really feel is, is the next frontier of the internet. I liken it to if you can think back to the time where you were, you were still young enough to remember,

00:03:04:16 - 00:03:35:00
Blake Kuhre
maybe not everybody is, but in like the late nineties, early 2000s. That was really like, I think the precipice of where the dotcom era really started to change and everywhere and the Internet became more accessible to everyone. You know, we moved away from dial-up Internet, which I had as a kid growing up, and it went from 2400 to 9,600 to 14. 4 to 28.8, the speeds and 56 K, and these were the bits per second.

00:03:35:00 - 00:03:56:17
Blake Kuhre
So, with more data, the faster it got, the more content you could get quicker to load, quicker to communicate. So, the really the way that the Internet was then is how the Internet is with Web3 today. That was really the transition from Web1 to Web2. And so, the Web2 world is where we've been living and where we’ve been operating and where we still are right now and talking to one another.

00:03:57:07 - 00:04:09:19
Blake Kuhre
But Web3 is going to be that next frontier, and it's already just starting. And that, and so I'd say we're probably 1999, 1998 that, that era of time for Web3.

00:04:10:23 - 00:04:12:10
Lisa Thee
So, Web 2.5.

00:04:12:10 - 00:04:35:02
Blake Kuhre
Yeah you could say that. That's essentially what we're doing. And so, because of where you know the structure of corporations and business and economy, etc., you still have very much the gatekeepers, if you will, you know, like these are the boomers and up let's say and then you also have, you know, the up and coming millennial workforce that are growing up with this.

00:04:35:02 - 00:04:55:07
Blake Kuhre
You know, for many, this is just like they've never known a life without the Internet, which is very unusual for, say, our generation, which we did know. And so for them, it comes natural to have a phone, always be in front of a screen. I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding that and there's a lot of safeguards that need to be taken into place.

00:04:56:00 - 00:05:19:01
Blake Kuhre
But that's something that, what's exciting to me is to see where the technology is going so that we can sort of lay the foundation and lay the groundwork for it to be the right type of environment. And versus, you know, one that's problematic. So that's where as a company with SWIM, what we originally set out to do was to be essentially a bridge between Web2 and Web3.

00:05:19:01 - 00:05:53:19
Blake Kuhre
So a lot of the brands that we're interested in, say having a metaverse, having their own stake and their own claim of space and that kind of experience is now something that we have really focused in on even more succinctly when it comes to our new project that we're going to be launching, that we're working on right now sort of in stealth mode, but we're going to be launching it at the end of June where we see this going as more and more obviously, AI is now the hot buzz word and anything that has AI attached to it is going to be, people are going to sit up and take notice, you know, try and

00:05:53:29 - 00:06:20:02
Blake Kuhre
and get a piece of GPT right now. I mean, it's next to impossible. It's interesting. And that's a bit of aside from where we are with Web3. But if you were to take AI and blend it into Web3, what a Web3 really allows, say a company to do is to break away from a centralized type of a platform to disseminate whatever their content or information is, and they can do it themselves.

00:06:20:15 - 00:06:43:09
Blake Kuhre
And it's not going to be reliant upon, a centralized platform requires a login and a password. What it really will come down to is in many ways a wallet address. So, if you have a like a software wallet or a cold storage hot wallet that's connected to the Internet, cold wallet, that's not you're able to connect and then essentially transact.

00:06:43:09 - 00:07:09:22
Blake Kuhre
And so, with transactions can come many things. Obviously, crypto, we know it hasn't had the best time in the past several months. Obviously, the market isn't doing quite well there. But what's really interesting, what everyone's been talking about anyway, is the utility aspect of what that same kind of transactional layer can do. And then also you can see it's very transparent because you can link back that ledger history to any type of interaction or transaction.

00:07:09:22 - 00:07:15:24
Blake Kuhre
So that to me is really, I think, interesting to see how this is going to change and progress.

00:07:15:24 - 00:07:46:03
Lisa Thee
So, the underlying blockchain technology allows an individual to control their interactions, not relying on an intermediary to be their representative into these virtual worlds. So, for Web3, can you just give us a really simple difference between what Web2 is and what Web3 is capable of, just in terms of an example so that people that maybe aren't as deep in the technology can envision why they would want to know more about where we're going, especially as a business leader?

00:07:47:06 - 00:08:10:18
Blake Kuhre
Certainly. A great way to do that is if you look at you have a username and password for almost everything that you log into or you have an account with, that's Web2. So Web3 does not require that you have a wallet address and you authenticate when you connect that wallet to, let's say, a website or let's say you want to buy an NFT.

00:08:10:18 - 00:08:31:23
Blake Kuhre
That's how it's already been established and that's now linked to you. So, the transparency is also there now because now you see how many users, what else what what's on their history? What's the ledger history look like, What's their transaction, what's their activity? And then you can easily tell how, say, active this particular user is as well.

00:08:31:24 - 00:08:54:03
Blake Kuhre
There's still obviously a lot of work to be done in this way because anybody can create this. And so having that tied to an identity is not as easy as it is to say establishing an account and saying, okay, your name, your address, your phone number or your driver's license, there's always some kind of KYC.

00:08:54:05 - 00:08:54:29
Lisa Thee
Yeah, know your customer.

00:08:55:16 - 00:09:22:13
Blake Kuhre
Know your customer, right. So that's a big part of that. And that's still, you know, there's a lot of different solutions that are being looked at. But really the other great thing about Web3 is the fact that you no longer need to require, let's say, for example, payment processors, which are a huge thing if you look at every transaction that you conduct with a debit or credit card, it's anywhere between one and 3% of that of the actual purchase price

00:09:22:13 - 00:09:34:07
Blake Kuhre
of whatever it is you're purchasing. You look at Apple and Google on that and buy something through their store. You're going to, they're going to take 30% of that transaction depending on how successful say, that app or that merchant does.

00:09:34:08 - 00:10:09:02
Lisa Thee
Oh, I remember when we were deploying in the App Store, realizing there was a 30% transaction fee and being like, wow, every company that's a small business is interacting in this way, it is an absolute barrier for entry. This is required of you. So, I think that's a really good point. I think the other thing I would mention that I've heard as a simple way to understand it is Web1 was more like read capability, Web2 is kind of read/write capability, and Web3 gets you into the read, write, and edit perspective of being able to interact.

00:10:09:10 - 00:10:15:26
Lisa Thee
Do you agree with that summary of what the possibilities are in terms of just leaps forward, in terms of capacity?

00:10:16:22 - 00:10:39:29
Blake Kuhre
Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it. And also, just I think the number one thing is just the transparency of never before have you been able to take a say, identity or a login of someone and just run a quick check on to see what time have they interacted or what have they transacted?

00:10:40:12 - 00:11:04:18
Blake Kuhre
How much. All of those things are very identifiable. Now, linking it to the individual is another thing entirely. So that's why I say there's a lot of work to be done in this way. But what's really exciting about it is that is the utility aspect of, let's say, the authentication of you have a pass that wants to get you into a festival or a conference or a concert.

00:11:04:28 - 00:11:28:12
Blake Kuhre
Now you have that pass that's going to open a door, get you entry to say, or it could be a rental car. There's a lot of different ways. You know, hotels are doing this with NFC technology, but again, that's more centralized. So, like when you look at a company like Nike, for example, that signed a massive deal with Roblox, that's also a centralized platform.

00:11:28:12 - 00:11:54:03
Blake Kuhre
So even though it's saying the metaverse and this sort of like nomenclature that's a little bit more of a optics, I think play, it's a quick fix. You know, like let's get into it. Let's just go into this platform. It exists and then we can put out a product and now we look hip and hip and cool, sort of like a Web3 facade behind a Web2 layer.

00:11:54:11 - 00:12:10:11
Lisa Thee
Okay. And what does SWIM do in terms of, as a company for major brands that are interested in either having the first step in the crawl, walk, run of a facade of having the metaverse or actually getting into it more deeply. How does SWIM interact with the ecosystem?

00:12:11:07 - 00:12:43:16
Blake Kuhre
Well, before, as I mentioned, what we were focusing on was being that bridge between Web2 and Web3. So, let's say a company wanted to say have their own NFT drop. Then they would partner with us, and we would help build out, let's say, an NFT drop, an entire campaign that goes around that. It's shifted away from that quite a bit, as you've seen with FTX fallout in November and that's NFT are now sort of becoming, I wouldn't say a dirty word, but they are not probably the best foot forward, I would think, in this particular environment right now.

00:12:43:29 - 00:13:09:21
Blake Kuhre
But what we are aiming to do is really redefine or should say, reimagine, what it what it's like to the advertising and advertising landscape in particular is going to change. Because what you're seeing, for example, with obviously we've been past the point of skipping through like your DVR, you don't have any more TV commercials to watch and be inundated with.

00:13:09:28 - 00:13:38:12
Blake Kuhre
You have to pay for that privilege with YouTube, for example. But what if you were in a place now where you don't have to have any of those considerations because now the advertising is directly targeted and in a very meaningful way that's interactive, that's also engaging, and it's not reliant upon an actual human. And what I mean by that is what we're looking at right now are synthetic influencers.

00:13:38:22 - 00:14:07:27
Blake Kuhre
And so that is something that we are really going to be focusing on for this year because we've already seen this to be a success with a few occasions. There's a few companies that are specializing in avatar creation, but there's not really one that hones in on, let's say, an influencer that is literally created and then is then promoting a product or has a story behind it, and then the audience doesn't really care if they're real or not.

00:14:07:27 - 00:14:28:12
Blake Kuhre
They just want to be entertained. And if they're, say, wearing a new article of clothing that is yet to be released from a major designer and that influencer is showing it off, then maybe they can buy that without even having to worry about the unpredictability or controversial nature of a human influencer, which we also know is a very big issue.

00:14:28:21 - 00:14:49:08
Blake Kuhre
And there's just a lot of costs associated with that, too. So that's where we're focusing on as a company is getting into a synthetic influencer mindset because that is going to really take, I think, the way we have looked at not just influencers but also advertising and completely reimagining it.

00:14:49:18 - 00:15:15:14
Lisa Thee
So, it's almost like being at a radio station when high School Musical is out there, you know where the trend’s going. You see it going down the field with synthetic influencers. The business model supports that for multiple reasons. How are you guys looking to make it really easy for companies to take advantage of this new trend and be early in the process to be able to help others that are interested in their products discover them?

00:15:16:10 - 00:15:55:28
Blake Kuhre
Well, you know, it's a great question. If you look at how going back to sort of the gatekeeper mindset, you know, it is very difficult. And for any entrepreneur to come up with a new product and to have it immediately adopted by, let's say, a major brand, and that takes a lot of time. And so, one thing that has been a passion project of mine for a long time and I have a fortunate experience in the international markets, is the fact that oftentimes you will find that something is a success and another market needs to be established there first before it would say make its way into the US market, the North American market.

00:15:55:28 - 00:16:21:11
Blake Kuhre
And a case in point for that is we had sort of a teaser debut for this, for our project in Istanbul in November. And after we had the presentation and we came off the stage, we had, we were sort of inundated with lots of people coming up to us and saying, you know, Oh, you've created a monster, or Oh, this is really the right way to go, or Yeah, which is actually great.

00:16:21:11 - 00:16:42:17
Blake Kuhre
That's a great reception to have. I love to hear that there's already that element of shaking things up and there is some disruption from because, you know you have a success that people are talking about you no matter what it is generally, as long as it's not damaging in any way. But that kind of told me we were on to something and that was resonating really well.

00:16:42:17 - 00:17:08:17
Blake Kuhre
But one gentleman came up to us in particular and said, do you realize that the majority of content, for example, that Netflix is now putting across their platform is actually content that has been acquired in foreign markets, international markets outside the U.S.? So, to an American audience like Squid Game, for example, there's one right there. You look at the success of, you know, or Parasite.

00:17:08:17 - 00:17:49:02
Blake Kuhre
That movie, for example, went on to win Academy Awards. Like you look at the success of a lot of the formats and shows, even Shark Tank, it started out as Dragon's Den, and it wasn't even a hit here in the US until it had already made its way in other markets first. So, to us, we're really looking at embracing the emerging markets and developing markets to have this adoption and to prove it out in many ways before it can land in the U.S. And we understand that we can't waltz into, let's say, a major entertainment company and say, here's what we have, let’s go.

00:17:49:06 - 00:17:57:08
Blake Kuhre
They are looking for something that's more established, that's going to be to provide them and their shareholder value and that they have a track record.

00:17:57:14 - 00:18:31:12
Lisa Thee
They’re a little later on the adoption curve. They're not typically innovators. They may be early adopters or in most cases, the early majority. Right. That technology has to cross the chasm. And so having the background that you have from your experience with Bytedance, which is the parent company of TikTok and with your experience with Meet Group, which is the back end of most online dating that's available, you've already been able to see around the corners of where some of those tricky places can be when you are connecting communities with third party content.

00:18:31:12 - 00:18:48:20
Lisa Thee
So, I personally am really relieved to see you at the helm because you have a very educated approach to trust and safety as we go into this, this new step. What trends do you think we should all be paying more attention to when it comes to how we're moving forward in this way?

00:18:49:15 - 00:19:20:26
Blake Kuhre
I think what we don't want is to have a social credit score system that's implemented. You know that that's the long game with this. That's what I don't want to see. I know I'm probably, I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority in the way I think that. I think that the majority of consumers already have enough watchdogs and checklists that they have to abide by in terms of where they rank and this and that.

00:19:21:04 - 00:19:33:02
Blake Kuhre
This is something that is already a very real reality for, you know, for example, in China, this is this has been like this for many years. It's a reality that you may not be able.

00:19:33:02 - 00:19:35:27
Lisa Thee
It’s beyond the Black Mirror episodes. 

00:19:36:04 - 00:20:10:03
Blake Kuhre
Know, it's actually it's actually real, right? So but, you know, having that experience and working in China for several years and understanding how far ahead they are with technology, I think that the trends to look for that you had mentioned are going to be, you know, how much is AI going to be part of our lives? How comfortable are you having AI as part of you know, it would seem to be the case that many are comfortable with having, you know, Alexa or Siri that's sort of always on in the background.

00:20:10:03 - 00:20:41:27
Blake Kuhre
But then if you combine that with an autonomous system that can literally think for itself, you know, there are going to be, I think there’s going to have to be guardrails and somehow a kill switch, you know, for lack of a better word, because you don't want it to grow faster than you can control. Because ultimately that, I mean, that sounds like sort of sci fi, but there is really an AI race that's going on right now between, you know, geopolitically, between the U.S. and China.

00:20:41:27 - 00:21:01:14
Blake Kuhre
And so, their technology is quite advanced. And you saw that for yourself when you visited a few years ago. And being able to pay with your QR code. And by the way, QR codes only really started, as you know, to become popular here in the U.S. with the onset of the pandemic, because it was sort of a contactless way to pay for things.

00:21:01:14 - 00:21:29:29
Blake Kuhre
But that is something that, you know, everyone from a major retailer, you know, Starbucks, you can pay with your QR code down to a street hotdog vendor to, you know, something at the Gap, everyone takes it. And so, you can pay for utility. It literally is an all-encompassing app, a super app. And there was sort of this thinking that that was what Twitter was going to become or is going to become a super app which controls all of these elements of your life.

00:21:30:22 - 00:21:49:05
Lisa Thee
Blake, when I was in Beijing with you in 2019, I remember we had a heavy reliance on WeChat for transacting. Is that the kind of the vision of what something might evolve to in the US, an all-inclusive app for social as well as payments, as well as communication.

00:21:49:29 - 00:22:14:26
Blake Kuhre
Right. So that is, so the parent company of WeChat is Tencent. They have over a billion monthly active users. That is a super app, that is THE super app. And WeChat is something that, you know, this is what the discussions have been about, what Twitter could become. You know, there's been a lot of articles published in stories that this could become a sort of like a WeChat where that everything…

00:22:15:01 - 00:22:33:19
Blake Kuhre
But here we go again with this is going to be centralized in a Web2 fashion. This is not going to be decentralized in a Web3. So Web3 allows the user more autonomy and more flexibility, but if it's all centralized within one platform, then it's really not getting into that, that next step.

00:22:33:28 - 00:23:17:06
Lisa Thee
And that's really where Web2 has gotten us, most of the major platforms out there that are now the top ten companies in the world are all the centralized platforms that have been transacting and collecting data on consumers for many, many, many years ahead of what people probably understood that they were providing because in order to get your search capabilities, in order to get your package delivery, in order to get your software updates, you have been feeding into their algorithms and their training models for a long time with data that you need in order to get very advanced AI, you need millions and millions of examples of things in order to be able to train it.

00:23:17:06 - 00:23:27:02
Lisa Thee
So, we have been centralizing the power within these private corporations and Web3 allows us to evolve a bit past that. Is that what I'm hearing?

00:23:27:23 - 00:23:46:07
Blake Kuhre
Yeah. And if you look at the data, if you were to be able to look at the data, if you have that capability to see the kind of data that is collected, essentially through just your user behavior in these apps, you would be probably I think everyone would be quite surprised just because you know everything from how long did you hover on this image?

00:23:46:07 - 00:24:08:04
Blake Kuhre
Did you zoom in, did you text it to someone? Did you go back to it? You know, there's a lot of stories. I mean, we don't have to go into all that. But the point is, is that this is also something that why Web3 is attractive is because there is a lot more transparency in this way, because you really can see where what activity has occurred based on, you know, an address, a wallet address.

00:24:08:04 - 00:24:42:04
Blake Kuhre
So that that to me is, I think, a promising feature within Web3. But if you're looking at the, a super app type of ecosystem that that's going to be, it's quite an undertaking for that, too. There has to also be, you know, mass adoption. What's interesting about WeChat, since you brought it up, is the fact that as a American with an American phone or an American plan, you can't link an American credit card or a U.S.-issued credit or debit card within your WeChat app.

00:24:42:13 - 00:25:05:26
Blake Kuhre
And that's pretty clever from the standpoint that they know, as in Tencent knows, that the transaction fees that would come along with that would be probably pretty heavy. And if you can just link a bank account in this case to our Chinese bank account, it can just be taken out of that like an ACH clearinghouse, like, you know, everyone's paid direct deposit that way and then you bypass those fees.

00:25:05:26 - 00:25:31:09
Blake Kuhre
So, it all comes down to, well not all of it, but a big majority of it comes down to eliminating the transaction fees, sort of that middleman that stands in between you and whatever it is that you want. That's what was, I think that's one of the most interesting things about the pandemic was that everything really went direct to consumer because people weren't open.

00:25:31:09 - 00:26:01:26
Blake Kuhre
They couldn't even have their shops open. And retailers were struggling. How can we find a way to still reach our customers and to get them to continue being a customer? A big part of that is going to be just what we're paying in transaction fees alone is staggering. So, if you can find a way to, and this is why more and more accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment, even the entire country of El Salvador, for example, you know, El Salvador was a country that was on the brink of all kinds of violence.

00:26:02:09 - 00:26:11:29
Blake Kuhre
There was just an incredible amount of pain and suffering, so much of a mass exodus. Now, the country has really been turned around.

00:26:12:02 - 00:26:22:08
Lisa Thee
That was a lot of corruption and inflation in centralized banking, right? So, this gave people an alternative to be transacting that wasn't dependent on a system that wasn't functioning well.

00:26:22:08 - 00:26:44:07
Blake Kuhre
Right. So, you could look at, if you want to point to a place that say, has had a massive turnaround and has really benefited the population in a significant way and improved their way of life and their lifestyle and their quality of life. You can look to El Salvador as a as a sort of a beacon for that as a use case, honestly.

00:26:44:15 - 00:27:10:26
Blake Kuhre
And more and more countries will likely take that same approach that aren't so intertwined and say an established hierarchical system. But I think that there's going to be still flexibility with a lot of these major brands, banks in particular, that are going to have to be involved with this, and they're going to have to figure out how can they do it without threatening their business model.

00:27:11:14 - 00:27:32:10
Lisa Thee
Yeah. So, what I think I'm hearing is for business leaders that are thinking about making their steps in, there's a direct impact to the bottom line of being able to reduce or eliminate transaction fees for your products or services. You have a consumer base more primed to be accustomed to that direct-to-consumer model today, you know, post-pandemic.

00:27:32:10 - 00:27:55:13
Lisa Thee
And you're a company that's helping to ease that transition by having the right experience and wisdom to put the guardrails in place so that they don't make any big missteps as they're taking those steps forward. Can you share a little bit with me about what you would, what you would guide recent college graduates coming out of school to be learning about in order to stay current?

00:27:55:13 - 00:28:13:02
Lisa Thee
Because I think, you know, there used to be a paradigm where you would come out of college and your skills would be relevant for quite a few years before you had to start upskilling. But I don't think that's going to be the environment that this generation is going into in the workplace. You've had to come along with many big ways of technological changes.

00:28:13:18 - 00:28:18:04
Lisa Thee
What advice would you give to a 21-year-old about being career ready for the future of work?

00:28:18:27 - 00:29:03:08
Blake Kuhre
Well, I think I was offered this piece of advice that I unfortunately ignored after I graduated, but that was take as much time as you need before you enter the real world. And I think if you look at what's the phenomenon,  to us it's a phenomenon, to the rest of the world it’s not, a gap year of essentially before you immediately want to have a role and a company, you should really take that time to figure out, you know, you should travel, you should see other cultures go to other countries they are interested in and try and be as big of a sponge as you can and just listen to...

00:29:04:00 - 00:29:24:06
Blake Kuhre
I think listening is very important, especially when you are finding yourself in a place where it's new and unfamiliar and being out of your comfort zone is also very important because, you know, it's something that there's there was there's a lot of a rush to go and land a job and to pay off your student loans and all these other things.

00:29:24:06 - 00:29:55:05
Blake Kuhre
But then it also comes into question, is higher education something that, is it for everyone? You know, is it really going to be the path forward for you to go to a four-year institution and have all of these commitments and obligations afterwards? It may not be for everyone. And I think that we're starting to see that more and more in our country, and especially where, you know, where a lot of this is headed in the administration is has kind of hinted at this, that trades are going to become more and more sought after.

00:29:55:27 - 00:30:18:13
Blake Kuhre
If you can obviously find the people to do the work, you know, because that that's been another issue. If you look at how the pandemic has treated. And really this is a terrific opportunity for recent graduates, I think probably the best in our lifetime, because it's totally reset the entire work-life balance as we knew it before. It is completely gone.

00:30:18:27 - 00:30:42:05
Blake Kuhre
Like if you were to go down on Sixth Street in New York City and you were to see how many vacancies there are in these high rises, you would be amazed. Right when I was in New York City and for a conference in March, like literally days before the pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization, I was just walking around, and I couldn't believe how I didn't see anyone else.

00:30:42:05 - 00:31:10:06
Blake Kuhre
And this was in early March of 2020. And it's because now everyone has adapted, and people have proven themselves they can work from home. And so, to have a type of office setting isn't necessary as much as it was before. But I think finding the kind of work that really is meaningful that you feel like you have some kind of impact in and it's not going to just be a job, because that is really passé.

00:31:10:08 - 00:31:31:16
Blake Kuhre
Honestly, if you look at it's important to have a foundation for sure and to have a North Star, for everyone that's different. But if you're going to make it a point that you need to go and immediately find work right after is probably doing yourself a disservice unless it's an absolute necessity, which obviously is understandable for many situations.

00:31:31:16 - 00:31:59:17
Blake Kuhre
But it's just best to really find it, because it's going to set the tone for many, many years after what you're doing. And that is true. Someone told me, I remember when I took this, when I took this job at Disney, which turned out to be ten years at the Walt Disney Company, fantastic time. But I remember it was another it was another job offer from some small station; I think a TV station in the Carolinas.

00:31:59:26 - 00:32:18:28
Blake Kuhre
And he said to me, I just hope that you know what you're doing because this is going to set the tone for the rest of your career. And obviously, I was very pleased with my decision. But that is kind of true. If you look at it from what you're getting yourself into, it is going to determine like those next steps of what you surround yourself with.

00:32:18:28 - 00:32:25:01
Blake Kuhre
So, you have to be very careful with where you find yourself and who you align with, who you work with.

00:32:25:11 - 00:32:53:15
Lisa Thee
But I love that. I love that guidance that you're giving, which is the more exposure you can have to different cultures, different ways of doing things, different experiences and having enough time to process and hear your own wisdom about your processing those experiences. It allows you to be a more inclusive leader. It allows you to demonstrate more 21st century leadership skills because talent is evenly distributed.

00:32:53:27 - 00:33:09:21
Lisa Thee
And if you don't know how to tap into talent that doesn't look and sound like you, you're going to be left behind in leadership in the world. So, with that in mind, can you share with us what your why is? What is your mission that gets you inspired to keep leading the charge in all these cool transformations?

00:33:10:09 - 00:33:31:12
Blake Kuhre
I think you should really have a standard of excellence and you will be able to define what that is. I think being aware of what's already out there but not being obsessed by it. I read a quote many years ago that's one of my one of my go-tos, which is, I think it was in the Financial Times.

00:33:31:22 - 00:34:10:19
Blake Kuhre
It was “comparison is the source of all misery.” And if you were to compare, let's say, what it is. It doesn’t really need any explanation. If you know, if you know what is right and you don't need to have it. And it's very difficult to do right, because obviously the culture that we find ourselves in, where everyone is glued to a screen constantly and, you know, social media platforms are abundant, even professional platforms like LinkedIn have become almost social, where you would say, but there's no boundaries, there's no guardrails there.

00:34:10:19 - 00:34:31:01
Blake Kuhre
You can pretty much write your own ticket in terms of how you want to do that. But I think it's important to know what it is that's important to you and to focus on that and not be distracted by it. And, you know, and it may not be in front of you. That's the other thing.

00:34:31:01 - 00:34:56:29
Blake Kuhre
If you are wanting to do something and you're passionate about a particular cause or work and you're not finding it where you are or you're not appreciated, even more so doing it where you are, then you need to pack up and go somewhere else. And we certainly have seen that to be the case, right? I mean, just with the pandemic as an example, states, US states are now becoming competitive for work.

00:34:57:15 - 00:35:26:10
Blake Kuhre
You don't, you no longer have to, oh, I've got to go to New York. No you don't, no you don't. New York, Massachusetts, California. These are states that are very hard to be an entrepreneur in. So, you're going to find states that are more welcoming, like Texas, Florida, Nevada, for example. It’s amazing that we're in this now where you can be a success pretty much at home.

00:35:26:19 - 00:35:47:22
Blake Kuhre
Yes. It's important to go out and meet people, face time. Nothing can take the place of meeting in person, and everyone wants to go to events. That's another thing that we've recognized that in our, at SWIM, is that a big part of our new focus is we're really focusing not so much on the screen, but so much on in real life experiences.

00:35:48:02 - 00:35:58:10
Blake Kuhre
And it hasn't really been done before, what we're looking to do. And that's still a focal point. People still want to have a reason to go somewhere if it's worth it to them.

00:35:58:21 - 00:36:22:14
Lisa Thee
Yeah, we are hardwired for connection and being able to have those digital indicators that somebody is looking for an analog experience can be one of those moments that matters, that builds a brand, that creates that experience and that that customer loyalty, because they're getting treated to something that is so memorable and makes them feel special and makes them feel part of a community.

00:36:22:14 - 00:36:30:22
Lisa Thee
And I think we all struggle a little bit with disconnection after the times that we've lived through, and there's a hunger for that. I think you guys are really on to something.

00:36:30:22 - 00:36:31:08
Blake Kuhre
Thank you.

00:36:31:10 - 00:36:39:03
Lisa Thee
So, Blake, for people that are more interested in learning more about what SWIM does and more about you as a leader, where are the best places to connect and follow you?

00:36:39:03 - 00:36:59:24
Blake Kuhre
I would say right now, LinkedIn, as much as I just talked about it in terms of being so social network, I think LinkedIn is probably the best, the best way right now. We're going to be relaunching our website pretty soon, SWIM.eco. But in the meantime, LinkedIn is a great resource. I mean, I think more people get more information now from LinkedIn than they do even a company website.

00:36:59:24 - 00:37:05:07
Blake Kuhre
Like if you really want to dig in to say a product announcement or feedback, you know, it's a good place to go.

00:37:06:04 - 00:37:18:20
Lisa Thee
That sounds great. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Blake. I never leave a conversation with you without thinking in a bigger and bolder way and having a broader perspective. So, thank you for bringing that to our audience. I appreciate it.

00:37:19:10 - 00:37:20:22
Blake Kuhre
It's my pleasure. Anytime.

00:37:22:22 - 00:37:33:22
Narrator
Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Navigating Forward podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you next time.