by Alex Banayan
Wait, Bill Clinton…
A vague memory came to me as though there was an itch on my mind.
Didn’t someone tell me over the summer that Bill Clinton and Richard Branson spoke on a cruise ship or something? And some young guy organized it?
I reached for my laptop, Googled “Bill Clinton Richard Branson cruise ship,” and found an article on FastCompany.com:
In 2008 Elliott Bisnow, an entrepreneur with several companies to his name, started Summit Series, an “un-conference conference” that would serve as a mutual aid society for young entrepreneurs. It started with 19 people on a ski trip, and has grown to more than 750 people who attended their latest event in May. Part networking, part TED, part extreme sports, these invitation-only events have become the epicenter of social entrepreneurship. And along the way, Summit Series had raised over $1.5 million for not-for-profits. Participants include Bill Clinton, Russell Simmons, Sean Parker, Mark Cuban, Ted Turner, and John Legend.
I kept reading and then did a double take: Elliott Bisnow, the CEO of Summit Series, the man who brought all these leaders together—was only twenty-five years old. How was that possible? That was my cousin’s age.
I typed in “Elliott Bisnow” and ripped through the search results. Dozens of articles mentioned him, but not one was about him. He had a blog with hundreds of posts, but all they had were pictures—Elliott surfing in Nicaragua; hanging with supermodels in Tel Aviv; at the Running of the Bulls in Spain; at the Tour de France in Belgium; at the White House standing with the cofounder of Twitter and the CEO of Zappos. There were photos of him building classrooms in Haiti, giving vision tests in Jamaica, delivering shoes to kids in Mexico. There was even a video of him in a Diet Coke ad.
In one article, I learned that CNN founder Ted Turner was his hero and that Elliott hoped to meet him one day. Then I discovered a picture of Elliott and Ted Turner shaking hands a year later at the United Nations. There were images of Elliott Bisnow living on a beach in Costa Rica and on a houseboat in Amsterdam. In all the photos, he wore T-shirts and jeans and had a scruffy beard and thick brown hair. I found an article in the Huffington Post titled “Tech’s Biggest Party Boys.” Elliott ranked sixth. The closing line threw me back in my chair. “Bisnow’s latest plan: Buy a $40 million mountain in Utah.”
I continued clicking and missed two meals without noticing. I found a picture of him laughing with President Clinton in someone’s living room, another of him presenting Clinton with an award, and a third with Clinton on stage at a Summit event. Yet there was nothing online that told me exactly who Elliott Bisnow was. It was like going through the blog of the guy from Catch Me If You Can.
I couldn’t wrap my head around this guy. Though at the same time, I experienced a deep, almost overwhelming feeling of connection with him. Elliott’s dream was to bring together the world’s top entrepreneurs, and somehow, he’d pulled it off.
Bill Gates’ Chief of Staff had said I needed to engineer momentum. Clearly, Elliott had figured out how. I felt I was looking at the one person who held the answer.
I lowered my head, closed my eyes, and thought, if there is one thing I want more than anything right now, it’s Elliott’s guidance. I pulled out my journal, turned to a fresh page, and scribbled “Dream Mentors” across the top. On the first line, I wrote: “Elliott Bisnow.”
* * *
My pile of homework and tests grew even more, so I spent every night that week in the library, just trying to survive. But each day I caught my mind wandering, imagining what it would be like to talk to Elliott Bisnow. One afternoon, three days before my accounting final, I couldn’t hold myself back anymore. Screw it, I’ll just send him an email. It’s not like I wanted to interview him. I just had one question to ask Elliott so I could get to Bill Gates: How do I engineer momentum?
I began writing a cold email. Two hours later, I was still at it, weaving in details about Elliott so he’d know I’d gone to the twenty-third page of a Google search to find them. I figured he must be the king of cold emails, so it had to be perfect.
From: Alex Banayan
To: Elliott Bisnow
Subject: Mr. Bisnow—I could really use some advice from you
Hi Mr. Bisnow,
My name is Alex and I’m a sophomore at USC. I know this is pretty out-of-the-blue, but I’m a big fan of yours and I could really use your advice on a project I’m working on. I know you’re really busy and that you get a lot of emails, so this will only take sixty seconds to read.
My story is that I’m a nineteen-year-old who is writing a book with the hope of changing the dynamic of my generation. The book will feature some of the world’s most successful people and will focus on what they were doing early on in their careers to get to where they are today. I’m truly humbled by the people who have already jumped on board for this mission—from Microsoft president Qi Lu to author Tim Ferriss. I’m determined to combine the greats from the older generation along with the new generation, and integrate their wisdom and practical advice into one book that changes people’s lives. Like you say, “make no small plans” :)
Mr. Bisnow, being nineteen years old and pursuing my vision does have some obstacles, so it would be unbelievably helpful to get some guidance from you on the topic of: How did you effectively bring all these luminaries together behind a single vision? You did it masterfully with your first ski trip in 2008, and you’ve continued to do it better and better as the years have gone on.
I’m sure you’re really busy, but if there is any chance we can connect so I can soak up some guidance, that would mean the world to me. If you’d like, I could field some specific questions your way via email, we can talk via telephone for a few minutes, or if your schedule permits, I’d love to meet you either at a coffee shop, or…if the planets align…at the world-famous Summit House :)
I totally understand if you’re too busy to respond, but even a one- or two-line reply would really make my day.
Dreaming big,
Alex
I spent thirty minutes searching online for his email address, but I couldn’t find it. Three hours later, I still had nothing. So I typed out my five best guesses of what it could be and put them all in the “To:” field. I prayed to God, and to the holy spirit of the Tim-Ferriss-cold-email, that it would work.
Twenty-four hours later, Elliott replied:
great email
r u in LA tomorrow or thurs?
I checked my calendar. Thursday was my accounting final.
“I’m completely free both days.”
I hoped he wouldn’t want to meet Thursday. At USC, anyone who misses a final exam fails the course.
Elliott replied right back:
can u meet me at 8am in long beach on thurs in the lobby of the renaissance hotel? sorry to make u come so far, i am at a conference here
and u should read “when I stop talking you’ll know I’m dead” and get to the part about the star of ardaban before we meet, maybe it’s a chapter or two in…u will love the book
Go on The Price Is Right—not study for finals. Meet Elliott—risk missing a final. It was as if someone was playing a video game of my life and sitting back, laughing, and flinging banana peels at my feet. Each impossible decision was a checkpoint, testing to see where my heart truly was.
For the first time though, I didn’t hesitate.
CHAPTER NINE
The Rules
Two days later, I sat on a couch in the middle of the hotel lobby, glancing between my watch and the main entrance. If our meeting lasted twenty minutes, and it took half an hour to get back to school, that gave me two hours to cram before my final. And if our meeting lasted an hour, I would still have—
My mental calculations stopped as Elliott strode in, right on time.
He cut across the lobby. Even at a distance, Elliott’s eyes were sharp and piercing. They sca
nned the room slowly, almost too slowly, like a panther’s eyes scouring the jungle floor. As he walked closer, he seemed to never blink. He spotted me and threw me a nod, then sat beside me.
“Give me a second,” he said without making eye contact.
He took out his phone and typed away.
One minute passed…then two…then…
He glanced up and caught me staring at him. My eyes darted away. I checked my watch. We were five minutes into our meeting and we’d barely spoken.
As I snuck another look at Elliott, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw his shoes. My prediction was right.
I’d noticed at USC during fraternity rush that students gravitated toward people they looked similar to, which made me think that the more you look like the other person, the easier it is to strike up a friendship. So I spent some time that morning wondering what Elliott would wear. I put on blue jeans, a green V-neck shirt, and brown TOMS shoes, because I’d read that the founder of TOMS went to Summit events. Elliott was wearing gray jeans, a blue V-neck, and gray TOMS. But with his head down and eyes glued to the screen, I felt that what I wore would be the last thing he’d notice.
“You still in school?” he asked, not lifting his head.
“Yeah. I’m a sophomore.”
“You going to drop out?”
“What?”
“You heard what I said.”
My grandma’s face flashed in my mind. Jooneh man.
“No,” I blurted. “No. I’m not.”
Elliott let out a soft laugh. “Okay. We’ll see.”
I changed the subject. “So, I can tell you’re really good at bringing people together and building momentum for your Summit events, and I’m really curious how you do it. So my one question for you is—”
“You don’t have to ask just one question.”
“Okay, so, I guess my first question is: What was the tipping point in your career that allowed you to build so much momentum?”
“There is no tipping point,” he said, still typing away. “It’s all just little steps.”
To someone else, that might’ve been a good answer. But I’d spent weeks dreaming of Elliott offering an entire monologue on the subject, so the fact he didn’t give more than a five-word explanation made me feel like he was blowing me off.
“Well, okay, so I guess my next question is—”
“Did you read the ‘Star of Ardaban’ chapter? Did you even open the book yet? Or can you not even handle reading two chapters on a day’s notice?”
“I read it,” I said, “and I finished the whole book.”
Elliott finally looked up. He put his phone away.
“Man, I was just like you when I was your age,” he said. “I hustled just like you’re hustling. And that cold email you sent me, you probably researched for a whole week to write that, huh?”
“Two weeks. And then it took another three hours just trying to find your email address.”
“Yeah, man. I did that kind of stuff all the time.”
I finally relaxed, which was a mistake, because Elliott immediately turned on me, firing a machine gun of questions about the mission. He asked them so intensely, so rapidly, I felt I was being interrogated. I answered the best I could, unsure how our conversation was going. Elliott laughed when I told him about the time I crouched in the bathroom.
He checked the time on his phone.
“Listen,” he said. “I only expected this to last thirty minutes. But maybe— Wait, don’t you have class today?”
“I’m all good. What do you have in mind?”
“Well, if you want, you can stick around for a bit and sit in on my next meeting.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“Okay, cool,” he said. “But first, we need ground rules. These five things aren’t just for today. They’re for the rest of your life.” He locked his eyes onto mine. “Write these down.”
I took out my phone to type them into the notepad.
“Rule number one: Never use your phone in a meeting. I don’t care if you’re just taking notes. Using your phone makes you look like a chump. Always carry a pen in your pocket. The more digital the world gets, the more impressive it is to use a pen. And anyway, if you’re in a meeting, it’s just rude to be on your phone.
“Rule number two: Act like you belong. Walk into a room like you’ve been there before. Don’t gawk over celebrities. Be cool. Be calm. And never, ever ask someone for a picture. If you want to be treated like a peer, you need to act like one. Fans ask for pictures. Peers shake hands.
“Speaking of pictures, rule number three: Mystery makes history. When you’re doing cool shit, don’t post pictures of it on Facebook. No one actually changing the world posts everything they do online. Keep people guessing what you’re up to. Plus, the people you’re going to impress by posting things online aren’t the people you should care about impressing.
“Now, rule number four,” he said, slowly stressing each word, “this rule is the most important. If you break it”—he moved his hand across his neck in a slicing motion—“you’re done.
“If you break my trust, you’re finished. Never, ever go back on your word. If I tell you something in confidence, you need to be a vault. What goes in does not come out. This goes for your relationships with everyone from this day forward. If you act like a vault, people will treat you like a vault. It will take years to build your reputation, but seconds to ruin it. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Good.” He stood up and looked down at me. “Get up.”
“But I thought you said there were five rules?”
“Uh, oh yeah. Here’s a last one: Adventures only happen to the adventurous.”
Before I could ask what that meant, Elliott walked away. I followed. He turned his head back to me. “Ready to play with the big boys?”
I nodded.
“By the way,” he added, looking me up and down, “nice TOMS.”
* * *
Elliott’s meeting began and I found myself sitting with my forearms on my knees, listening more intently than I ever had to a professor in class. Elliott started it casually, making jokes and asking his guest how her morning was going. Then almost unnoticeably, he shifted the full force of his focus on her: What was she passionate about? What was she working on? When she was polite and asked Elliott about himself, he laughed and said, “Oh, I’m not that interesting,” and posed another question. For essentially the entire interaction, Elliott barely spoke about himself. Finally, at what seemed like the last 10 percent of the meeting, Elliott shared his story: “The city of my dreams didn’t exist, so I’m setting out to build it.” He was buying the largest private ski mountain in North America in a city called Eden, Utah, and creating a small, residential community on the backside of the mountain for entrepreneurs, artists, and activists. Then just as she was hooked, Elliott ended the conversation.
He gave her a hug and she headed off. Then another guest arrived. The second meeting flowed as smoothly as the first. I was mesmerized by how Elliott controlled their interaction. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him, yet I kept sneaking looks at my watch. I had to be on the road within the hour.
After the second meeting ended, Elliott stood up and motioned for me to do the same.
“Having fun?” he asked.
I let out a giant grin.
“Great,” he said. “You’re going to love this next one.”
I trailed close behind as he headed for the exit. All I could see in my mind was an enormous hourglass, the sand trickling down until my final exam.
We crossed the street to the Westin hotel, which wasn’t just any hotel. This week it was the main lodging of the TED conference, one of the most exclusive gatherings in the world. We made our way to the lobby restaurant. It was intimate, no more than fifteen tab
les. Classical music played in the background, accented by the chimes of tiny spoons against porcelain cups.
Elliott walked directly to the host. “Table for four, please.”
As we were escorted through the dining area, I figured I should tell Elliott that I might have to leave this meeting early, but right then Elliott greeted a man at a nearby table. I recognized him instantly: Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. His book Delivering Happiness was still on the top row of my bookshelf.
Elliott continued walking. “You see that guy over there,” he whispered to me. “That’s Larry Page, the CEO of Google. That guy to your left is Reid Hoffman. He’s the founder of LinkedIn. Now look over there. The table in the far back—the guy with the glasses, he created Gmail. On your right, in the blue running shorts, that’s Chad. He’s the cofounder of YouTube.”
We got to our table and Elliott’s guests arrived. First came Franck, the cofounder of Startup Weekend, one of the world’s largest entrepreneurial organizations; then Brad, the cofounder of Groupon, which at the time was valued at thirteen billion dollars. The three of them chatted. Throughout the meal, Elliott’s gaze kept darting my way as if he was judging me. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to speak up more or if the one time I did was one too many.
Halfway through breakfast, the cofounder of Groupon went to the restroom, then the cofounder of Startup Weekend stepped to the side to take a call. Elliott turned to me and continued the interrogation.
“So where are you getting your money from? How are you paying for all your travels?”
I told him I was using the money I won on a game show.
“You what?” he said.
“Have you heard of The Price Is Right?”
“Everyone’s heard of The Price Is Right.”
“Well, last year, two nights before finals, I pulled an all-nighter and figured out how to hack the show. I went the next day, won a sailboat, sold it, and that’s how I’m funding my mission.”
