Chapters

Chapters
What’s in it for me? Insights into the Summit story.
1
Passion sees you over the line when the going gets tough.
2
Follow your authentic interests but hedge your bets.
3
Question existing ways of doing things and you might just hit upon a great
idea.
4
If you want to build something memorable, keep it surreal.
5
Keep an open mind and you might just win big.
6
Final summary
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Make No Small Plans

00:00
Introduction
What’s in it for me? Insights into the Summit story.
If you’ve been following modern entrepreneurship, tech, and business culture,
you’ve probably heard of Summit. Summit started with an idea: great things happen
when you bring people together and get them talking. That’s not a new idea – it’s
why global movers and shakers head to places like Davos and Aspen, after all. But
the guests at those kinds of events are typically already established. They’re
presidents and Pulitzer prize winners or the CEOs and CFOs of giant corporations.
What about the next generation, though – the people building the apps and start-
ups set to revolutionize tomorrow’s world? What if you brought them together and
got them talking? In 2008, four 20-something entrepreneurs with little hands-on
experience and just two college degrees between them decided to find out. Their
book, Make No Small Plans, is the story of what happened next. The short version is
that they built Summit, an event company that has become known as a kind of
Davos for young entrepreneurs and a hothouse for up-and-coming talent. Summit’s
first iteration, a ski trip in Utah, was a far cry from the kind of events it hosts today.
Back then, there were just 19 guests in a poky rented house with shared bedrooms.
The beer ran out within half an hour and the shoestring budget barely covered the
skiing equipment. But it didn’t matter. Once those guests got to talking, sparks
started flying. They traded ideas, hatched deals, and made plans for the future.
Most importantly, they forged lifelong friendships. After Utah, Summit snowballed.
Today, it hosts events all over the world and its list of guest speakers includes the
likes of Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Al Gore, and many other recognizable names.
The scale of the Summit operation may have changed, but the company’s values
remain the same. As the founders’ manifesto puts it, “We believe that the more
great people you meet, the more great people you will meet.” In this Blink, we’re
going to learn about the story and spirit of Summit. We’re not going to try to tell you
the long version – that’s best left to the authors of Make No Small Plans. Instead,
we’ll be zooming in and focusing on five snapshots that capture the philosophy,
ideas, and values of these remarkable entrepreneurs. Along the way, you’ll also
learn why no idea should go unspoken; how to build meaningful business
relationships; and why it pays to keep things surreal.
02:55
Chapter 1 of 5
Passion sees you over the line when the going gets tough.
People say, do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s an
idea that’s been knocking around so long it’s virtually become conventional wisdom.
Thing is, though, it’s not quite right. The thinking here is that the things you care
about – call them passions, or hobbies – are easy because you want to do them.
Work, by contrast, is a chore. A slog. Something you have to do which you’d rather
not. Time flies when you’re having fun but the office clock turns unbearably slowly. If
doing something you loved also earned you money, it follows, it wouldn’t really be
work. But there’s another way of looking at things. The thing about passion projects
is that they make you want to keep going deeper. You keep discovering more
complexity. More room for improvement. You also become more critical and more
attuned to shortcomings. In short, they turn you into a perfectionist. It’s the same
whatever the activity. Tennis. Playing the guitar. Writing code. You want to get
better, but improvement is painful. Playing scales a thousand times sucks. Spending
hours practicing your backhand is a chore. Building the 100th basic website is
boring. But you persevere. Put in the hard yards. Complete the drills. It’s precisely
because you care that you’re capable of doing the work. Put differently, if you do
something you love, you’ll work every single day of your life. And that’s a good
thing! Because you’ll be doing something that matters. That expresses your values.
That moves you toward your authentic goals. It’s not a question of work versus
passion, then – that’s a false dichotomy. It’s care and interest. If you care, you’ll do
the work; if it connects with who you are, if it interests you, the hard and boring
parts of the process mean something. That’s what sees you through. That’s what
keeps you pushing. This idea isn’t neatly packaged in Make No Small Plans – it isn’t
given a chapter or section of its own. But it shines through on every page and in
every story the authors tell. Of course, on its own, that caring isn’t enough for
success – there’s so much more that goes into something as complex and big as
building a global company. But it’s absolutely foundational. Everything else gets
built on top of this commitment.
05:51
Chapter 2 of 5
Follow your authentic interests but hedge your bets.
Let’s rewind to 2008. The economy is crashing and the future is uncertain. Elliott,
one of Summit’s founders, is in college. He’s not happy, though. Something is
missing. One day, while walking to campus, he finds himself caught up in a large
crowd of students. Everyone is streaming in the same direction, toward the library,
to read the same textbooks and study the same problems. Problems last year’s
students solved. All so they can compete for the same jobs in the same labor
market that’s being wrecked by the greatest recession since the ’30s. For Elliott, it
doesn’t add up. He doesn’t want to do that. He wants to work on his own problems,
not his professors’. He doesn’t want to study – he wants to build something. In
short, he’s just discovered something important about himself: a sense of where his
authentic interests lie and what he wants to do with his life. The word authenticity
can sound like a big and intimidating, existential kind of thing. That’s because we
often think of it in all-or-nothing terms: being authentic or being inauthentic. But
you don’t have to go all in right away. Take it from Elliott. He’s realized he wants to
set and solve his own problems. To work for himself. To be an entrepreneur. His first
thought? Take the plunge. Quit college. His dad, luckily, is a sensible guy. Down to
earth. Practical. Here’s what he says. There are risks, and then there are risks. The
question to think about is how far you can fall. Dropping out of college and spending
all your savings is very risky. If things don’t pan out, you’ll be in a tough situation
that’s hard to get out of. So what if you spend some of your savings and stay in
college while working on what you really care about? If it doesn’t work out, you’ll
have a bruised ego but you’ll still have options and half your savings. Same reward,
different risks. Simply put, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. What was Elliott’s
response? He listened. He didn’t drop out of college. He started selling ads in an
online newsletter in his spare time. He didn’t spend all his savings. And he didn’t try
to persuade his family to remortgage the house to support his business idea. And
that, too, is part of the Summit story. It was the cold calls he placed from his college
dorm room that taught him the skills he’d need to launch the company. So here’s
the lesson: acting authentically doesn’t mean being reckless. You’re not charging
headlong into the unknown – you’re slowly pushing open doors to new
opportunities. That process begins with a single question: What am I interested in?
Sometimes, the answer will present itself serendipitously – it just hits you one day,
like it did Elliott. But you can also be more deliberate about it. Sit with that question
a while and then write your answers down. Maybe it’s cooking, or fitness, or finance,
or learning a language. And then? Well, you make time to do those things. You start
cooking. Take that class. Get that certificate. Enroll in that course. So many big
journeys start with this shift from a passive wish to active engagement. But
remember: it’s not all or nothing. Don’t make small plans, but do start small!
09:54
Chapter 3 of 5
Question existing ways of doing things and you might just hit upon a great
idea.
Entrepreneurship isn’t glamorous – especially when you’re cold calling prospective
clients from your childhood bedroom. Most of all, it can be lonely. There were tons of
other young entrepreneurs out there, but Summit’s future founders found it hard to
connect with them. Back in the late 2000s, the only real bet was to attend
networking events. These events were brutal, though. For a couple of hours, you’d
be crammed into the brightly lit lobby of a downtown hotel with hundreds of people
desperate to seize this opportunity to make connections. It was loud. It was stuffy. It
was chaotic. It wasn’t a get-together. It was a cattle market. It wasn’t just that there
wasn’t time or space for interesting conversations, though. These events seemed to
actively encourage soul-crushing interactions. It was an environment designed for
that guy who’s always selling something; who’s always pushing his agenda. The guy
who’s already surveying the room for his next target while failing to listen to the
person in front of him. Who treats others as means to his ends. Everything was
transactional and rooted in short-term thinking. It was about what you can do for
me right now, or tomorrow, or next week. But the best networkers are the kind of
people who build long-term relationships with people they care about. They
understand that relationships need to be nurtured – you have to put work and
practice and time into them before they bear fruit. For the Summit founders, this
way of looking at things seemed intuitive – even obvious. But that posed an
interesting question. If the secret to building great business relationships was hardly
a mystery, why wasn’t there some kind of forum that encouraged that behavior? A
space in which better, deeper, more interesting conversations could be held? A
place in which entrepreneurs could actually meet each other? It was that question
which launched Summit Series. The timing was right, too. The first buds of the new
digital economy were sprouting from the rubble left behind by the crash of 2008.
With the app store, you could build anything. New brands were springing up and
reimagining the way everything was sold, from mattresses to shoes to vacuum
cleaners. But all these entrepreneurs were like individual islands. Together, they
formed a kind of archipelago, but there was no bridge connecting them. And that’s
where Summit came in. Here was the idea: bring as many of these entrepreneurs as
possible together in one place and get them talking. Not just for a few hours. And
not in a stuffy hotel lobby. Somewhere nice. Someplace where real conversations
could unfold. And that’s how it started. Elliott booked a house near Utah’s ski slopes
and started cold-calling potential sponsors and interesting young entrepreneurs
he’d read about. In the end, 19 people agreed to come on an all-expenses three-day
ski trip. It was the start of something big. And it all started by questioning the status
quo.
13:30
Chapter 4 of 5
If you want to build something memorable, keep it surreal.
Okay, so we’ve talked a bit about following your passions, balancing your
authenticity with good sense, and starting small, being brave enough to break
tradition and do things your way . . . what’s next? For Summit’s founders, whether
they’re hosting an event with fewer than 20 or more than 2,000 guests – certain
rules always apply. First, the guests. Who do you invite? The Summit take is that
status is irrelevant – you don’t have to be wealthy or occupy a prestigious position
to be an interesting person. What really matters is passion. You start by asking: Is
this person doing work they love? The second question is even simpler: Are they
nice? That’s it. If someone ticks both boxes, they pass what’s known as the Airport
Test – they’re someone you’d happily spend four hours with if your flight was
delayed. Those were the questions Summit’s founders asked when they organized
that ski trip to Utah, and they’re the questions they still ask when they send out
invites to events today. But interesting and nice guests alone don’t make an event.
There’s another factor in play. One evening – this was around 2010 – the founders
were having dinner with an eccentric chef in Los Angeles. He’d pioneered the city’s
pop-up restaurant scene and was the star of its underground food movement. His
stunts included organizing dinners by the side of highways, or on cliffs overlooking
the ocean. He’d heard about Summit – word had gotten around after Utah and a
couple of follow-up events. Thing is, he told the founders, you’re keeping it real
when what you really need to do is keep it surreal. It was his way of saying that
Summit was a bit boring. That it needed to go up a gear or two. He was right. And
that brings us to that second factor – atmosphere. The staging. The environment.
The table by the side of the highway that reframes your dish of tortellini. The thing
that makes the event, well, surreal. Memorable. Immersive. So what if you hired an
entire cruise ship, packed it with over a thousand interesting guests, and sailed it
around the Bahamas for three days? In 2011, Summit did precisely that. And
suddenly everything came together. It was a unique experience with amazing
people. Think back to those stuffy, overlit hotel lobbies and then imagine the exact
opposite – that’s what Summit at Sea was. There were meals cooked by young
chefs. Live music on multiple decks. Intimate corners with sheepskin rugs for
conversations. Meditation sessions. Conferences on everything from cryptocurrency
to conflict resolution. Bars, pools, DJs. It was impossible to feel bored. After 2011,
Summit never looked back. Events became larger, more extravagant, and
even more surreal. It's a recipe that works. Tens of thousands of people have
attended their events. More importantly, they’ve built lasting relationships. Take just
a couple of examples. Qwiki, an iPhone video-sharing app that was sold to Yahoo for
$50 million, was born at a Summit event. The $100 million wristwatch health-tracker
company Basis secured its first round of major investment at another event. Great
things happen when you bring the right people together and get them talking in the
right environment.
17:27
Chapter 5 of 5
Keep an open mind and you might just win big.
So, Summit may have started with one great groundbreaking idea . . . but how can a
company stand the test of time and stay innovative? Summit’s answer is that you
foster a culture in which no idea goes unspoken. Let’s break that down. Ideas are
egalitarian. Interns can have great ideas and CEOs can have terrible ideas. It can go
the other way too, of course. Sometimes relative inexperience and experience do
matter. Point is, a great idea can come from anywhere, and the status of the person
proposing it isn’t a reliable indicator of its worth. So that’s the first marker of a
culture that’s open to ideas: everyone gets a fair hearing. The second marker is that
there’s an emphasis on generating lots of ideas. Put differently, it’s not just that
anyone can put forward an idea – it’s that there’s an expectation that everyone will.
That’s because quantity makes quality. It’s only by getting it all out there that you
get to the good stuff. If an idea isn’t right, you move on. No harm, no foul. You don’t
have to commit to a bad idea just because you’ve given it a hearing, but the more
bad ideas you hear the more likely you are to find the good ones. On one level,
hiring an entire cruise ship for more than a million dollars was a crazy idea. But it’s
what put Summit over the top. That’s where that culture makes a difference. When
you’re willing to engage with crazy-sounding ideas, you often find out that they’re
actually workable. Take another wild idea – getting Jeff Bezos to appear at a Summit
event without blowing the company’s entire annual budget on speaking fees. It just
doesn’t sound doable – this is one of the world’s richest and most in-demand men,
after all. Okay, sure, but let’s give the idea a fair hearing. What is a speaking fee
anyway? Well, it’s a benefit – a remuneration for someone’s time and energy. But
does it have to take the form of money? The more they thought about it, the less
sure Summit’s founders were that it did. Elliott, for example, remembered a deal
he’d struck with a limousine service years earlier. The company wanted to place ads
in his newsletter, but couldn’t afford to. So they came to a different arrangement:
they got the ads and Elliott got to use their limousines to drive to meetings. There’d
been similar deals with bands who’d performed at Summit events, too. But what can
you offer a man who has it all? The answer was a platform. This was 2016. Bezos
had become a household name, but people didn’t really know his story. Who was
he? Where had he come from? What were his values? So that’s what Summit offered
him: a chance to tell that story to a live audience of 2,500 as well as the millions of
people who’d later watch a recording of the interview. That, to him, was a unique
benefit that was far, far more valuable than a speaker’s fee. The moral of the story?
Make big plans and give crazy ideas a hearing. You never know – they might just
work out.
21:03
Conclusion
Final summary
We’ve just gone through the Blink to Make No Small Plans, by Elliott Bisnow, Jeff
Rosenthal, Jeremy Schwartz, and Brett Leve. So what, if nothing else, should you
remember from this today? Summit’s philosophy is that interesting things happen
when interesting people get together and start talking. And that’s really at the heart
of what the company does: it provides a forum for people to collaborate on big
plans. And it’s also how Summit itself works. It’s the founders’ commitment to
nurturing ideas, creative problem solving, and – above all – collaboration that’s
made Summit so successful. If you’re feeling a bit uninspired or at a dead end,
consider going to a conference, finding or founding a group of people interested in
trading ideas, and seeking out those that can open your mind to new ways of
thinking. And if you enjoyed this Blink, be sure to leave us a rating and some
feedback! We really love it when you share your thoughts.
Mark as finished
00:00
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Make No Small Plans
Elliott Bisnow, Brett Leve, Jeff Rosenthal and Jeremy Schwartz
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