Frieberg's Three Billion-Dollar Companies

A story about how David Frieberg, despite creating three billion-dollar companies, would have been disappointed if he knew this would be his outcome.

"I was talking to David Frieberg on the podcast and I tried to butter him up. I said 'You've created not one, not two, but three billion-dollar companies. You created Climate which is a billion-dollar company, Metromile which is basically a billion-dollar company, and Production Board, a billion-dollar company.'

I asked him, 'If I went back to you at age 18-19-20 when you're in college and told you this is how it all shakes out - you're going to create three separate billion-dollar companies, what would you have said? Would that have been unbelievable to you?'

He said 'Honestly, I'd probably have been disappointed.' I was shocked, but he explained two things: First, money wasn't his driving force. Second, he doesn't feel like he's had a big impact on the world yet. What he's trying to do now with Canada and other projects is fundamentally change the means of production - like changing how we produce food or pharmaceuticals, moving from factories and farming to laboratory production.

When a guy who's created three billion-dollar companies says he would have been disappointed with that outcome, it makes me question my own scoreboard and what I consider success."