Jim Mckelvey, Co-Founder of Square // The Artist Who Became A Billionaire Creator Lab - interviews with entrepreneurs and startup founders

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Who is Jim?
Jim McKelvey is an entrepreneur, glass-blowing artist + philanthropist.

He’s most well known as the co-founder of Square, the financial payments company he started with Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter). Jim also co-founded the non-profit “Launch Code” and he’s an independent Director of the St. Louis Federal Reserve
Jim’s book, The Innovation Stack, is available for purchase. Or sign up to the email list at the bottom of this post to win 1 of 5 copies we’re giving away to listeners
Topics We Discuss:
the origin story of Square Square's 14 part "innovation stack" that allowed them to win in this tough market reducing the cost of a card reader from $1000 to $0.97 going up against Amazon + winning examples of innovation stacks from other companies the unbanked + underbanked his thoughts on digital currencies invention vs innovation entrepreneurship vs owning a business if "billionaires should exist" + his "billionaire moment" why being a billionaire ≠ happiness Book Giveaway
We’re giving away 5 copies of Jim’s book to email subscribers, details here:
https://www.creatorlab.fm/jim-mckelvey-square-co-founder/
Timestamps (YouTube)
https://youtu.be/42U2VfWp2Go
00:00:00 Intro 00:00:49 Welcome 00:01:50 Early Career as a Glassblower 00:03:10 Meeting Jack Dorsey 00:05:59 Beginning of Square 00:10:59 Underserved Markets 00:15:13 Studying a Market for Something That Doesn’t Exist 00:19:03 The Unbanked + Underbanked 00:24:49 Square’s Innovation Stack 00:28:21 Invention vs Innovation 00:30:21 Getting Square's First Users 00:33:38 What Were The Large Existing Players Missing? 00:42:22 The Delusion of Innovation 00:45:26 How Square Went Up Against Amazon + Won 00:50:43 Entrepreneur vs Business Owner 00:52:32 His “Billionaire” Moment 00:54:52 Being Treated Like a “Walking Wallet” 00:56:33 Should Billionaires Exist? 01:00:21 Industries That are Ripe for Innovation 01:05:30 Digital Currency 01:08:13 Advice on Investing 01:10:30 "If you inherit wealth, you're not rich" 01:12:24 Being Rich ≠ Being Happy 01:13:44 Philanthropy 01:16:39 Dealing with the hardest period of his life 01:19:33 Wrap Up Thank you to our partner
 
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