An Interview With Edward Sylvan
If I can help people understand how much better life is than is commonly thought, then I think many other problems that need to be solved will get prioritised. If we all feel stressed and hard done by, then we are less likely to allocate resources to all the other important things to solve.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Grant J Ryan.
Grant J. Ryan is the son of an Invercargill chicken farmer who ended up a hopelessly addicted inventor. He has founded several technology companies in the area of internet search, social networking, personal electric transport and eco-tourism. For the past few years, he has been working on a non-profit open-source project to protect New Zealand native species (cacophony.org.nz). He has worked as an advisor to the New Zealand Government in venture capital and science and technology policy. Grant has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Ecological Economics.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I grew up in a small town at the bottom of New Zealand with a very inventive family. My father had machines in the garage that made products he sold around the world. At the end of the year schoolbook, we had to list a probable career and I put inventor. I was told to be serious but in fact, I’ve only managed to have a real job for a couple of years before having fun running my own inventive businesses.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
There wasn’t a particular book, but I did do lots of reading about thinking. I figured if you could improve your understanding of thinking, just a little bit, it would be useful for your whole life. I pretty quickly worked out that being creative is more useful than just learning stuff and it fits with my natural questioning of the status quo.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
If Google offers to buy your business, you should probably say yes (duh!).
The company (Eurekster) promptly failed shortly after we turned down Google’s offer. When Google offered to buy a different business later, I would have said yes but Intel outbid them, so I was ok with that. There is a stunning amount of luck required in business and it is not till you have been through a few failures that you really realise this.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
If I can help people understand how much better life is than is commonly thought, then I think many other problems that need to be solved will get prioritised. If we all feel stressed and hard done by, then we are less likely to allocate resources to all the other important things to solve.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
It only takes about 10 minutes to walk through a few thought experiments to convince yourself that you are already in the richest 1% of humans to ever live. You have lots of goods and services that only 10–15 years ago were impossible for a billionaire have. But the feelings of stress and gloom are real and well researched but not commonly understood.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
I actually presumed someone else would write this book as current metrics of progress seem so obviously inadequate. I’d been thinking about this for years as my Ph.D. is in economic growth theory but the book by Gordon Moore on the rise and fall of growth accelerated the writing of my book Comparonomics. His basic thesis is that growth used to be great, but it isn’t now and never will be — we are stuck with slow growth in living standards. Also, the media commonly state that many of us are not much better off than 50 years ago when it comes to real wages.
I didn’t want it to be another expert arguing technical points in academia so I invented a simple tool so anyone can make their own mind up. The tool asks you “what is important to you and how has that changed over time?” You can work it out yourself and easily see how much better things are. It then gives you incentive to try to understand what is behind the very real feelings of stress and gloom that tends to be pervasive in society. They are not what most people intuitively think.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
The nice thing about the conclusions of the book is that you can get most of the benefit without politicians needing to do anything.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I don’t think I’m a good leader nor do I want to be. This is just some pretty interesting and useful stuff that everyone should know. How you choose to use it is up to you.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
I’ll give you 3:
When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. Not caring what people think of you is one of the most powerful things you can do to destress your world.
Your brain maybe be as good as anyone else’s. I powered through a year and a half of my post-graduate degree trying to understand something when I finally worked out that the theory, I was looking at was wrong and it was pretty easy to show why. It’s disturbing it took me that long to switch from learning what others know to thinking independently.
Luck is more common than you might think. I started my first business just before the dot com boom. I didn’t know that when I started but it was the main reason that we were successful. Pure luck…
Can you please give us your favorite Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
As a kid, I loved the quote “I try not to let my schooling interfere with my education.” I’ve always made a point of reading and thinking about things that are not part of formal courses but just follow my nose.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Stephen Dubner from Freakonomics because he has probably done more than anyone to make interesting, useful ideas available to help people in their day today life. His goal is to expose “the hidden side of everything” and the goal of my book is to show the hidden side of how we think we are getting on and why it matters. Behaviour economics exposes systematic flaws in how we make decisions day to day. What I’ve tried to do in this book is point out a set of systematic flaws in how we think about progress (behavioural economics for long term growth)
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Sorry I’m not on social media but I do occasionally do blog posts from comparonomics.com that I also put in a newsletter: https://www.comparonomics.com/newsletter
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Thanks!
About The Interviewer: Growing up in Canada, Edward Sylvan was an unlikely candidate to make a mark on the high-powered film industry based in Hollywood. But as CEO of Sycamore Entertainment Group Inc, (SEGI) Sylvan is among a select group of less than ten Black executives who have founded, own and control a publicly traded company. Now, deeply involved in the movie business, he is providing opportunities for people of color.
In 2020, he was appointed president of the Monaco International Film Festival, and was encouraged to take the festival in a new digital direction.
Raised in Toronto, he attended York University where he studied Economics and Political Science, then went to work in finance on Bay Street, (the city’s equivalent of Wall Street). After years of handling equities trading, film tax credits, options trading and mergers and acquisitions for the film, mining and technology industries, in 2008 he decided to reorient his career fully towards the entertainment business.
With the aim of helping Los Angeles filmmakers of color who were struggling to understand how to raise capital, Sylvan wanted to provide them with ways to finance their creative endeavors.
At Sycamore Entertainment he specializes in print and advertising financing, marketing, acquisition and worldwide distribution of quality feature-length motion pictures, and is concerned with acquiring, producing and promoting films about equality, diversity and other thought provoking subject matter which will also include nonviolent storytelling.
Also in 2020, Sylvan launched SEGI TV, a free OTT streaming network built on the pillars of equality, sustainability and community which is scheduled to reach 100 million U.S household televisions and 200 million mobile devices across Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV and others.
As Executive Producer he currently has several projects in production including The Trials of Eroy Brown, a story about the prison system and how it operated in Texas, based on the best-selling book, as well as a documentary called The Making of Roll Bounce, about the 2005 coming of age film which starred rapper Bow Wow and portrays roller skating culture in 1970’s Chicago.
He sits on the Board of Directors of Uplay Canada, (United Public Leadership Academy for Youth), which prepares youth to be citizen leaders and provides opportunities for Canadian high school basketball players to advance to Division 1 schools as well as the NBA.
A former competitive go kart racer with Checkered Flag Racing Ltd, he also enjoys traveling to exotic locales. Sylvan resides in Vancouver and has two adult daughters.
Sylvan has been featured in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and has been seen on Fox Business News, CBS and NBC. Sycamore Entertainment Group Inc is headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Grant J Ryan Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.