The "Tao" of Bernie

The Goldhirsh Foundation exists to forward Bernie Goldhirsh's entrepreneurial drive in a truly unique fashion. While the ultimate goal lies in creating breakthroughs in curing brain cancer, the modality is at once orthodox and unorthodox, in keeping with Bernie's mindset. The Foundation seeks a rare breed of scientific researcher: One who can approach the challenge of finding a cure as an entrepreneurial thinker. The task requires knowledge of current clinical and oncological thinking and the capability to look beyond what "is" to approaches and concepts as yet unearthed.

To appreciate the Foundation's roots and objectives, you need to understand Bernie. He was the consummate entrepreneurial spirit, a person who devoted his life to taking a simple idea and creating a living, breathing entity with not much more than brains and sweat equity. His spirit and passion are stamped on our collective psyche and live on through Sail, a magazine that literally changed the course of boating publications; Inc. magazine, Bernie's entrepreneurial anthem; and the countless small businesses he tirelessly supported.

The biography on this site serves to describe the man Bernie was. Perhaps harder to characterize is his spirit and the way his values colored his entire approach to life. In 2001, Paul Karofsky, Executive Director of Northeastern University's Center for Family Business, interviewed Bernie at length, capturing his essence and his philosophy. His answers form the picture of a man inspired by the entrepreneurial thinking and creativity he saw in others; an "idea" man capable of coupling abstract conceptualizing with the practical know-how needed to build an enterprise; an individual informed and guided by his own values; and perhaps, most important, a person who fiercely believed that curiosity, learning, and the willingness to question what "is" can bring about seminal change, especially in the area of finding a cure for brain cancer.

The following excerpts of that interview offer insight into the mind of the man behind the Goldhirsh Foundation.

PK: Bernie, let's start the interview with some of your background.

Bernie: I went to MIT, Class of 1961, and then drifted around the Caribbean for a while, came back and was a school teacher-head of the science department at New Prep from 1962 to 1964. In 1964, I ran my own school ship down in South America. Then I came back and started to teach Celestial Navigation in the days before GPS and Loran, when you had to know how to navigate by the stars. That led to starting a little sailing magazine in the form of educational booklets, and ultimately those booklets became a magazine that began taking advertising in January of 1970. That's when Sail magazine was born, and it grew to become the largest sailing magazine in the world. I started Inc. in April 1979, and I sold Sail about the same time.

PK: You've talked about entrepreneurship being your passion, and you've said that you're a champion of people who create things. Tell us more about that.

Bernie: While I was a student at MIT, I took a semester off and worked for Dr. Edwin Land at Polaroid during its early days, when he had a small group of people who were inventing the cameras of the future. I was in that little group. I really hail Dr. Land. He is a hero to me. Here was this fast-growing company, creating all kinds of jobs, created by this one man with an idea. And I thought, this is so fantastic, that one person can do so much in terms of creating a business, creating an enterprise, creating jobs, increasing the tax base. So much good comes from this one person, his idea, and his willingness to go ahead and start a business. This process of people creating new enterprises is a source of continual renewal in an economy.

I tried to imagine what the world would be like without that renewal process. I felt it would really lose a lot of its vitality, and energy and would probably be impoverished relative to this constant fountain of creativity. I kept thinking that the entrepreneur is like an artist whose medium of expression is business. Artists who create art, dance or music contribute so much. This is what the entrepreneur is. He's like the artist in the business environment; he creates something from nothing, just blank canvas. It's amazing. Somebody goes into a garage with an idea, and out of the garage comes a company - a living company. It's so special what entrepreneurs do. They are a treasure.

PK: Bernie, what is the source of your creative energy?

Bernie: As a kid I used to like to build things in my father's machine shop, which was a loft in a five-floor walkup in New York City. He had a one-man operation. Right next to his shop was an inventor. I always passed his door on the way to my father's, and he would be sitting on his stool at the worktable, a quiet guy just inventing things. For some reason, I was drawn to him. I thought this is great; he is creating things from nothing, just ideas in his head.

I felt when I got to MIT I would learn enough to become a good inventor. I wasn't sure if I'd become a teacher or a researcher or an inventor, but there was a part of me that knew I would become some kind of inventor, figuring out new ways to do things. But then I met Dr. Land. He'd say, "If we are creative the bottom line will follow." I swallowed that whole. That really appealed to me. The bottom line to me wasn't necessarily money. It was the growth of an enterprise or the growth of a contribution. So I liked that idea. It reinforced my belief in wanting to invent or create things.

PK: Bernie, when you were in the hospital recovering from surgery, you were struggling to walk. I remember sitting in your room and you were telling me how the brain functioned and what was going on inside the brain that affected your body mechanics. You immersed yourself in this. I've never heard a word from you of self-pity, or "Why did this happen to me?" "Why all the tragedy in my life?" Your energy and focus was on understanding what's happening to your body. Has this been in a way a salvation for you by immersing yourself in this?

Bernie: I don't feel sorry for myself. I just accept that this is what happened, and these are the cards I was dealt-a tough break. But that's what you have to work with. I think the whole experience has been interesting, exciting, challenging. I wish it didn't happen to me, but it did. The big change for me is in how I view the present and future. Before, my "present" was always defined by the existence of a "future," which I think is an entrepreneur's nature. You have all these dreams that you are going to build something, and it's going to exist in the future. When you have a life-threatening illness and your future is not as sure as it was.your present can't be defined by that future. It can only be defined by the present. You have to live in the present, which was a very hard transition for me to make. Interestingly, I've come to find that there's tremendous potential for satisfaction and happiness in the present.

PK: How has your recovery been progressing?

Bernie: You have to understand that a cancer in your brain is not like a typical cancer. With something like colon cancer, the surgeon takes the tumor out, cuts out a margin of tissue around it, and sews the person back up. In the brain, there is no margin. They can take a little bit, but they can't take much. The more they take, the more function you lose.

So with me they took a little bit, and I lost function in the left side of my body. It became a great challenge to get that function back. It requires repatterning your brain, like when a little child learns to walk. You know how they crawl along, and then all of a sudden they stand up, and then they fall. They stand up. They fall. Their first steps are shaky, but as they take more steps they learn how to walk. For me, I had to learn how to move the same way. I still can't move my left foot as well as I'd like, so I work on it every day. I'll move it with a rope and then make it work against the rope, and I'll do that every day for half an hour. I still don't have everything working well together, but it's amazing how new neuro-pathways and new functions are built.

I've said to people that others have to drive long distances to go hiking or climb Mt. Everest. I have these physical challenges right in my own room. I don't have to go anywhere! I have these great challenges, and they're as challenging as climbing Mt. Everest, so it's fun. It's also interesting to me because I have a science background. I became interested in how the brain works and that's fun for me. It's always fun to learn.

I've got these textbooks on neuroscience and I spend some time every day studying them. My daughter, Lizzie, and I went down to Florida recently and that was my reading material. I had this textbook and she said, "You're the only guy who goes on vacation with a textbook. Everybody else brings a novel or something." But I find it really fascinating. It's as good as reading a mystery novel; it's learning the mystery of how the brain works. Whether it will lead to my making any kind of contribution in terms of coming up with some new idea, I don't know. But it helps in terms of making grants and talking to scientists and learning their language.

PK: Bernie, let's talk about values. How do you preserve your values? How do you carry those values forward to the next generation?

Bernie: Well, I guess it's the way you live your life. The kids know what I have done, and they've met a lot of the people who work with me. They have a good sense of the value of an entrepreneurial life. For example, the other day when Lizzie and I were in Florida, we met with a sales person from Sail magazine, a person I hired 30 years ago and is still with Sail. It changed his life. And he was telling Lizzie about how important it was to him-that chance encounter. He was with his family and he introduced Lizzie to his wife and they talked about how thankful they were that Sail created this job for them. His wife works as a secretary and basically Sail has supported them. In return, they have contributed to Sail's success, and for 30 years they have had this wonderful life down in Florida. So the kids see that. I don't have to say anything to them. They see what comes from hard work and turning an idea into something of enduring value. That's how you pass values on.

As another example, I really like and support NFTE (National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship). It helps at-risk inner city children learn to be entrepreneurs and create enterprises of their own. It also helps them understand how legitimate business works. They could be living five subway stops from midtown Manhattan, living in South Bronx, and have no idea what goes on in midtown Manhattan. Here are these big high-rise buildings. Business is like a foreign country to these kids, but now they learn how business works. They get a mini MBA. My son, Ben, audited their online course. And Lizzie has worked at Babson College. Every summer they teach the teachers how to teach the program. So, some values are being transferred to the kids through examples of people and organizations helping others in need.

When I received this Henry Johnson Fisher Award, given by people in the publishing industry to an individual they feel made the biggest contribution in publishing, there was this big black-tie event in New York. The kids came and heard my speech. I talked about the importance of the entrepreneur and why Inc. was a success in serving this particular audience of company builders and job creators. So they've heard it their entire lives. They are not going to ever feel that the entrepreneur isn't a valuable person in this world. They understand that.

PK: And now you're taking your values a step further with the foundation that you have set up. What is the name of the foundation?

Bernie: It's the Goldhirsh Foundation.

PK: You have funded it substantially?

Bernie: Yes. $50 million dollars, from proceeds I received from Inc. [The magazine and its associated businesses were sold in 2001, when Bernie was diagnosed with cancer.]

PK: Your philosophy of philanthropy, what is it?

Bernie: I'm focused primarily on cancer research. I am trying to fund innovators, inventive people. There's a lot of money going into cancer research from the NIH and others. Each year I'm giving away five percent of the $50 million, or about $2.5 million dollars. We're trying to put it with innovative scientists. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the billions that are spent annually on cancer research. So if you are going to drop that money in a bucket, you have to make sure it goes to somebody who might really make a difference. To that end, I have an outstanding scientific advisory board made up of prominent scientists who are helping me to identify the innovators who deserve the research dollars. That's why I'm studying these textbooks. I'm trying to learn so I can help make the dollars count as much as possible.

PK: How do you make your foundation have the greatest possible impact?

Bernie: We support several scientists each year. Each scientist receives between $100,000 and $200,000 a year. And if we seed the right ones, maybe we'll see some breakthroughs. They are all great, dedicated people and to choose the ones to fund is like working in the venture capital business. There you have to decide which entrepreneurs you are going to fund. When I sat on the board of a venture capital fund, I was terrible. Every entrepreneur that came in I wanted to fund, but the more sensible people on the board said, "Well wait a minute, we can't fund everybody." That's when I stopped going to the board meetings because I realized I wasn't good at this. I was just too caught up in people's emotional commitment to their enterprises. I wanted to support everybody. So now I meet these wonderful scientists and I want to support all of them, but I can't. It's like business. You have to try to figure out which ones you're going to bet on. For me, going into their labs is like going back to MIT-it touches some real fundamental part of who I am. I respect these people, their dedication, working in their labs, trying to discover cures for devastating illnesses.