Defining Hospitality

[00:00:00]
Dan: a legend in the hospitality industry. Currently a partner at solely. He puts the Bednar in Hirsch Bedner associates, ladies and gentlemen, Michael Bedner. Mike, Michael Wang.
Welcome. And thank you so much. What I want to say as we start off, when I think about one of the reasons why I started this podcast of defining hospitality, I had no idea what hospitality was until I was, I guess, the ripe old age of 18 years old. And [00:01:00] I moved out to California. I met your son Meesha and he invited me to your home.
And I just remember, not just me being made to feel so comfortable, but everyone that seemed to walk off the beach was made to feel so comfortable. And it was just, um, it was a life-changing experience for me. And it actually helped draw me down this path because of you being this all welcoming bear. And when I look at your body of work and what you've done in your life, As far as making others feel comfortable.
Um, you're like one of the star reasons that I actually started this whole conversation and I'm just so excited and grateful that you're in my life, but also here. Right.
Michael Bedner: Well, thank you, Dan. You're being very kind and much too kind. If I remember correctly, I also made you wash windows and pull the wood in from outside and clean the [00:02:00] deck.
So that was my form of hospitals. Yeah. And
Dan: I remember it now, now that you bring that up, I would wash the windows. I would clean the deck. I would bring wood in and it was never done the right way. You would always coach me or yell at me at how, what the right way to do it. It's
Michael Bedner: yeah, I thought that was coaching, right?
It is a little hard of hearing. So I thought I'd, I'd have to up my game here. But no, it's, I, I always T I've always teased and you're one of the surrogate sons from, I'm very appreciative of your father saying it's okay. As long as when he's in California, you get abused. So I took that to heart. In fact, I have to thank your father for that.
Dan: Well, yeah, he said a lot of great things and I'm glad you did abuse me in your own way, because it always showed me that, um, no matter what the end result is, There can always be more right. We can always lean into it more and get it. And I guess the real balance is like, [00:03:00] how do you know when a work is done?
Any kind of work, whether it's a Picasso or sweeping the deck or spraying hose spraying.
Michael Bedner: It never is, as you all know, and your business and our business, you're in the hospitality business, you understand that whatever you give people has to be the best you can do. That was always our saying that HBA. We always, we had three precepts at HBA when I took over.
Uh, out there, how it's passing. It was basically one. You do the best damn job you can. There's no excuses. The architect never knows what he's doing. The owner never knows what they want. We never have enough time. There's never enough money, no excuses. You do the best damn job you can. Secondarily, there was always, you'd better enjoy this because if you don't enjoy.
You have to find another thing, something else to do, find another trade. If you're not loving this, get [00:04:00] out. I always would point in the door. Occasionally people would have walked towards the door, uh, which was probably good for them and us. The third one, which was very, very important. You must grow and learn from the experience.
You can make all kinds of mistakes on the project it was our job to back you up, cover it, fix it. But if you didn't learn from the experience, there was no reason for you to stick around for you had another chance at wonderful failure, but if you learn, that's great. If you're enjoying the process, that's so important.
And if you're doing the best you can, but that was the premiere element. We always appreciate
Dan: the windows. Precepts doing the best job, you can enjoy it and be open to growing and learning oftentimes through making mistakes and not getting discouraged. If you think about those precepts, as it transcends every part of your life and all of the leaders that you've [00:05:00] sprouted from, like under your Cape, uh, in all of your endeavors, if you were to define what hospitality means.
And I kind of said my, I shared my own way, but you were the first. Time. I really felt that in a whole new land and you opened up my mind to it, like, how do you define hospitality?
Michael Bedner: Well, it's not how I define it. It's how people experience it. And, uh, Mr. Hirsch Howard, her my best friend, he was my mentor and he later became my partner.
He was kind enough to bring me on. He was a man that understood hospitality. We did the first hotel where we designed all aspects of it, which was many years ago, but Beverly Rodale hotel. And it was an amazing experience where we plan [00:06:00] the rooms and we designed the furniture and we designed the carpet patterns.
We've designed even some of the upholstery. I remember migrate job list, the jar, everything. And actually in those days type the specs. If you believe that, uh, in other words, it was a very small firm. I was Howard actually first employee, there was Helen Hershey's wife at the time. And myself and houses, the three of us, then he hired one lovely young woman.
and she was just a great lady too, but there were, we were so blessed to learn from Howard. He was an amazing, wonderful man. And, uh, I still think he. Something that I, uh, I owe everything that I know to, and all the other wonderful people that had rubbed [00:07:00] up against like Porsche had a Ritz-Carlton, uh, horse really put the concept of hospitality into words, then verbally, he said it was ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen.
And he was brilliant at the way he would staff the way he would operate. That's why Mitch calls him still as well while he was there still was the number one brand. I don't know what the shift in the market is now because things have morphed and modified since I left the business, uh, supposedly a number of years ago.
Dan: Yeah. You cannot be kept out of doing anything. You're always active and busy. And when you think about that idea of hospitality, as you've learned from. Howard and also from horse [00:08:00] and, you know, you're saying it's others, but I feel like you also help pave away in there as well. Um, what do you think the most important element of it is?
Michael Bedner: The most important element of hospitality is making someone feel totally comfortable at ease and enjoy the experience. you could do that in an empty room with nothing around. you If the service is wonderful and you have a view or 98% of the time, don't always have that amazing view. So you have to provide the atmosphere where you feel where you have as Howard would say a sense of place.
You have to, you have to design something that had a sense of place in the early days of its Carlton. When we were working with. I'd wake up in some of the [00:09:00] hotels that were previously done and I grabbed the phone and they shit, where am I? What common mine. Because all the Ritz Carltons and look like they were all in Boston.
They had the same look, the same furniture, everything was very similar. And then we did the first splits pumps, and that was a contemporary version, which was in Singapore. And that had a huge, uh, I think it was nine foot, eight inches octagonal window in every bathroom with a tub in the middle.
Overlooking the entire city of shameless. It had, uh, the vistas were unbelievable. Uh, we put the first in the hotel in the main dining room and in the main lounge on the walls and they were really well done. They were understated and they were works of art. Uh, when Toby went to Las Vegas, they became shearing patterns.
They weren't [00:10:00] no longer works a lot. They were.
Um, that was always a concerning aspect, but that was the first contemporary that's called. And the first one that had a sense of place. If I could remember that, I tell you it was, oh God, 40 years ago.
Dan: Wow.
How everyone looked the same before. What was the process before you guys revolutionized how hotels were designed and built? Because my understanding is people would just go and pick existing things and drop them in a room. How did you change
Michael Bedner: that? We, as I said, we designed that we were plants. We would work on the interior plan.
We didn't. Just what was given us as a box and fill it up with furniture. We interrelated all the planning of the [00:11:00] entire hotel. And since Mr. Hirsch made me work from the back door, and then he worked from the front door into the center, I got to do the kitchens and I got to move the back of house and I got to do the loading dock and I got to do all these exciting things, not as a very one.
But that gave me incredible knowledge of how a hotel functions, literally from the waistbands all the way into the reception desk. And now, as you know, we no longer need reception desks to be registered in your room or on your phone now. For your headset,
Dan: but we don't need them, but in a way I kind of still want them in certain cases.
I liked that initial welcoming, especially if it's done well, if it's just on, in a scripted way, I'm not, it's not as magical, but what are your thoughts on all this? The kind of [00:12:00] removal of human interaction as far as it pertains to delivering hospitality?
Michael Bedner: I think. Not doing well, hospitality, it's more of a gathering place, but people with computers and iPhones, it's no longer a place where you're meeting and being redid.
And you're not meeting new people. You're not building relationships. It's very much like a Starbucks, which is not the most wonderful thing, but it's a part of our, uh, our lifestyle now. It's a young person's lifestyle. Don't ask me. I'm 38 years old. My God. I'm way over the hell, man. I'm 38 years old because my donor's now 38 years old.
There we go. I'm very blessed in that, in that music, in that score, do you keep in touch with them? I do. Not as much as I should, but, uh, we went [00:13:00] over to, uh, Riveria several years ago and met my donor and his family. And it was wonderful. I mean, uh, I would not be here lesson for that gentlemen, even my son Misha, uh, because of the lineage, he had only an eight out of a 12 month.
And the DNA and this gentleman had the 10 out of the
12
Dan: and that was a bone marrow, correct?
Michael Bedner: What was a, no, that was a stem cell transplant. That was a stem cell transplant. I could not make a well just tear, bring everyone up to speed. Uh, I had to leave the firm because I was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma, phase four.
They were going to put me on hospice care. I started resisted that change. Can you kill the cancer? And of course the doctor said we probably could kill the cancer, but I'll guarantee you, it will kill you before we kill the cancer. And I said, okay, I reached into my pocket and pulled out whatever cash I had in [00:14:00] threw it on the table.
And I said, I'll bet you can't kill him. And the two of my friends with two other doctors, and there was a third doctor who didn't know how to, what, what to make of that. So one of my friends of course, picked up the trash, put it in his pocket and says, I'll tell you about that. Um, well, long story short, they did kill the cancer, but they killed my immune system, everything internally in me.
So I had to go through for transfusions three times a week. I had to do all kinds of things that were. We're last, very quickly running the course and will allow me to go to the Netherlands. However, um, the city of hope found this kind of individual and were very young and had a live Fonz, a plane come to lax, drop off a couple of pints of blood that were enhanced.
And I had them put in at one 30 in the [00:15:00] morning and the next day I was a new person. Literally I had his DNA. I have his, his stem cells, all of his internal lovely man. Um,
Dan: Michael tying the theme of this, of, of defining hospitality. And you said like service and putting others first, like to me, hotels and everything else, it's like it almost.
I just want to throw it out the window and think about this gentlemen who gave part of him for you. That seems like the ultimate.
Michael Bedner: That is a great offering, but you have to understand there are only four countries in the world that had an automatic system where you have to. Chat from your DMA. It's Germany, Israel, Finland, and Iceland, and new.
I should be all of the countries in the world. All you do is swab your mouth for your DNA. So if there is a need for stem cells, it's really just [00:16:00] a blood transfusion. It's not a big deal. It would save many, many lives. I don't know. And I was so pleased because I was the eldest stem cell recipient at the time at the city of.
Uh, at 78 because I, I had to leave the firm, uh, which is very difficult for me because I've known nothing but work. Uh, since I started, however, uh, I left, uh, knowing that there should be more done from other people. I'm so blessed. I really shouldn't be sitting here talking to you. With my, excuse me, my motorcycle accident, this, this new stitching here, you know, the, the concussions I, I received playing hockey and football.
So there's no reason on me. I have no idea. There's something I should be doing. It's
Dan: interesting how you made a bet [00:17:00] to the hospital to try and kill you. Right. And like, as.
Okay. But since I've known you for the better part of 25 years, I feel like you've had, I can at least count five near-death experiences, literally near death from driving off the PCH to crashing a motorcycle, to getting jumped by a whole bunch of people to cancer. And I remember seeing you after all of those.
And it was almost like that idea of keep calm, carry on. I'm sure it hurt physically, but I was just always freaking amazed that how you managed to, to smile and take the next step. Like where does that come
Michael Bedner: from? I have no idea, but it sure it comes from the idea that if you don't persevere, if you don't move on, w what are you going to do?
Just give up, walk away. [00:18:00] I have never thought that I've never given up on a project. I've never given up on a competition. Uh, when we were there, we never lost a competition to anyone else. Uh, rebuilt the firm from, as I said, three people, Howard, his wife and myself to between 14 and 1600 people and 16 offices globally.
It costs me my first marriage only because I was never home. I wasn't married. I was a lousy father. I have to admit that. And so pleased, my sons grew up as well as they did. They talked to me.
Dan: They actually enjoy being around you.
Michael Bedner: Well, that's only because I still tease them. Like I do you, and now they have children that they know the problems with the children.
So they're grateful that I take the kids occasionally. No, they're wonderful and blessed, but again, building a company [00:19:00] when you're on the road three weeks out of the month is very difficult on the family situation, opened offices in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China. And India, et cetera, et social. So we're, uh, We're uh, at the time we were the number one company in the world.
I don't know where we are now, because as I've said before, I never looked over my shame.
Dan: I remember like, so hearing you talk about that, especially like, as we're all out of shape from our travel shape or on our road warrior shape, you know, hearing the three weeks out of the month, it just sounds exhausting as well.
And it brought me back to a time when, you know, You know, I think I was studying some meditation practice or something, and I was like, Michael, how do you, how would you keep your energy up? You know, if you're jet lagged and all this, would you meditate? Would you do anything? And you're like, no, I just [00:20:00] walked down the street to the public library and find a seat in there and take a nap.
Michael Bedner: So, uh, it happened more often than I care to. But I, it was my way of saying, well, I really have to learn. I want to know I'd always get a great book. And, uh, after about 10 or 15 pages, I would take a nap was normal thing, but it was, it was a rejuvenation meditation. Because you think you're learning, they're trying to learn, you're trying to do better.
And, uh, and you're resting and that really calm. It calmed me down. That was one, you know, going to the neighborhood pub and having a couple of pints. I'll also help.
Dan: Yeah, we've done that enough times. Um, so thinking about. Especially from the darkest places like that, all those near death [00:21:00] experiences and still being able to crack a smile out of it because you're not giving up on your fighting.
Um, when you think about you, Michael windy, you you've, you've been making all these other people feel so comfortable forever. Like how do you get yourself to feel comfortable?
Michael Bedner: I don't know if I ever will be. Because there's always more to do. There's always more that you wish to do. There's always more, that is expected of one. Uh, but, um, I'm comfortable right now. I'm more comfortable than I have been for a long time. We had a major project in India, which is not put on hold. So, uh, that was uncomfortable because we were working 24 7.
Dan: Well uncomfortable, you were working 24 7 and you flew there in the midst of a pandemic. And I was really nervous for you, but you were just like, yeah, it's just
Michael Bedner: day. [00:22:00] Yeah. We spent 33 days in India, hyphen the pandemic, but we were also very well taken care of that was fine, but it was, it was really a time.
Debilitating. You just ate up the time when you could have been doing a lot more with the team here, but Hey, it's a part of doing things you don't always have the easiest and the best course. Um, then you do the best you can. Number one, pretty sure I've changed the precepts around that
since, since in the last 10 years inside. Then in the middle of a large firm, uh, now the presents are, you have to have all the goddamn funds you can have during the project. If you're not going to have fun, I don't want to do the project. I must've turned down 30 projects because I knew they would then be a pain.
And number one is fun too. Then you learn from the, then you grow and [00:23:00] learn from the experience three, you're doing the best job you can. If you're the first to. So I'm just reversing fund is first enjoyment of the process, rather than trying to learn yet again,
Dan: you know, going back to where you say that you're, maybe you're never comfortable, maybe those times, those little naps in that, in the library where the times where you were comfortable and recharging, right.
You're taking that, but it seems like. And, you know, you've always been such a welcoming, big bear hug for everyone, everyone around you, all the leaders that you've brought up underneath you. And you've always just seem to put others first, if that, and that kind of tied back to what you were saying about what hospitality is it's putting other people's needs first.
And when, you know, when you set up something about grow and learn, even though that may have shifted, I think about how many leaders. You've [00:24:00] spawned, who've gone and left you and gone and hung a shingle on their own door. And I can just say for me, I was always in awe that there was never any bitterness.
There was always support and you're so incredibly proud and happy that they're going on their own path. And I think that we need more leaders like that, and I've never sensed you Harbor any ill will towards anyone. Who's. No,
Michael Bedner: not at all. Uh, I think then they then alone understand some of the pain that they maybe didn't understand.
But now why should one day, if your friends during the time you had together, why would you not be friends and, uh, Jimmy north cat, he was the best man. I love him. He started his own practice and he was the first one to leave. He was brilliant. He was so good. He was going to invest design in general. And I'm sorry, he's no longer with that.[00:25:00]
He was an amazing,
so many people that are still out in the world and I'm thrilled that, uh, Megan, she was running the HBA office up in San Francisco. She worked outside of my office store and she didn't know, she couldn't do all the things that I had asked you to do, uh, which were a number of which were seven projects instead of one or two.
And I just kept throwing things at each. She kept doing, she didn't realize that was impossible. So when you don't realize you can't do it and you do it. And she was probably wonderful. I come into a shelter in San Fran. Uh, so many people
Dan: is a force, although she hasn't left, she's still
Michael Bedner: there. Well, that's her problem.[00:26:00]
I can't tell people what to do, but of all the people are amazing.
Dan: So we've, we've come to the realization that maybe you're never comfortable and you're always moving forward.
Um, and I have always seen. Your delivery of ma of hospitality or making others feel comfortable. It's just like, it's such a, a beacon in my life. Like where did you learn that? How did you learn always how to like put others first and whether it's handing them a beer or a glass of water or, or just having them scrub your deck, but feel good about it and welcome.
Like where did you learn?
Michael Bedner: I don't know if you learn that, then you, um, you develop it. You you're going along through life. And I always wanted to make, to have people feel comfortable. I was a little shy when I was really young. And so it was always [00:27:00] difficult for me to have somebody be comfortable around me later on in life.
And that's what I always would strive for. Uh, comfort is not. The surround and comfort is how you're received. If you received openly botch, a huge part of hospitality, um, from, you know, from the business to the personal life, uh, you are, you're easier than to welcome with open arms because you're, you're a very giving person yourself.
A lot of people have a hard time being in other people's company, for whatever reason they feel superior or they feel inferior. Neither one of those make any sense. If you're together with someone you want to get, give them an equal playing field so they can communicate, they can do whatever they they're [00:28:00] most comfortable with.
And that's why I said in hospitality, it's. Making people feel that they wish to be, that it's not a burden on someone else. It's not their burden. We want them to feel glad that they are there. I
Dan: think it's really interesting on the being on the open. Some people are feeling inferior or, or superior where if, maybe it's that you're just so open-hearted that you are as a magnet attracting other openhearted people to.
Michael Bedner: I doubt that I don't your
Dan: better half is certainly one of the more openhearted people
Michael Bedner: is outrageously amazing. She's on a Stripe, she's on a call right now, even set this computer up so I could talk to you. And then she went over and grabbed hers along with Amy or daughter they're [00:29:00] on, we're saving the world.
Uh, a hundred thousand people at a time.
Dan: Well, I like it and we're just making them a bit more comfortable on their journeys.
Michael Bedner: I hope so. But again, hospitality is, is changing. And that's why I'm a little concerned about, I don't believe the old way is going to be here with us much longer. And that's as you, when you introduced me, which told me out the mention solely, well solely I think is somewhat of the future of the hospitality business, as well as the building business.
One of my great icons of my life was a Buckminster fuller and Dr. Fuller, literally, and a number of lectures that I, I was at with Dr. Ford. And one-on-one. So the role of the medical industry is a few years behind the [00:30:00] technology paths. The science of pure sciences about a year and a half medical is about for the building industry is about 400 years behind this technology, which is very true.
And we're still building as we did in the sixties, seventies. We're still putting one block on top of another, some pieces of wood that come together, they get blown over, they get shaken down. Uh, we have to change that whole element. We forgot about the industrial revolution. We forgot about the ability to build things through technology and really well-made and then deliver them to decide you don't have to be on the site.
As I always say, with your butt crack in the air. Pounding nails into a piece of wood. You could deliver an entire package and drop it on the ground from a major building to individual units for hospitality,
Dan: fascinated by that, [00:31:00] especially with. Because just to bring everyone up to speed, it's using shipping containers as a, as a building block, it's almost like it's like a kid's toys, but on an industrial scale to build to factory build and then install.
So tell us, uh, tell us more about that.
Michael Bedner: It's not using a shipping container. The only part of solely that is a shipping container is the skin and the two end doors on that so that it can be shipped anywhere in the world via boat. We had to meet the maritime code prior to solely. I worked with I way, way on a project.
Uh, that he developed, which was, uh, a building for himself. And I came up with a concept. Let's not do it. The old fashioned. Let's do it factory built and then we built it so that a 20 foot unit 20 [00:32:00] by 18 would fold down and be compact, which would be about three and a half feet high. And we could shove those into 40 foot containers and then the container could take them anywhere in the world.
And you could take, did the element mountain. This house, 3,200 square foot. Uh, you guys, you mentioned units. However, I started thinking, why am I, what am I going to do with this 40 foot container? It becomes an outbuilding. It's a box from Verizon that you throw away or a box from, you know, one of your delivery service.
So we said, why don't we incorporate. And to our units. So they, when they close up and fold up and are diminished in size by half they're in a container and we never throw it away, we just open it out, drop a deck down, and it's [00:33:00] part of the container, but it is nothing to do with the shipping container. I should, a container is a cardboard box.
What we're doing is a modular. That is shipped like a contained. So one, we don't throw away the box. That's a lot less expensive. You could use it on a truck, a train. We could do it on a boat, a plane. So you could deliver it anywhere in the world. That was the whole idea of globalization. Not localization.
We're not designing for Hawaii. We're not designing. The U S market or wherever we're designing for the hello and hospitality is becoming more and more. Um, how shall I say more and more specialized in the adventure mode? The new term glamping can charge a thousand dollars a night when people feel lucky, we put up a solely charge, $400 a night.
They know that. [00:34:00] Because it's insulated. It has a full bathroom, shower, job queen size bed, um, TVs, internet, all built
Dan: all day. It's amazing. And it actually exists. It can exist off the grid as well because you have solar panels and its own.
Michael Bedner: Uh, w solar water, wind, and hydrogen hydrogen is the future. I'm going to state that for your audience.
Hydrogen is the future. We have, uh, in my team, we have three Mirage, which is, uh, um, hydrogen powered vehicles. And I also have my Tesla, which is starting to tick me off only because the services we're getting,
Dan: I think, with. Hydrogen being the future. I think that that's something really important because it is the most readily available element.
That's all, that's all around us, always. It's number one on the periodic table. It's the most, [00:35:00] there's it exists in the most quantity. And if we can figure out how to use that for energy, in theory, we have a limitless, stable, clean supply of energy, but I don't know how to have. How do
Michael Bedner: you have to, I think you have to, uh, address the large petrochemical companies because they will kill hydrogen.
They already have once previously, twice that they've killed hydrogen. It's not. Uh, it was developed in Japan. That's why they didn't have such a hard time killing it in Japan. Doesn't have petrochemical per se. They have to import well, I think
Dan: with those petrochemical companies, I think ultimately they need to realize that they're really energy companies, right?
Michael Bedner: No, we're going to profit motive. Come on. I'm not going to buy. Crop their profit motive. And each CEO wants to make as much money as he can. So he gets the biggest when he retires, he gets the biggest paycheck. Come on. [00:36:00]
Dan: So let, so it's, it's uh, in an, in essence, it's a rigged game. There's a moat to bringing hydrogen in, but it also, as you were talking about solely and how it can be anywhere.
At any moment, it made me think of the, uh, the DNA swab, how only I was surprised only four countries are doing it. It seems to me in the same way that that's a blocked resource for DNA solely. It seems the block resource, there are the local building departments because you know, everyone wants to protect their own.
Try, but whoever goes into building, whatever. So people I think are resistant and the same with energy. So I guess that's a bigger question, but I'd love your take on how do you fix it?
Michael Bedner: Well, it has to start at the top right now. You can't go through the building departments, figures. They have so many antiquated.
Uh, restrictions and rules are all antiquated. They're silly. Uh, and every, every community [00:37:00] has different months. So in California, I think there's 1600 different areas that have their own building codes and restrictions just in California. And, uh, Sony has meant to just be the first idea. I think most things should be factory.
It should be done. Like I do in Japan was a beautiful clean environment and everybody is wearing plain suit that day. They weren't coming in and starting to stick all over you. We have to change an attitude. We have to education is probably the most important thing we have to educate our population, uh, where that's the number one things.
Education is so lacking in this world, in this country, but. I think that's the number one problem in the world is the lack of quality education or any, but [00:38:00] if he
Dan: even in FIC, okay, let's say education has fixed. It just seems like such a Herculean task to go and change the hearts and minds of these like calcified.
Beings are you,
Michael Bedner: you can't, I think you have to show it by example, you have to just do it and it becomes so well done, but it, you cannot on it any longer. And that's what soul is doing. That's why we're working on these major projects all over the world. Uh, we had a project in India, which we took on.
Because we were told that it was going to be totally agreed. It would be off the grid. We could use hydrogen. We were told all of these things, but then there was a time restraints and then other people got involved with was the people that had to do the work and they reverted back to their old ways. So that became less gratifying.
It became, [00:39:00] uh, not enticing at all. And it became a painful. Do you
Dan: think would the big movement through all the big banks and finance entities and governments of this ESG, um, environmental and social governance, do you think that that can help change? This calcium what's, what's blocking us to this exciting
Michael Bedner: it's all web servers.
If they were to do it, they would do it. It's all, they're all saying what you want to hear, but they're not doing squat as you all know. So, as I said, some weird people like ourselves. If we could get these out and we can have a prototype, we were going to do 42 of these at the Malibu trailer parks, but then politics and weird stuff got in the way of that.
I had 42 of these. So these ordered, uh, for that one spot, it would be off the grid. They would have been a perfect prototype in it for people. [00:40:00] Oh, an ownership situation, point of the land. No big deal. It happens all the time. That's why I'm now taking my hat off to developers because I tried to do that twice.
Now be a developer and found out that there's a lot more to it than having the right idea.
Dan: Yeah. It's a long game and it's a lot of picture taking baby holding and
Michael Bedner: politics. There's more politicking and, um, more corruption than I can ever imagine now, but it's there. And, uh, you know, I spent more money, uh, legal teams than I did on my, my design teams and architects and engineers and everything.
And they did 20 times more than the attorneys. The attorneys are just playing games. And they, don't [00:41:00] always random as I'm not giving up.
Dan: Well, so thinking about this. Okay. So we've reached this kind of plateau or this block that stopping hydrogen or revolutionizing the building. Um, the technology, if we could get past that, like what excites you most about the future?
Michael Bedner: I think if we can. Educate the people on the positive nature of doing modular and factory built housing for the hospitality industry and for the main market in the country in the world, people are doing it. It's not new Buckminster fuller had the dynamic action home 1923 in 1920s. Local politicians, the trade unions.
The trade unions stated that he had to pull all of the plumbing out of them because it was built in a factory, [00:42:00] all the electric them, and they had to report it. And the politicians, because they, the trade unions in that period, uh, had some, some sway and, uh, the politicians killed his Dr. Fuller's idea that I'm actually at home.
Uh, there are many of them ordered, he was building them in the old aircraft. So this is not a new idea. Uh, many things were built elsewhere and then placed on the site. Well, it seems to
Dan: me that education and just seeing what this future is. I think it's the inability of a design.
Michael Bedner: We would have to give them an example.
Somebody has to have enough money, like a Homer to prototypes, to prototype elements. It's just like, I can't believe in California, we have all this money to take care of homeless, but the homeless costs costs more than anything. The [00:43:00] last thing was six to $800 a square foot for accommodation, for homelessness.
Ridiculous. I mean, it was solely as 426 bucks. Come on. That was a lot. If we get, if we do a factory built module, uh, and we're doing, let's say a thousand, we get the price way down. If we doing 10,000, we get the price way down. The problem is the local. Uh, the local, uh, individuals that have the buck catching the sky don't want that they want to keep the hammer and nails and keep it their own.
That's the problem. We have to educate those people and maybe they had jobs in that factory setting, but we can't afford to build it over here because of, well, the has. Uh, the politics one and the inability to get people to understand really [00:44:00] sustainability. So
Dan: to really hit, hit to that exciting future.
From your perspective, it's really about finding a developer who just has the vision and the drive to say like, Hey, let's give this a go and see if we can change the hearts and minds.
Michael Bedner: I've been in touch with literally hundreds of people that. But it's always a financial burden, always a, a zoning burden.
Uh, right now we have the one that's outside my office here. The soulmate is a park model. RV is certified, everything that has a license plate, a tied on it. In other words, this could be placed in any RV, an RV area in the country. It's now we have to go back because we're building them in China. They have to go back to China with the new restrictions and all the craziness that happened during the Trump administration, um, that has added an additional [00:45:00] burden on everyone that was working towards the sound huge book.
So we have to find out what the cost is going to be again. So it's always, there's always things in flux down. And I think, I think this is, this is the future, or I wouldn't be playing with it. I'm enjoying it because it is the future. I don't need to do another hotel. I've done 1400 projects. I don't need to do one more.
What I want to do something for the future, something that's on the coast of Peru, something that they want, something in the Galapagos, something there, something that can be brought in by boat dropped in place. Not never touched the ground. Don't mess up the environment and be off. And withstand for three hurricanes withstand seismic events.
And that's what we've designed. Something that we will stay in hurricanes and seismic every
Dan: well. I I've seen I've seen it. And I think it's an amazing [00:46:00] technology and I want you to be successful in this too. So it's interesting because
Michael Bedner: it's open book, man, just like Tesla. Um, we car to everyone we're getting solely here.
It's
Dan: no, but I'm talking to people through this podcast and just in general about just this. So, um, there are people who are interested and I bet you, they just are not aware. So I will just keep this top of mind as I continue talking and I get to shorten your journey towards helping us vision be realized.
Michael Bedner: Well, I think, I think your children or my grandchildren will be the ones hopefully to benefit if this all comes, comes to fall. I mean, we're, we're trying to do that.
Dan: So thinking of children and, and, and grandchildren think of yourself, the younger you Michael. Now you're this old bald bear. You're that?
You're the shaved bear. Um, [00:47:00] if your, if your current self went up to your 18 year olds, What advice would you give yourself?
Michael Bedner: Go to law school become one of the
great, yeah. I mean, there are so many of them, I guess it would be a larger group then architect or design. Uh, there are more attorneys than there are architects and designers by tenfold. I believe. I don't know if that's true, but it sure feels like it. Yeah.
Dan: Uh, I would have to agree
Michael Bedner: with you. I think I, Shakespeare said, well, first thing you have to do is kill all the attorneys and
the politician wants.
Dan: Yeah. It's not a, it's not a new idea. Um, cool. And then, so as you're traveling now, I know you don't like getting comfortable, but like as [00:48:00] your, your travel is increasing, um, How do you keep yourself kind of sane through all of that
Michael Bedner: through travel? Yeah, works. I still have that. Have I got books that I travel with read as much as I can.
Draw, these I'm still drawing. I'm still, I'm not working on the computer designs are still drawing everything, but we have a lot of wonderful people that are so adept and computer that they will take that chicken scratch as I call them and turn it into a credible join.
Dan: Yeah. I was amazed that you were actually able to use this computer we're talking on right now.
Michael Bedner: Well, that was because I could push the button. I have a computer under that computer right now. That is my old computer from HBA days. And there's my tech people said it was the only Virgin computer in the company. It [00:49:00] never was on porn. It was never on anything. 'cause I never used the damn thing. It was open on my desk of
Dan: source Virgin computer.
I like that. You know, as I thinking about the times when you were healing, when you were really sick and coming out of it, I heard you say this a few times. Um, and thinking about how the idea of hotels and making people feel comfortable and at home in a hotel, I'm curious for you why it's taken so long or it hasn't even happened.
As, as it should onto the hospital side and onto the healing side. And to me, that seems like a great injustice, especially with all of your aging boomer, compatriots. I don't know why it's not happening more.
Michael Bedner: I'm honest with you, Dan, for the last 30 years, I've been trying to do. Well, we did one hospital, uh, UC San Diego in the hospital, but we made it like a hotel.
Uh, we've done a big part of what [00:50:00] I wanted HBH to go into was senior housing, senior living. I didn't, we we've done it in Japan. We did three hotels in Japan. Uh, one. That one was sold out in the first two weeks. The next one was sold out the first week and the next one sold out the first day, uh, from a standpoint of housing because we made it.
Like very comfortable hotels with restaurants and bought bars, people where people would want to go. And I wanted to do that here, but we were so busy doing the run of the mill of things that we never got into it. However, We did one in Miami. That was my project. It was a senior living that was not meant to be seeing me living because at my age, I would not want to live with a bunch of old people like me.
I want the diversification of young people, the sound of children squealing and running and jumping the sound of, uh, good [00:51:00] questions. Like I posed to the owners of this property project. Well, the bar should, we should do them in university towns. The bar should be half price, but never, it should be students.
And, uh, so that they would come in and then you would be able to mingle with these people and also senior people then go back to the university and continue to grow. So the thing that causes you to fall over and die is the lack of growth. If you're not growing, you're like. You're dying. So I want to keep enough food in the soil so that we can keep growing.
And that's the reason we're doing. So that's the reason you're doing these senior. I don't want to call them seniors. They weren't their projects, one in Miami. And then we had a big project in Northern California, which is called the heart of California, which was [00:52:00] five, 20 times bigger than Disneyland. 50 times bigger than Disneyland.
In reality, if you want to talk about scale and it, it was really meant to connect more than Southern California. And that's when I found out about the attorneys and corruption. How, how the state is based on water, not ID.
Dan: Oh yeah. A lot of that coming to the surface right now. It seems like you guys are in perpetual drought out there, but I'm also, I, I, so I, I know that you did those handful of projects and it really is a handful, but there's this huge demographic tsunami that I think.
People want more from whatever those projects are. And I'm just surprised there aren't more projects in the works right now that really focus on, on healing and growth and, um, engagement. It's
Michael Bedner: mostly conversation [00:53:00] and it's mostly political people are looking after their own butts and thinking about the bigger picture and that's, how else can I speak the truth, then speak with.
Uh, come on. Who do you know? That is above all of the shit
I'm disillusioned. And, uh, you know, I'm just in the last four years. Correct.
Dan: So you're disillusioned, but you're also staying very active and you're really working on some incredible projects. So you're, again, I think that ties back into. Never give up, keep trudging forward. Keep going forward. Like you, there is no rest.
Michael Bedner: No, there's no reason to even consider giving up, uh, because your last breath is when you give up. And, uh, I'm still waiting for a damn doctors to pay me my money back because they didn't have to tell me, but Chester, my [00:54:00] name. Came up to me. And I said, when I asked where's my money and he says, well, I haven't stopped trying to kill you yet.
So I guess doctors have the last set,
Dan: oftentimes they do. But, um, I know that you have so much more ahead of you and I'm excited for every new project and every dream that you're chasing down. And it just shows me that I can go through my life, always dreaming and always trying to achieve. And you inspire
Michael Bedner: me to that.
You're doing remarkable, John and, and I always judge a man and how he is with his children, because I was such a lousy father and I have to commend you on how wonderful you are with your kids. I watch it. I experience it. And Bravo you're terrific. You're very much. Uh, Sarah gets on, but they're very much like Meesha Emilia my sense.
And of course there's all kinds of crazy other charities out there, like Dan Seymour, [00:55:00] Byron Wong.
Dan: I want to get in touch with Byron, but, um,
Michael Bedner: you should talk to Byron. He's starting on a whole new company and, and, uh, Portugal and Lisbon. Fantastic, amazing concert. Uh, so catch up with Mr. Ron also, Mr. Schultz, if you want to talk about hospitality.
Yeah.
Dan: I, I definitely, he's on, he's on the list of people to talk to because you've connected with me. You've connected me with him before and he is, uh, quite amazing. Uh, my question to you is when are we going to go on a safari again?
Michael Bedner: Uh, whenever the heck you wish they talked to you about Christmas this year, you want to go?
Maybe I
Dan: gotta
Michael Bedner: talk to my. I know my boss is the one that's putting this together. Amy, uh, they're talking about going to their house in Kenya, so maybe make it a big joint because that was so much fun. That Christmas with all the [00:56:00] memorable I loved every minute I remember I was book on my facial line on the sofa and the tent with, uh, uh, Jimmy went at his age, talking to your, your son.
They were saying, well, how did Papa meet Nana? And I remember Jimmy saying, well, Uh, cath Nana was on a pole. She was a pole dancer. I told the kids, I met Nana. She was a pole dancer. So the kids didn't know what that meant, but Nana was all over.
Dan: Uh, I must've missed that one. I must've been out on safari or, or snoozing.
Oh, you're
Michael Bedner: on, you're always on safari. I was snoozing, but it was so great. That's the little kids behind the sofa whispering now.
Dan: Uh, I want to get in any and, and Laura on this too, because as far as I'm thinking about. That experience of hospitality in the middle of the Bush. It was freaking like [00:57:00] from another planet.
Amazing,
Michael Bedner: perfect tennis for a lodge in spending, spending $30 million on and 3 million.
Dan: Sorry. Um, well, listen, I just want to say Michael, thank you so much for your time. I am so grateful and I appreciate.
Michael Bedner: Well, Dan, thank you. And I'm looking forward to seeing the family out here as soon as you can, and let's find a way to go to Africa or where ever hell yeah.
Dan: Well, the first step is out there and I want it.
So just thank you. I want to thank our listeners. Um, and if this helped you realize. And see that we should never give up and keep going and put others first. Uh, if you really, if that really resonated with you, please, uh, share this podcast with a friend. Thank you everyone. And we'll see you next
Michael Bedner: time.
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