June 12, 2024
Joel Hyatt, Chairman, Co-founder, & CEO Globality, Inc.
How To Build Disruptive Platforms That Democratize Industries
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Legendary entrepreneur Joel Hyatt has built extremely disruptive ventures that have democratized services across legal, technology, and media sectors. He did it with legal services for ‘the rest of us’ when he co-founded Hyatt Legal in the 70’s —busting the ban on lawyer ads—and also shook up the industry by adding legal as an employee benefit, which is now part of MetLife.
After winning an antitrust case which broke up a big media stronghold, he and Al Gore started Current TV pioneering user-generated content. Current TV was hot, and received multiple Emmys, Peabodys, and Livingston Awards, investments from Comcast and Direct TV and is now a part of Aljazera Media Network.
Joel’s latest venture, Globality, is all about streamlining and enhancing the procurement process for businesses. Leveraging both machine learning and generative AI, the company offers something totally unique it calls “autonomous self-serve sourcing.”
And what’s interesting is that this is no 2024 VC-backed start-up leaping on the AI bandwagon. Joel has been developing this solution for years, and so has both learned what works and what doesn’t.
On this episode Joel shares decades of wisdom from his various endeavors that democratized oligopolies; unpacks untold stories about how Globality is transforming the boring side of business—and tells some fun and humorous startup stories with his friend Al Gore.
Genesis Of Globality
Globality started as a simple question, “how can we make globalization work better?” Joel saw the powers that globalization could have and wanted to find a way to harness it to benefit the world over. While also addressing the concerns that people had about it, especially those who lost their jobs in steel mills and auto factories to globalization. That is why Globality started as an entry point “for smaller firms to participate in the global economy” and has now become a platform where big firms and small firms alike can benefit through smarter spending and better partnerships. All the while removing the need for RFPs, which we can all be happy about.
“There’s just nothing more exciting to me than taking an idea, turning it into reality, building something that’s important and that addresses an important need, building teams, creating culture, adding value — but in each of the cases where I’ve started a company, it’s really been about identifying a societal issue, and believing that there was a private sector solution that could address that issue and have a positive impact. Each of my business stories started with that.”
Getting Rid Of RFP’s
Now that we all live in a digital world, why does a firm have to be local, regional, or even national: why can’t it compete for business all over the globe? Why can’t small firms get giant Fortune 500 companies as customers? Why can’t a firm in Milan sell to a U.S.-based company that wants to do a marketing campaign in Western Europe?
“So, we built an AI-powered platform to do that and when we took it out to the market and we talked to big companies, we said, Look, you ought to buy from smaller firms, you ought to buy from diverse firms. You ought to buy from local firms in the many countries in which you do business.
Breaking An Oligopoly
One of Joel’s many adventures saw him breaking apart the television media oligopoly with his and Al Gore’s network Current TV. The goal of Current TV was to “pioneer user-generated content”, which eventually led to things like YouTube, as well as give consumers a better experience with television. Before this, there were a handful of companies, controlled by a handful of people who all curated the entertainment you received. Joel and Al, rightfully so, thought was bad for both the consumer but also for democracy, so they did all they could to break it apart.
What’s Next
Where some of our guests have laid out game plans for the next five to ten years of innovations and products they wish to create, Joel’s main goal is to build an enduring company with purpose. This is what Joel did when he sold Hyatt Legal Services to MetLife and that has been going strong since. As Joel succinctly says, he hopes the next generation will “continue to build it and assure that it continues to be important.”
