The Monk and the Riddle

RANDY KOMISAR WITH KENT LINEBACK

Reviewed by Jack

Randy Komisar graduated from Harvard Law School, then went into private practice in Boston. After pursuing a career at Apple as in-house counsel, he cofounded Claris Corporation, a spin-off of Apple, and then held a number of top roles at game development companies. In addition, Komisar helped build WebTV, TiVo, and Mondo Media. With this overflowing resume, Komisar could be considered a sage for would-be entrepreneurs.

The unconventional nature of Komisar’s career is mimicked in his pseudomemoir. Most books are either fiction or nonfiction, though a handful, like Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, successfully mix the two genres. In business books, it’s even harder to pull off this form. But in The Monk and the Riddle, Randy Komisar does it beautifully. While he shares his own quest to discover the real meaning of work, he asks the readers this question: “What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life?”

Komisar opens the book with a story. During a motorcycle trip in Myanmar, Komisar gives a young monk a ride to his temple hours away; directions are given with simple gestures and shoulder taps. Upon arriving, the author meets the English-speaking abbot of the temple. After a short visit, the monk indicates he wants to return to where the author picked him up. Frustrated and tired, the author asks the abbot why the monk wants to go back. The abbot has no answer, but does offer a riddle: “Imagine I have an egg . . . and I want to drop this egg three feet without breaking it. How do I do that?” As Komisar drives through the countryside, caught up in the beautiful scenery and suddenly not so tired despite the long ride, the answer to the riddle comes to him. And the author leaves us with that provocative teaser.

We next find ourselves in a Silicon Valley office, where Komisar is speaking to a fictional entrepreneur, Lenny, who is shopping his business plan. Lenny is outrageous. He believes his payday will come selling cas kets online: “We’re going to put the fun back into funerals,” he says. But despite this intensity and enthusiasm, Komisar is not impressed with Lenny’s pitch. He helps Lenny refine his idea by advising him to shift his focus from the huge payday to what actually motivates him. “What,” he asks Lenny, “would it take for you to be willing to spend the rest of your life on Funerals.com?”

Komisar points out that once you answer your own version of that question, everything changes. The excitement and passion you find allows others to become excited about your idea. “[I]t’s the romance, not the finance that makes business worth pursuing,” advises Komisar.

“No matter how hard we work or how smart we are, our financial success is ultimately dependent on circumstances outside our control.”

The Monk and the Riddle was written during the bubble of the Internet boom. The rules were different then. Komisar rightfully points out in the “postmortem” that fronts the new paperback edition that, despite Lenny’s business idea, the lessons are not bound to Internet businesses and the “better, faster, cheaper” world that Internet start-ups strived for. Instead, he explains, “In truth, The Monk is not primarily a business book; that is, it is not about buying low and selling high, but rather about creating a life while making a living. It is about the need to fashion a meaningful existence that engages you in the time and place in which you find yourself. It is about the purpose of work and the integration of what one does with what one believes. The Monk is not about how, but about why.”

What appeals to me about this book is the combination of Komisar’s fascinating life and the contemplative lessons he extends through Lenny’s story. It is so seldom that entrepreneurial books look to the human side of enterprise. In his search to find the answer to the monk’s riddle, Komisar realizes that, as it is often said, it truly is the journey, not the destination, that makes our efforts worthwhile, and we need to focus on each step and not the finish line. This simple message can wring a huge amount of stress out of our lives, even as we try to change that life with a new business endeavor or other sea change. It is a rare opportunity indeed to learn at the feet of such a master. JC

The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living, Harvard Business School Press, Paperback 2001, ISBN 9781578516445

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