AMID THE SEA OF SILK TIES,

charcoal suits, and glinting cuff links at the Museum of American Finance’s annual gala, Paypal president and CEO Dan Schulman is an easy mark. He’s wearing jeans, for one thing. His shoulders are slouched. And his wavy brown hair could use a trim. Those who know him—or those who have benefited from the nearly 200% rise in Paypal’s stock price since the 2015 spinout from ebay that Schulman led—dodge trays of hors d’oeuvres and watermelon-pink champagne cocktails to shake his hand. Those who don’t, raise their eyebrows. “Why is he wearing those jeans?” a woman seated at a table of Citi employees whisper-hisses to a companion. Schulman’s work uniform hasn’t always been light-wash denim and beat-up cowboy boots (he owns three pairs, all made of ostrich). For his first job after college, an entrylevel role at one of AT&T’S regional Ma Bells in 1981, he was told to buy a suit—and dutifully returned to work the next day sporting one made of brown polyester. Gradually, as he built a career as a telecom salesman, he developed a C-suite wardrobe to match, including the shimmering gold tie he wore to the New York Stock Exchange in 2007 to ring in Virgin Mobile USA’S IPO. But by the time Schulman arrived at American Express, in 2010, he’d had enough, and fully embraced jeans as a signal of his counter (corporate) culture tendencies. Schulman is being honored this February night—just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic begins overtaking New York— with the museum’s Schwab Award for Financial Innovation. As attendees of the event, being held at Cipriani Wall Street in lower Manhattan, tuck into their prime filets of beef and leek-wrapped string beans, he steps onstage to receive his framed certificate. Corinthian columns befitting a temple of free enterprise, bathed in neon-green spotlights, seem to float in the darkness above him. “If you look at the state of our country today, it’s clear that capitalism needs an upgrade,” Schulman says, speaking without notes and getting right to the point. A for

IF YOU HAVEN’T BEGGED FOR MONEY BEFORE, AND SEEN HOW INVISIBLE YOU REALLY ARE, YOU DON’T GET IT.’’

mer quarterback, he leans forward over the lectern as if delivering some tough love to the team at half-time, and lays out the facts: 185 million Americans suffering from financial distress, a generation that believes it will be worse off than the prior one, antiestablishment candidates gaining in popularity on the right and the left. “People don’t believe that the system is working for them,” he says, as the silverware clatter quiets. “For democracy to flourish, you need to rise above your own self-interest. But how can you rise above your own self-interest when you are struggling to make ends meet every day?” The solution, he argues, is for business leaders, like those in the room, to “stand for more than just making money” on behalf of shareholders. They must stand for serving “multiple stakeholders, whether they be our employees, our customers, the environment, [or] the communities that we serve.” In parting, Schulman implores the Wall Street leaders to use their power for good: “Take a moral stance.” Schulman is not the only titan in corporate America suggesting that companies should do more than maximize shareholder returns. There are now more than 3,000 B Corporations legally bound to balance purpose and profit, and last year 181 CEO members of the influential Business Roundtable asserted a “fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.” But Schulman is arguably the most comfortable of his Fortune 500 peers with discussing abstract questions of corporate governance in human-scale moral terms. He shares Paypal’s wealth with a range of stakeholders because it’s the right thing to do—or, as he likes to say, because it’s in keeping with “red, white, and blue values.” Over the past two decades, he has become a leading advocate for what he calls “reverse Friedmanism.” The late economist Milton Friedman famously wrote in 1970 that those who lead with a social conscience “are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society.” Friedman allowed that an executive may have a conscience as relates to “his feelings of charity, his church, his clubs, his city, his country,” but argued that those sentiments have no place in corporate boardrooms. For a generation of Ceos—schulman’s generation—friedman’s views are sacrosanct. Though Schulman’s career has never quite fit Friedman’s mold, his success at Paypal has for the first time given him a platform for openly challenging it. But Schulman has done more than talk about an ethical version of capitalism that serves all stakeholders; he has followed his own advice. Last October, for example, Paypal announced that it was increasing wages and lowering the cost of benefits programs so that every employee on its payroll could become more financially secure. The initiative, he tells Fast Company, cost the company tens of millions of dollars. A less adept politician might have struggled to sell the idea to shareholders, but Schulman met with little resistance. No wonder prominent Democrats have recruited him to run for office in years past, and may do so again. (More on that later.) The next award of the evening goes to Morgan Stanley chairman and CEO James Gorman. Dressed like Park Avenue royalty in an expertly tailored suit, he peppers his acceptance speech with childhood anecdotes and silver-tongued charm. But Gorman’s message amounts to a call for restraint, and

that yet.” Berman also reveals that she has moved on to focus on other projects.

Although there is some speculation that Kondo could do specials that would be less demanding than a season of shows, her decision not to pursue a second season has had ripple effects throughout the Konmari ecosystem. When Tidying Up debuted, Konmari had approximately 250 certified consultants. By the end of 2019, her network had swelled to 400 people. Interest in the Netflix show “catapulted me into this business,” says Phoebe Cusack, a consultant in Boston. Cusack expected a second season to launch at the start of 2020, leading to a stream of new clients, but when it didn’t, business began to dry up. “I was counting on it,” Cusack says. “I feel like she wasn’t thinking of her consultants.”

WHEN THE BUZZ AROUND

Kondo’s Netflix show was at its peak, Kawahara weighed his options for how to grow Konmari. In March 2019, The Information reported that Konmari had been shopping for investment capital, perhaps seeking up to $40 million. (At the time, a Konmari spokesperson would only confirm that it was meeting with investors.)

Then, in August, Konmari announced that Rakuten had taken a majority stake in the company for an undisclosed sum, burying it in a press release that sounded like an endorsement deal between Kondo and the e-commerce giant. For a woman at the height of her celebrity and whose moves are intensely followed, this development— on par with Amazon acquiring Goop, for example—somehow eluded public attention.

Kawahara explains that Rakuten understands the Japanese philosophy that undergirds the Konmari method and also has global scale. “Rakuten is even bigger than Amazon in Japan,” Kawahara says, pointing out that it owns banks and mortgage brokerage services. “It touches every person’s life there. I actually wish it had made bigger news, but I think the Japanese media doesn’t pay that much attention to us anymore since we haven’t lived there for [many] years.” And most of the U.S. media doesn’t know what Rakuten is.

The Rakuten acquisition might also explain why Konmari has not yet re-signed with Netflix. It has its own streaming service, Rakuten TV, which is currently available in many countries, although not in the United States. When I ask Kawahara if Rakuten TV is Kondo’s next stop, he says, “We’re still in discussions with Rakuten about how we will partner on entertainment content.” (Rakuten declined interview requests for this story.) In the months after the Rakuten investment, Konmari began unveiling new dimensions to its business that aligned with its parent company’s strengths. In November 2019, Konmari launched an e-commerce store, where Kondo curates products that “spark joy” in her own life. The website includes a $75 tuning fork that you’re supposed to strike against a crystal to create a sound meant to restore balance. There’s a $180 earthenware steamer called a Donabe. And there’s that $22 dry brush. Then came the new book, Joy at Work, which Kondo sold in an auction in the spring of 2018 to a division of Little Brown, but as it happens, the initiative to bring her methods to the office melded with values cherished by her new benefactor, according to Kawahara. “We had already been working on the book, but when Mickey [Mikitani, Rakuten’s CEO] heard about it, he said, ‘This is what I’ve been telling my employees for years!’ Maybe, if they won’t listen to me, they’ll listen to Marie.” After the deal became public, Mikitani wrote on Linkedin, “Everyone in the Rakuten family cleans his or her work space, each week. You will find all of us— myself included—one morning a week, tidying up our work areas.” Unlike The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, Joy at Work features two voices. Kondo writes the first part, in which she provides tips on how to organize your desk and declutter your digital work space. “In the workplace, there are things we just need to do in the present moment or that might be beneficial for our career in the future,” she says. Sonenshein, the organizational behavior professor at Rice University’s business school, writes the other half, about how the Konmari method applies to decision-making, time management, and professional relationships. (See “Tidy Your Tasks,” page 49.) “There’s a lot of clutter, not just on the desk, but in our minds, in the conference room, and on our computers,” he says. “All these distractions get in the way of doing the job that we might otherwise love.”

This expansion into the workplace means Konmari Media can ramp up content and products related to work life. Now, in addition to $119 aromatherapy diffusers, the Konmari store sells a $75 cube for storing paper clips and a $175 leather-wrapped phonecharging station. And Konmari is poised to expand into the lucrative field of professional coaching. “Konmari consultants just work in homes right now,” Kondo says. “Introducing them into the workplace is something we’re thinking about.” Hundreds of Konmari consultants could joyfully descend upon companies to teach workers how to better manage their emails and meetings. Home decluttering tends to be a onetime opportunity for consultants, but business consulting can be ongoing—and each consultant can potentially serve thousands.

DURING MY TIME WITH KONDO

in February, when I mention that my 4-yearold struggles to keep her room tidy, she lit up. She had noticed that I’d stepped off the set for a few minutes to Facetime with my daughter earlier in the day, and she can relate to moments like these, as a mother who also finds it hard to be away from her girls when she’s working. As much as Kondo loves helping couples and workers, she’s most passionate about children embracing her ideals. By introducing decluttering techniques early in life, Kondo hopes that children will avoid the problem in the first place.

Five years ago, just as Kondo was becoming popular in the United States, she partnered with ebay to offer flash cards to help kids declutter before returning to school, and last fall, Kondo published Kiki and Jax: The

Life-changing Magic of Friendship. The picture book for preschoolers tells the story of a squirrel and an owl whose friendship is put to the test because of the squirrel’s hoarding tendencies. The story is designed to show kids how to sort through their toys and organize them. Kawahara says that Konmari is also working on a game that will teach kids how to tidy that could be ready as early as this year.

After a long day of filming, Kondo and Kawahara walk to their car, which is parked in a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles. They stumble across a mother and her 3-year-old daughter heading to the playground, and the toddler instantly recognizes Kondo from her TV show. “I like to Konmari my toys,” the child tells her.

Kondo beams and gives the child a little hug, and then resumes walking, eager to get back to her two children, who have spent the day with their nanny. “She likes being at home,” Kawahara says, before they depart.

“That’s why she likes to tidy.”