Ready, Aim, Fire! A conversation with Pando Big Shot Rich Binell

Rich Binell was given Pando’s Earth Guardian Award at the 2025 Pando Sustainability Awards at Caltech. The Award honors his dedication to Pando, his contributions to shaping who we are and the story we tell about ourselves, and his overall support. 

Eugene Shirley sat down with Rich over Zoom to talk about Pando, where we’re going, and a bit of his own background.

Eugene Shirley: Are you ready to do this?  

Rich Binell: Oh, nuts. The usual crazy.

You’re one of the best writers in the business who’s now giving his all to Pando! Thank you, thank you, Rich! How should we start? 

Let me start by saying what I want to get across. 

The essence of the story I want to tell is that Pando is ready – aim, fire – to explode. It’s on the cusp of exploding. 

I think that if we get a little bit better at talking about what the heck we’re doing  – clearly, and repeatedly – a lot of people are gonna put their hands up and say, What about my town? Can’t you come here? 

Is that the right story for us to tell?

That’s a great one.

Right. The other thing I want to say is that right now, our goal has to be to expand beyond Los Angeles. I think people are going to beg us to go beyond LA very soon. 

The most important sentence about Pando other than what I just said above is the reason we’re ready to explode, which is, We have a proven model for saving the world. 

It’s also unique. 

It’s lovely.

We focus on project implementation.  

To go a step further, what this means at the end of the day is not simply that we get projects implemented. We also produce implementers – the students and instructors behind the projects that are launched – and who know how to get stuff done. 

That’s good.

“We produce accomplished people.” 

I just wrote that down.

Right. 

But now at this point in this interview I think everybody’s going to want to know a little bit about you and your background.

You don’t want to do that!

I do! Because as soon as people hear some of this good stuff you’re saying, they’re going to say, well, tell me more about Rich.

I worked at Apple when it was still known as Apple Computer.

What’s that?

I worked at Apple after I worked at the Harvard factory.

You’re, like, the first writer that Apple hired to help them figure out how to talk about this thing that they had created. Correct? 

I was. They asked me why they should hire me. And I said I could boil the job down to two words, and they said, Rich, what are the two words? And I said, If I tell you the two words, then you have to hire me. And they said, Okay. 

And I said, “Sell Macintosh.”

And that was when Macintosh was only one year old. And they kind of agreed that selling Macintosh might be a very important thing for the future of the company. So they hired me, and I proceeded to do my darndest to sell a lot of Macintoshes.

It was kind of an obvious statement to make. No? 

No! The company was being supported by an antique computer called the Apple II. And Macintosh was new and wonderful, but expensive, and not doing very well when I got to the company. 

So the company still had one foot in the Macintosh boat, and one foot on the Apple II on shore. 

And there was a whole faction of people who just thought they should prop up the Apple II forever, and, no – I said I didn’t come to the company to prop up the Apple II. I wanted to tell everybody about Macintosh. 

And now I want to tell everybody about Pando!

So what did you learn from Apple that you can apply to Pando?

I think the thing that I accidentally learned there was the importance of the “L” word. 

Love. 

I used to tell writers, tell me why I’m gonna love Macintosh. And write that down. Because if you can convince me, you can convince other people. Not just to buy it, but to love it. 

The Macintosh was a lovable little computer that you could teach somebody how to use in about 15 minutes. And that was a new thing in the world. And we sort of succeeded, because Macintosh did pretty well. 

And so, if I have anything to say about Pando it’s, I want to tell teachers and students and educators, You’re gonna love Pando! And here’s why you’re gonna love Pando. 

Does that make sense?

I love it. But what is it about Pando that educators and schools and students should love? 

We help them take education beyond education. 

We ask them to escort students beyond the classroom. And that’s a really fundamental difference than what most educators are used to. 

Pando is not a thing that’s happy being cooped up in a classroom. It likes to get out there in the fresh air and do something! 

So let’s go back to you – you live in Santa Fe. Tell me a bit about your life there. 

It’s where I live. I love it here. But why do you want me to talk about that? 

Folks want to know more about you. Like you’re a rock hound, jewelry maker, trout fisher. Connect all these dots for us.

If there’s a connection, it’s to the things I love. Enthusiasm. 

I love the woman I married this summer, and you came to the wedding with your lovely daughter and husband. I love rocks, and it’s hard for them to hide in New Mexico because there’s not a lot of grass here. It’s mostly desert. 

I love fly fishing, because I think trout are some of the most beautiful things in the world, and if you troutfish the way I do, you can put them back while they’re still alive after you kiss them! 

Anyway, yeah, my passions include rocks and jewelry making and Pando and trout.

But let’s talk about Pando, I don’t want to talk about me.

You’re a Pando big shot – which people should know it says right on your business card.  Where do you really think Pando can go?

My goal for Pando is to expand its reach to the far corners of California in the next two years. I think that’s a reasonable goal. I hope the board of directors reads this and agrees with me, and if they don’t, I’ll thumb-wrestle them for it. 

You accidentally invented this little animal that’s gonna grow beyond our dreams. I mean, who would have expected it? 

I think Pando is going to start to grow logarithmically. It’s gonna be wildfire time.

People are gonna start begging us, Why can’t Sacramento have Pando? What’s the matter with Fresno State? 

And then someone is going to pick up one of our books and say, Take this back to Fresno and read it. Because this is a recipe for fixing things instead of breaking more things. I’m not picking on Fresno. 

Am I making sense?

You are to me. 

I’m just thinking, Pando For Life. 

For a whole bunch of reasons, but I think one of them is that sense of accomplishment that we can give to people. 

I did something. 

I didn’t just read this or ace some test. I actually accomplished something that wouldn’t have been accomplished if I hadn’t put myself into it and done it. 

AI can ace a test, but it can’t create a real-world project. 

That’s right.  

So that’s why Pando is really something worth believing in. 

I’m all in. 

It’s, you know, it’s the closest thing I’ve got to religion.

You could think of Pando as a vehicle for world loyalty, as John Cobb might have said. John thought “world loyalty” was the right definition of religion.

That’s a lovely idea. If you’re gonna believe in something, at least believe in the world.

And be loyal to it.

And be loyal to it. And find a way to, you know, to put your finger in the dike.