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Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen by Rita Gunther McGrath Inflection points, as discussed first by Andy Grove in his book, Only the Paranoid Survive, are paradigmatic shifts that lead to entrepreneurial opportunities, such as those companies like Amazon and Netflix seized, or lead to failure, if not responded to adequately as in the instances of companies like Nokia, Blockbuster, Intel, Kodak, and Xerox. Leaders must “see around corners” to identify disruption and must respond appropriately. Business School Professor and consultant Rita McGrath contends that though the disruption often seems sudden, it is not entirely random and can be anticipated. Typically, it is the result of process that has been brewing for some time. Armed with the right strategies and tools, organizational leaders can identify that a disruption is arriving and can benefit from it if they take timely steps. This book is a guide to anticipating, understanding, and capitalizing the inflection points in the lives of business. Rich in example, itprovides a structured approach to understanding and responding to the disruptive inflections every business inevitably face. Case study presentations and illustrations are central. This book is a must for navigating in a world of constant disruptions. Alfred Marcus, Edson Spencer Professor of Strategy and Technology University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode of Tank Talks, Matt Cohen speaks with Terry Doyle, Managing Partner at Telus Global Ventures, about the evolving role of corporate venture capital (CVC) in business strategy. Terry discusses his path from Nokia and Microsoft to leading one of Canada's top CVC arms. With 30+ deals in 2023 and a dual “investor + customer” model, Telus is redefining how corporates fuel innovation. The conversation covers AI in emerging verticals, enterprise partnerships, and Canada's place in global tech. Founders, investors, and policy leaders alike will find actionable insights and strategic guidance throughout this episode.Terry's Unconventional Career Path (00:00:49)* From law school to Nokia's corporate development during the iPhone disruption.* Lessons from Nokia's decline: "The paranoid survive" (Andy Grove) and the dangers of engineering-centric cultures.* Transition to Microsoft pre-Satya Nadella: Pitching $400M deals in an era where "revenue below $1B wasn't reported."How Telus Builds Through Venture Capital (00:14:51)* Telus's evolution from telco to tech & services powerhouse* Over 90% of investments include commercial partnerships* Measuring ROI through value capture: “$34M in portfolio revenue last year, targeting $60M this year.”Navigating M&A and Corporate Integration (00:28:43)* Why integration, not pricing, kills most acquisitions* Founders: plan to stay 3+ years post-acquisition* The liquidity logjam: public markets are closed, valuations remain stickyAI's Vertical and Observability Revolution (00:43:00)* Why Telus is betting on vertical LLMs and AI observability tools* Applications in health, agriculture, and cybersecurity* “AI isn't a side bet, it's foundational to our product strategy.”Canada's Innovation Imperative (00:32:58)* Only 6% of Canadian corporates invest in venture (vs. 40% in the U.S.)* “If you don't like change, you're going to hate irrelevance.”* The need for more startup acquisitions, angel reinvestment, and risk tolerance from corporate leadersAbout Terry DoyleTerry Doyle is Managing Partner at Telus Global Ventures, leading strategic investments across Telus' digital health, agriculture, and AI verticals. A veteran of British Telecom, Nokia, and Microsoft, Terry has negotiated global M&A deals and now helps startups scale through Telus' commercial ecosystem. Passionate about Canadian tech, Terry is also a long-time supporter of C100 and innovation policy.Connect with Terry Doyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doyleterryVisit Telus Global Ventures Website: https://www.telus.com/en/ventures/global-venturesConnect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com
Knowledge Project: Read the notes at at podcastnotes.org. Don't forget to subscribe for free to our newsletter, the top 10 ideas of the week, every Monday --------- Most people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite his, again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and finally the CEO who built Intel into a global powerhouse. He didn't cling to credentials or titles. When a challenge came up, he didn't delegate, he learned. This episode explores the radical adaptability that made Grove different. While his peers obsessed over innovation, he focused on something far more enduring: the systems, structures, and people needed to scale that innovation. Grove understood that as complexity rises, technical brilliance fades and coordination becomes king. You'll learn how he redefined leadership, why he saw management as a creative act, and what most founders still get wrong about building great companies. If you're serious about getting better—at work, at thinking, at leading—this is the episode you'll be glad you didn't miss. This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research came from The Life and Times of an American by Richard S. Tedlow, Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove, and Tom Wolfe's profile of Robert Noyce available here. Check out highlights from these books in our repository, and find key lessons from Grove here — https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-andy-grove/ (05:02 ) PART 1: Hungarian Beginnings(06:48) German Occupation(09:27) Soviet Liberation(11:01) End of the War(12:35) Leaving Hungary (14:10) PART 2: In America(16:50) Origin of Silicon Valley(20:04) Fairchild (22:54) PART 3: Building Intel(25:15) Becoming a Manager(29:39) Intel's Make-or-Break Moment(31:35) Quality Control Obsession(34:41) Orchestrating Brilliance(37:49) The Microprocessor Revolution and Intel's Growth(40:32) Intel's Growth and the Microma Lesson(30:51) The Grove Influence(47:00) The Birth of Intel Culture(49:42) The Fruits of Transformation(50:43) The Test Ahead (53:07) PART 4: Inflection Points(55:23) The Valley of Death(58:26) The IBM Lesson(01:01:18) CASSANDRA's: The Value of Middle Management(01:04:09) Executing a Painful Pivot (01:08:25) Reflections, afterthoughts, and lessons Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this episode: MOMENTOUS: Head to livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLEDGEPROJECT for 35% off your first subscription. NOTION MAIL: Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/knowledgeproject Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of all episodes, join our membership: fs.blog/membership and get your own private feed. Newsletter — The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Knowledge Project Key Takeaways Check out the episode pageRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgMost people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite his, again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and finally the CEO who built Intel into a global powerhouse. He didn't cling to credentials or titles. When a challenge came up, he didn't delegate, he learned. This episode explores the radical adaptability that made Grove different. While his peers obsessed over innovation, he focused on something far more enduring: the systems, structures, and people needed to scale that innovation. Grove understood that as complexity rises, technical brilliance fades and coordination becomes king. You'll learn how he redefined leadership, why he saw management as a creative act, and what most founders still get wrong about building great companies. If you're serious about getting better—at work, at thinking, at leading—this is the episode you'll be glad you didn't miss. This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research came from The Life and Times of an American by Richard S. Tedlow, Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove, and Tom Wolfe's profile of Robert Noyce available here. Check out highlights from these books in our repository, and find key lessons from Grove here — https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-andy-grove/ (05:02 ) PART 1: Hungarian Beginnings(06:48) German Occupation(09:27) Soviet Liberation(11:01) End of the War(12:35) Leaving Hungary (14:10) PART 2: In America(16:50) Origin of Silicon Valley(20:04) Fairchild (22:54) PART 3: Building Intel(25:15) Becoming a Manager(29:39) Intel's Make-or-Break Moment(31:35) Quality Control Obsession(34:41) Orchestrating Brilliance(37:49) The Microprocessor Revolution and Intel's Growth(40:32) Intel's Growth and the Microma Lesson(30:51) The Grove Influence(47:00) The Birth of Intel Culture(49:42) The Fruits of Transformation(50:43) The Test Ahead (53:07) PART 4: Inflection Points(55:23) The Valley of Death(58:26) The IBM Lesson(01:01:18) CASSANDRA's: The Value of Middle Management(01:04:09) Executing a Painful Pivot (01:08:25) Reflections, afterthoughts, and lessons Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this episode: MOMENTOUS: Head to livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLEDGEPROJECT for 35% off your first subscription. NOTION MAIL: Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/knowledgeproject Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of all episodes, join our membership: fs.blog/membership and get your own private feed. Newsletter — The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Knowledge Project Key Takeaways Check out the episode pageRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgMost people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite his, again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and finally the CEO who built Intel into a global powerhouse. He didn't cling to credentials or titles. When a challenge came up, he didn't delegate, he learned. This episode explores the radical adaptability that made Grove different. While his peers obsessed over innovation, he focused on something far more enduring: the systems, structures, and people needed to scale that innovation. Grove understood that as complexity rises, technical brilliance fades and coordination becomes king. You'll learn how he redefined leadership, why he saw management as a creative act, and what most founders still get wrong about building great companies. If you're serious about getting better—at work, at thinking, at leading—this is the episode you'll be glad you didn't miss. This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research came from The Life and Times of an American by Richard S. Tedlow, Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove, and Tom Wolfe's profile of Robert Noyce available here. Check out highlights from these books in our repository, and find key lessons from Grove here — https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-andy-grove/ (05:02 ) PART 1: Hungarian Beginnings(06:48) German Occupation(09:27) Soviet Liberation(11:01) End of the War(12:35) Leaving Hungary (14:10) PART 2: In America(16:50) Origin of Silicon Valley(20:04) Fairchild (22:54) PART 3: Building Intel(25:15) Becoming a Manager(29:39) Intel's Make-or-Break Moment(31:35) Quality Control Obsession(34:41) Orchestrating Brilliance(37:49) The Microprocessor Revolution and Intel's Growth(40:32) Intel's Growth and the Microma Lesson(30:51) The Grove Influence(47:00) The Birth of Intel Culture(49:42) The Fruits of Transformation(50:43) The Test Ahead (53:07) PART 4: Inflection Points(55:23) The Valley of Death(58:26) The IBM Lesson(01:01:18) CASSANDRA's: The Value of Middle Management(01:04:09) Executing a Painful Pivot (01:08:25) Reflections, afterthoughts, and lessons Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this episode: MOMENTOUS: Head to livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLEDGEPROJECT for 35% off your first subscription. NOTION MAIL: Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/knowledgeproject Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of all episodes, join our membership: fs.blog/membership and get your own private feed. Newsletter — The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Most people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite his, again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and finally the CEO who built Intel into a global powerhouse. He didn't cling to credentials or titles. When a challenge came up, he didn't delegate, he learned. This episode explores the radical adaptability that made Grove different. While his peers obsessed over innovation, he focused on something far more enduring: the systems, structures, and people needed to scale that innovation. Grove understood that as complexity rises, technical brilliance fades and coordination becomes king. You'll learn how he redefined leadership, why he saw management as a creative act, and what most founders still get wrong about building great companies. If you're serious about getting better—at work, at thinking, at leading—this is the episode you'll be glad you didn't miss. This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research came from The Life and Times of an American by Richard S. Tedlow, Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove, and Tom Wolfe's profile of Robert Noyce available here. Check out highlights from these books in our repository, and find key lessons from Grove here — https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-andy-grove/ (05:02 ) PART 1: Hungarian Beginnings(06:48) German Occupation(09:27) Soviet Liberation(11:01) End of the War(12:35) Leaving Hungary (14:10) PART 2: In America(16:50) Origin of Silicon Valley(20:04) Fairchild (22:54) PART 3: Building Intel(25:15) Becoming a Manager(29:39) Intel's Make-or-Break Moment(31:35) Quality Control Obsession(34:41) Orchestrating Brilliance(37:49) The Microprocessor Revolution and Intel's Growth(40:32) Intel's Growth and the Microma Lesson(30:51) The Grove Influence(47:00) The Birth of Intel Culture(49:42) The Fruits of Transformation(50:43) The Test Ahead (53:07) PART 4: Inflection Points(55:23) The Valley of Death(58:26) The IBM Lesson(01:01:18) CASSANDRA's: The Value of Middle Management(01:04:09) Executing a Painful Pivot (01:08:25) Reflections, afterthoughts, and lessons Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this episode: MOMENTOUS: Head to livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLEDGEPROJECT for 35% off your first subscription. NOTION MAIL: Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/knowledgeproject Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of all episodes, join our membership: fs.blog/membership and get your own private feed. Newsletter — The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is generosity a nice-to-have—or a career superpower?In Part One, Monte Wood, former CEO of Opus Agency and author of Generosity Wins, makes the case for generosity as a leadership strategy with real-world ROI. Drawing from personal stories, his time working with legends like Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, and Mark Benioff, and life lessons from his own mentors, Monte shares how small acts of generosity can ripple out into long-term success—and why true generosity isn't transactional, it's transformational.This episode explores what it means to give without expecting anything in return—and how doing so just might give you everything you've been looking for.Key Highlights of Our Interview:The 16-Year-Old With a Generosity Formula“My mentor told me: believe you can succeed, live a good life, and be generous. That's it. That's what I followed.”From Milton-Freewater to CEO“Even in a town of 3,500, I believed I'd lead a $100 million company. Generosity helped me get there.”The Real Test of Generous Leadership“Great leaders don't just care about your output—they care about your growth, your family, your life beyond work.”The Taco Bell CEO Who Taught His Team to Change Tires“Leadership isn't just coaching performance. It's preparing people for life—even if that means teaching them how to balance a checkbook.”Why Remembering Someone's Name Is a Leadership Move“Mark Benioff would walk into a room of 2,000 people and greet them by name. That's not ego—that's care.”The Toyota Truck and the Corner Cubicle“Andy Grove reinvented Intel—and drove a beat-up Toyota. That's not performative humility. That's values in action.”Is It Generosity If It Helps You Win?“If generosity leads to success, is it selfish? No—it's just wise. When done with pure intent, generosity multiplies.”Defining Generosity (Without the Guilt Trip)“It's not about money. It's any act of giving or kindness done without expecting a return. Even a smile counts.”Smiles, Bathrooms, and the Chemistry of Connection“A smile can save a life. Cleaning a public restroom can create joy for someone you'll never meet. This is the power we all hold.”The Ripple Effect Is Real—And It Changes Lives“When you're generous to one person, they're more likely to be generous to someone else. The ROI? It might not be financial—but it's exponential.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：Lip-Bu Tan, the man trying to save Intel The struggling American chip giant's new boss is no stranger to comebacks 正文：INTEL, AMERICA'S semiconductor giant, has had some notable bosses. Robert Noyce, its first, invented the silicon chip that gave Silicon Valley its name. Gordon Moore, who came next, etched his place in tech lore with a prediction—Moore's Law—that processing power would double every two years at the same cost. Andy Grove, the third boss, turned Intel into a semiconductor juggernaut, driven by the mantra that “only the paranoid survive.” The latest to join this lineage is Lip-Bu Tan, who took over in March. 知识点：semiconductor /ˌsemikənˈdʌktə(r)/ n. a substance that has electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. 半导体（一种导电性能介于导体和绝缘体之间的物质 ） • Semiconductors are widely used in the production of electronic devices like computers and smartphones.（半导体广泛应用于电脑、智能手机等电子设备的制造中。 ） 获取外刊的完整原文以及精讲笔记，请关注微信公众号「早安英文」，回复“外刊”即可。更多有意思的英语干货等着你！ 【节目介绍】 《早安英文-每日外刊精读》，带你精读最新外刊，了解国际最热事件：分析语法结构，拆解长难句，最接地气的翻译，还有重点词汇讲解。 所有选题均来自于《经济学人》《纽约时报》《华尔街日报》《华盛顿邮报》《大西洋月刊》《科学杂志》《国家地理》等国际一线外刊。 【适合谁听】 1、关注时事热点新闻，想要学习最新最潮流英文表达的英文学习者 2、任何想通过地道英文提高听、说、读、写能力的英文学习者 3、想快速掌握表达，有出国学习和旅游计划的英语爱好者 4、参加各类英语考试的应试者（如大学英语四六级、托福雅思、考研等） 【你将获得】 1、超过1000篇外刊精读课程，拓展丰富语言表达和文化背景 2、逐词、逐句精确讲解，系统掌握英语词汇、听力、阅读和语法 3、每期内附学习笔记，包含全文注释、长难句解析、疑难语法点等，帮助扫除阅读障碍。
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comNick is an entrepreneur and journalist. He was the founder of Gawker Media, the publisher of Gizmodo, and the editor of Valleywag. He began his career as a journalist with the Financial Times — as a derivatives and tech correspondent — and later founded a Silicon Valley news aggregator called Moreover Technologies. He's now working on Maze.com, which hosts a network map of near-future timelines.For two clips of our convo — on the growing global dominance of China, and the Chinese outcompeting Elon Musk — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: raised in Hampstead in the lower-middle class; a Jewish mom who fled the Communists in Hungary; growing up on sci-fi; Asimov's Foundation; attending Oxford like his father; game theory; being a young reporter in London, Hungary, Romania, and Singapore; pioneering the internet in the ‘90s; Foundation parallels with Singapore; Lee Kuan Yew; Chinese pragmatism; Taiwan; EVs in China; Musk's companies; tech theft between the US and China; DOGE and Trump reigning in Musk; Peter Thiel; Andy Grove; Uber's Travis Kalanick; Kara Swisher; Oculus' Palmer Luckey; how Silicon Valley is PR obsessed; Zuckerberg; David Sacks and crypto; Andreessen; drones; Ukraine; Thatcher; housing crisis in the UK; Orbán; the German Greens; Russian expansionism; the Poles and nukes; Trump's tariffs; Tucker's interview with Putin; the growing US-Europe rift; Greenland; AI and DeepSeek; and Nick's predictions as a futurist.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Douglas Murray on Israel and Gaza, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Francis Collins on faith and science and Covid, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee on Covid's fallout, and Paul Elie on his book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Monte Wood, former CEO of Opus Agency and author of Generosity Wins, knows that generosity isn't just about being nice—it's a game-changer in business and life. From working with icons like Steve Jobs and Mark Benioff to lessons from his mom, Monte has seen firsthand how small acts of giving create big returns. In this episode, he breaks down why generosity is the real secret to happiness and career success—and why it's more powerful than you think.Key Highlights of Our Interview:True Generosity in Leadership: More Than Just Charity“Being generous isn't just about grand acts of philanthropy. It's about caring for the individual. Whether it's helping employees grow beyond their roles or driving an old Toyota to work, leaders like Andy Grove and Mark Benioff show that humility and connection are what truly drive success.”Why Generosity is the Key to Confidence, Courage, and Success“Generosity isn't just about giving—it's a strategic move toward success. Helping others builds faster, more meaningful relationships, while also boosting your own confidence and courage. Harvard's 50-year study shows that close connections are the top predictor of happiness, and generosity is the engine that powers those relationships.”Tracking the Untrackable: The True ROI of Generosity“Generosity doesn't fit into the typical business models of ROI—no one's handing you a direct return. Yet, the rewards are undeniable. Life has a way of paying you back tenfold, proving that being generous might be the most strategic investment you can make, even if it can't be measured in dollars.”Generosity Isn't Always Grand – Sometimes It's Just a Smile“Even the smallest act of generosity can be life-changing. A smile, a kind word, or even cleaning up a public restroom can shift someone's day. In a world full of loneliness and depression, simple acts of generosity may be the most powerful way to create joy and connection.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood______________________--Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs,Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts.10 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>130,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.
Want to Start or Grow a Successful Business? Schedule a FREE 13-Point Assessment with Clay Clark Today At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com Join Clay Clark's Thrivetime Show Business Workshop!!! Learn Branding, Marketing, SEO, Sales, Workflow Design, Accounting & More. **Request Tickets & See Testimonials At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com **Request Tickets Via Text At (918) 851-0102 See the Thousands of Success Stories and Millionaires That Clay Clark Has Helped to Produce HERE: https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/testimonials/ Download A Millionaire's Guide to Become Sustainably Rich: A Step-by-Step Guide to Become a Successful Money-Generating and Time-Freedom Creating Business HERE: www.ThrivetimeShow.com/Millionaire See Thousands of Case Studies Today HERE: www.thrivetimeshow.com/does-it-work/
The New York Times has called Clyde Prestowitz “one of the most far seeing forecasters of global trends.” For more than fifty years, Prestowitz has studied, lived, and worked in Asia, Europe, and Latin America as well as in the United States and has become noted as a leading writer and strategist on globalization and competitiveness. His best -selling books include: Trading Places, Rogue Nation, Three Billion New Capitalists, The Betrayal of American Prosperity and Japan Restored.Prestowitz was a leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China in 1982 and has served as an advisor to Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama. He has also worked closely with CEOs such as Intel's Andy Grove, Chrysler's Lee Iacocca, and Fred Smith of Fedex. In addition, Prestowitz has served on the Advisory Boards of Indonesia's Center for International Studies and of Israel's Ministry of Industry and Labor.As Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration, Mr. Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan, South Korea, and China. Under the Clinton administration he served as Vice Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Trade and Investment in the Asia Pacific Region. He was also on the Board of Advisors to the Export/Import Bank.Prior to these posts, Prestowitz had a successful corporate marketing career, working for such companies as Scott Paper Company Europe in Brussels, Egon Zehnder International in Tokyo, and the American Can Company.Mr. Prestowitz holds a B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College; an M.A. in Asia Studies from the University of Hawaii and Tokyo's Keio University, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He speaks Japanese, Dutch, German, and French.Prestowitz's newest book is The World Turned Upside Down: China, America and the Struggle for Global Leadership (Yale University Press), which was published in January 2021.
Part Two. How many people do you know who walk into a public restroom and leave it cleaner than they found it? I do—and so does the wife of today's guest, Monte Wood. Turns out, small acts of generosity like this aren't just about hygiene; they're about making things better for the next person. Monte, author of Generosity Wins and former CEO of Opus Agency, has collaborated with heavyweights like Mark Benioff, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, John Chambers, and Andy Jassy. He's learned from the greats, his mentors, and even his mother that generosity isn't just nice—it's transformative. In his world, giving back is more than a feel-good slogan; it's a life strategy. In the last episode, Monte unpacked his definition of generosity and explained why he sees it as the ultimate secret to happiness and career success. And that's just the beginning. Today, we'll tackle why generosity feels so hard in today's hustle culture and how you can cultivate a mindset centered on giving without burning out. Still skeptical that generosity pays off? Join the conversation and see how giving a little can lead to getting a lot—just maybe not in the way you expect. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Generosity Beyond Kindness: Lessons from Steve Jobs, John Chambers, and Andy Jassy “Steve Jobs' goal to democratize technology was generous, even if his approach wasn't. Leaders like Chambers and Jassy showed that while generosity doesn't always come with kindness, the drive to uplift others' success is, in itself, a powerful form of generosity.” The 600-Day Challenge: How Practicing Generosity Daily Transforms You “Documenting a daily act of kindness, whether it's a smile or genuine listening, became a habit that revealed a thousand ways to be generous—proof that practicing generosity opens new perspectives.” Unexpected Generosity in a Hot Tub: A Chat with Elon Musk “In an unexpected encounter, Musk showed genuine interest and warmth, sharing laughs and stories. It was a small gesture, but a powerful reminder of the impact of unexpected generosity from those at the top.” The Hidden Costs of Greed and Division in Today's Media “With opinion-driven media stirring division, the challenge lies in overcoming these forces with conscious generosity and mutual respect—proving that true strength is found not in agreement, but in the ability to disagree respectfully.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood ______________________ Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 2.5% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI 3.5 Million+ Downloads 80+ Countries
Part One. How many people do you know who walk into a public restroom and leave it cleaner than they found it? I do—and so does the wife of today's guest, Monte Wood. Turns out, small acts of generosity like this aren't just about hygiene; they're about making things better for the next person. Monte, author of Generosity Wins and former CEO of Opus Agency, has collaborated with heavyweights like Mark Benioff, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, John Chambers, and Andy Jassy. He's learned from the greats, his mentors, and even his mother that generosity isn't just nice—it's transformative. In his world, giving back is more than a feel-good slogan; it's a life strategy. In this episode, Monte unpacks his definition of generosity and explains why he sees it as the ultimate secret to happiness and career success. And that's just the beginning. Tomorrow, we'll tackle why generosity feels so hard in today's hustle culture and how you can cultivate a mindset centered on giving without burning out. Still skeptical that generosity pays off? Join the conversation and see how giving a little can lead to getting a lot—just maybe not in the way you expect. Key Highlights of Our Interview: True Generosity in Leadership: More Than Just Charity “Being generous isn't just about grand acts of philanthropy. It's about caring for the individual. Whether it's helping employees grow beyond their roles or driving an old Toyota to work, leaders like Andy Grove and Mark Benioff show that humility and connection are what truly drive success.” Why Generosity is the Key to Confidence, Courage, and Success “Generosity isn't just about giving—it's a strategic move toward success. Helping others builds faster, more meaningful relationships, while also boosting your own confidence and courage. Harvard's 50-year study shows that close connections are the top predictor of happiness, and generosity is the engine that powers those relationships.” Tracking the Untrackable: The True ROI of Generosity “Generosity doesn't fit into the typical business models of ROI—no one's handing you a direct return. Yet, the rewards are undeniable. Life has a way of paying you back tenfold, proving that being generous might be the most strategic investment you can make, even if it can't be measured in dollars.” Generosity Isn't Always Grand – Sometimes It's Just a Smile “Even the smallest act of generosity can be life-changing. A smile, a kind word, or even cleaning up a public restroom can shift someone's day. In a world full of loneliness and depression, simple acts of generosity may be the most powerful way to create joy and connection.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood ______________________ Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 2.5% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI 3.5 Million+ Downloads 80+ Countries
Ready to spark real change in your organization? In this episode, Brian Milner sits down with April K. Mills, founder of Engine for Change, to reveal how anyone can become a powerful change agent—without waiting for permission. Learn how to drive meaningful change, navigate resistance, and reignite Agile practices with strategies that actually work. Overview In this inspiring episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner talks with April K. Mills, CEO of Engine for Change and author of Everyone is a Change Agent, about what it truly means to lead change. April explains how effective change agents focus on clearing obstacles rather than forcing compliance, and why fostering curiosity, empowerment, and collaboration is key to sustainable change. From navigating corporate roadblocks to revitalizing Agile practices, April shares actionable insights and tactics to help you take control and make a lasting impact—whether you're in a small startup or a global enterprise. References and resources mentioned in the show: April K. Mills Everyone is a Change Agent: A Guide to the Change Agent Essentials by April K. Mills Change Tactics: 50 Ways Change Agents Boldly Escape the Status Quo by April K. Mills Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. April K. Mills is an engineer-turned-change-evangelist and author of Everyone is a Change Agent and Change Tactics, empowers individuals and organizations to thrive through change using her proven Change Agent Essentials. With a passion for turning ideas into action, April helps people drive meaningful change with the time, title, and budget they already have. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have April K. Mills with us. Welcome in April. April K. Mills (00:11) Thanks for having me. Brian (00:13) Very happy to have April with us. April is the founder and CEO of an organization called Engine for Change. That's engine-for-change.com. That's her website. She's also an author. There's a book that she put out called, Everyone is a Change Agent, a Guide to the Change Agent Essentials. And that's what we wanted to have her on to talk about today with a little bit about being a change agent. Now I shouldn't say from the outset, April is a request. We had a listener request for April to come on. And I always love that. I always try to push those people to the top of our list and get them on as soon as possible. And it was such an interesting topic. I thought this would be just a really great way to have a great topic to have early in 2025. So April, let's start with just trying to understand when we say change agent, how do you define that? What do you mean by change agent? April K. Mills (01:09) Yeah, a change agent is someone who takes action to bring about the change they want to see in the world. So rather than waiting for a boss or a corporate program or somebody from HR to come in and say, hey, let's improve this process, the change agent sees the need for a change and takes action. And the big thing I talk about in my books and my work is the difference between what typically happens when somebody sees a need for a change in an organization where they decide, I'm gonna go get a boss to go make everybody do my idea. I call that driving people. And I draw the contrast with that and driving change where you choose the change for yourself and you clear the obstacles for others to choose it too. And I love talking about that with Agile audiences especially because Agile is a change agent movement. of folks who want to drive change. I see a better way to create this product and I want to be part of it. And that's always what's drawn me into the agile space. Brian (02:13) Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And it is a big change, right? To think about the dynamics of someone kind of sitting back and saying, yeah, I see something that needs to be done. I see something that should be a different way, but you know, who am I to say anything about this? Who am I to do anything about versus the person who actually takes action and does things. So that kind of leads to a question about change agents. What kind of skills or traits do you think are really helpful or beneficial to someone to be a better change agent. April K. Mills (02:46) Well, the key is that difference between driving people and driving change. It's not what degree do you have, it's not how long have you been in the industry, it's not are you a people person, are you more focused on the data or some of those factors that we usually like to talk about. It really is, are you willing to take the step yourself first and clear those obstacles and encourage and invite people to join you? Or do you want somebody to make them obey you? And that choice is really the key for anybody to be a change agent. Because so many times we've seen people who might be able to convince the boss, hey, our team should be agile. And what happens, right? It goes on for about three months. The team gets frustrated. The boss gets angry. And then everybody starts to have a reaction when you bring it up, right? I'm sure plenty of the listeners have gone into an organization. If you're passionate about agile and you go, hey, have you guys heard about agile? And they go, ooh. And they make like a face. That's because they've encountered somebody who is driving people. And so that's the big focus I always try and talk with people about is can you show up with that willingness to let people join you and understand what their obstacles are to doing it. Brian (03:57) What are some kind of warning signs or signals you'd look for to kind of recognize whether I'm actually approaching this from a driving people perspective versus driving the change? April K. Mills (04:08) So a lot of times the key is how are you thinking about or talking about in your own head about the people around you or even yourself? We have a tendency to drive ourselves as well. So you can hear it in the language, right? I'm frustrated because so-and-so won't listen. I wish I could get more attention. It's all this sort of vague or... putting the action onto someone else and then complain the action isn't happening fast enough. You can hear it in the language. And so when someone's driving change, you don't hear that. hear, you know, I'm working on, I'm doing, the next thing is my action is I'm going to go talk with this person. I want to understand. I'm going to be curious. And you get this agency, this power coming back into your body almost, and then taking taking the next step from there. And so it's almost easy. You can almost say, well, how far outside your body would you put the power to make this change happen is a useful question to ask people. And if they say, well, it's in the CEO of the company, it's in the industry, it's in my tech lead, but it's certainly not me, well, then you're not a change agent. Brian (05:20) So that brings up a good point because I think I can try to channel what the listeners might be thinking here. I know that in times I've been in organizations where, yeah, you have the ideal, you have the thing that you think is the best thing to do. But because the power dynamics in the organization, you don't really have the power to make that change and you depend a little bit on others that have the power to to help affect it. And so there is a sort of an aspect of, I don't really have the capability or the power to cause this change to happen. How can I still stay with that mindset of driving change versus driving people when I know I need someone else's help? April K. Mills (06:03) Right. So that's a great conversation. And I've started to call it phase one Agile versus phase two Agile. I'm old enough in this space where when I first joined, a lot of Agile was team-based. Somebody on the team or several people on the team said, yeah, I want better. And these are the things that we can do as a team to deliver better. And let's do them together. And then the problem was the teams could do it, but they couldn't scale it. And they were like, if only we could get the senior leaders to pay attention to us, that would solve all our problems. And then you get phase two agile, which was executives buying agile implementations and forcing it down on people. There is one right way and we will do exactly this and you must conform and no other versions are allowed. And then we got the fractures and all of the fights about all of the different aspects. And so we tried it both ways, right? We tried it with the team effort and then we tried it with this thou shalt effort. And I think the key to actually making Agile work across organizations and deeper into organizations is to keep that energy from the team-based Agile to say, we're choosing something better, but it's that piece of driving change. What are the obstacles for others to choose it to? We didn't do that step. We went from my team does it, now the boss should make everybody else do what my team does. And I think that's where we got off track. in really scaling Agile into something that was sustainable and brought that joy and commitment and everyday wanting to show up and be better across the organization. So that's what I would encourage folks to do is not try to cheat that step of getting your fellow teams and larger systems to join you by finding somebody with the power to make them be like you. Brian (07:50) That's fascinating. I know that in some of these changes I've been involved with as well, there can be things that happen that kind of find yourself stalled a little bit, right? The initiative or the changes you're trying to affect just doesn't feel like it's going where it needs to go. What advice do you have for people who feel like they're in that place where they feel like they're kind of stalled out? in the change. April K. Mills (08:16) Yeah, so a lot of the things I talk about in that book you mentioned everyone is a change agent are different tactics you can use to overcome that. One of the key things that I talk about is what I call a change buffer, which is how can you make the rules where you're at different than those rules across the organization? I mean, let's take a simple example. Let's say there's five software teams in a business. Very simple example, right? And one is doing some practices and they'd love for those practices to spread. but they're not spreading as fast as they would hope. One of the ways to protect your change is to say, on our team, we will behave this way, declare it, make it what I call a policy buffer. So when one of those other four teams says, well, why are you doing it that way? You can point to the piece of paper and say, we've agreed to behave this way. Now, if you'd love to join us, we'd love to share that with you, but this team behaves this way. So then it's not every developer having to defend in effect the practices, which can get exhausting. But then you can start to ask them, what's your policy on your team? How do you do this? And get curious. Not in a, I'm trying to lure them in and trap them into my way of behaving, but in a, really want to understand, do they have a different measure that they're being exposed to? How can we help maybe get that measure off of them? Do they have a boss who's got a different standard for what quality looks like? Well, should we have a corporate conversation around, quality across the five teams should be the same. We don't tend to have those because we want to skip the step of coming into that alignment together and just have a policy somehow drop from the stars that aligns with my values. yeah, policy buffers are really big to protect a change and help it spread and have those curious conversations at the edges. Think of it like system integration, right? You can't just dictate, you have to understand and merge. Brian (10:11) Let's say we put in place a policy buffer like that on our team and our whole team agrees to doing something and we think this is the right way of doing things. And someone higher in the organization, some manager or leader finds out about this and says, no, I don't want that to happen. We've been trying to affect the change, right? And not push the individual. But now we do have the individual who's saying, you shall not do this. How do you overcome that when you're the change engine? April K. Mills (10:38) Yeah, so a lot of times you have to understand what are the assumptions that that leader is making and again get curious, right? Because if we focus not on the method but on the outcome, we should be able to get alignment faster. So rather than going into a boss and saying, method A is my choice, method B is yours, you know, it's a cage match, two will enter, one will leave. You instead want to show up and say, Well, I think we both agree we want to deliver quality products on time that customers love at the lowest possible production costs. Are we aligned on that or not? And if they say yes, then you say, okay, now let's just understand what are you asking for? And from my perspective as a person who has to implement that, here's how I think that impacts our ability to deliver quality products that customers love at the lowest possible production costs. And these methods that I'm using are doing this and here's my data or evidence. And so you in effect want to shift it where it's not me looking at you, but as people are probably going to see on this podcast, it's us next to each other. So if we instead frame it as me and the leader looking at the issue together, because we want to win together, we're not in competition. So again, it's about seeking to understand, removing those obstacles so that we can be aligned together to go there together. Brian (11:57) I love the idea of backtracking a little bit and finding that common ground and going from that space. I think that's a great approach. I know I've had success with that in my career too, of being able to find, well, we agree on this, right? And if we agree on this, now we're just talking about the best way of getting from where we are to there. And then it's less personal, then it's less about the person, it's more about the best strategy. And we're a little bit less... personally invested that we think it's a you know a personal affront or challenge if it's if it's more about the idea So I agree. I think that's a that's a great kind of approach to doing that How about the differences in just the the context of this if I'm a change I know you know I've been in some small organizations. I've been in some medium large-sized organizations and You know I think anyone who's been in large organizations would say Well, yeah, that's nice and easy when it's in a startup, right? If I'm in a startup, then yeah, everyone's wearing a lot of different hats and it's really easy to make change, but you know, the institutional kind of inertia that can take place in larger organizations, how do you overcome that as a change agent? April K. Mills (13:00) Yeah, well, I can speak to that from deep experience because my background started as a civilian nuclear engineer for the US Navy in a hundred year old shipyard. And I started six weeks before September 11th. So I came into a nuclear shipyard, a hundred years old, very staid in the way they did things, optimized for the shipyard and the world changed. Brian (13:03) Ha ha ha ha. April K. Mills (13:25) And I watched as that organization struggled to deal with the rate of change that was being imposed upon them. And a lot of the things that I talk about in everyone is a change agent came out of that experience of understanding what tactics worked, what didn't, what philosophy worked, what didn't to be able to empower people to make changes happen. And we made amazing changes happen in the shipyard. And then I went on and did 10 years with Intel Corporation, right? The chip maker and taught these things globally and saw people do amazing things within the company. Now it's true, if you don't get the main rudder of the company, you're not gonna steer it. But there's a lot of change you can make in an organization from where you're at. And I think that's the powerful, powerful thing. And so these tactics work at scale. They work for an individual, right? If you stop talking to yourself like, you know what you need to do? You have to do this or so and so is gonna get mad at you and you instead say, What's our obstacle for getting up early and going to the gym? And how can I clear that? And how can I choose to do that every day all the way up to a team, all the way up to an organization? I've seen these things work all the way through that scale. So I've used it in community projects to deliver an accessible playground in three and a half years when everybody said it would take five or 10. And these tactics have also been proven, although they weren't listed this way, in historical successes. If you think about when Admiral Rickover founded the nuclear Navy back in 1950, they went from approval to use nuclear power to USS Nautilus underway in five years. We can't deliver anything in five years anymore because we constantly are looking for who's going to make people, how are we going to force them? Can we keep them forced to do it? And with employee turnover, with system turnover, with the rate of change, I would argue this era of driving people has to end because it wasn't ever really effective, but it's getting less and less effective. And that's the name of my second book, which is Change Tactics, which is both you should change tactics and here are some change tactics to help people accelerate their results. Brian (15:36) That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, it gets really deep really quickly here too, because you start to think about even the way we manage our projects and the fact that a lot of more traditional project management is sort of, when we talk about this change agent approach, is sort of managing the people and trying to push and drive the people towards deadlines, some, not even an outcome, but a timeline. versus trying to affect the outcomes that we're trying to achieve as an end result instead. So it really is interconnected, isn't it, through even the way we set up our projects? April K. Mills (16:13) Yes, it totally is. And I have that in the book and in the classes I teach is where is the force? So I'm an engineer by training, right? So I'm constantly looking and thinking about where's the force in the system if it was a pump or a reactor plant or whatever. And you can see it to your point with the program management is your, are you spending most of your time trying to push people to do something? Or are you moving the form, fit and function of whatever the product is? If that's delivering code and integrating code, if that's a physical product, are you clearing the obstacle so that product moves forward faster? And you hear this and see this in stories of what's going on at SpaceX, right? When they're confronting something about, can't get a part for six months or I can't get a part for a year and it's gonna cost me $50,000, they're saying. Isn't it just sheet metal? How could we make that in two weeks with what we've got? Because they're not talking about you should be able to shrink that timeline. What are you doing? Why aren't you talking to the vendor enough? aren't you pushing on the vendor hard enough? They're saying, what is the physical thing we need and how fast can we get it? And it's allowing them to shrink product costs. It's allowing them to shrink durations. It's what Rickover did in the 50s. It's what Andy Grove did with Intel back when it was Intel delivers in the 80s and 90s. Focus on the product, focus on the physics, focus on the engineering, the mechanics to support the engineering, the operations to support the mechanics, and you'll deliver products faster. And at the heart of all of that is change agents because they're not trying to get somebody to obey. They want to get something amazing done. Brian (17:50) One of the things I found kind of in when I've worked with organizations and talked with organizations about kind of moving from point A to point B is the fact that you kind of need help. kind of need, know, a lot of times people will try to make these changes all on their own and they sort of take the weight of the world on their shoulders. I can't figure out why it's not working. How do you kind of co-opt others into your strategy? April K. Mills (18:14) Yeah, well, the best way is to share with them what you've learned about being a change agent. I've had countless folks who, know, one person will read my book or come to a class and they'll go back and try it and people will get curious because you show up differently. So a simple example that I give in the book is rather than sending a mandatory meeting, which we're all guilty of, right, we get an assignment. and we go into the global outlook calendar and we pick people and we make them mandatory and we order them to come to our meeting. We say, Brian gave me this assignment. You have to come. Brian said this is really important. Come to my meeting or else. And we do that. That's the default. And I encourage folks from a driving change perspective to instead, maybe Brian, you gave me that assignment, but my meeting notice would say, I've been asked by Brian to lead this. I'm excited to do that. Here's why I've chosen this as the thing I'm going to focus on. I've marked you all optional. I think you have the skills and capabilities that would be amazing on this team. And if you're as passionate as I am, I'd love you to partner with me. We're going to start meeting on Tuesday. If you're not the right one, feel free to tell me. But I'm moving forward on Tuesday with whoever's there. And I'm really grateful that I get to work in an organization with you. Now. Who's gonna come to, which meeting are you gonna come to? The April says Brian's gonna be mad at you if you don't, or the one where April's gonna go off and do something amazing, I don't wanna miss out. And anybody can do that because everybody send in meeting notices out to people. So the simplest actions have the most powerful results. Brian (19:31) Ha It really is a cultural change too, right? mean, that's a very different cultural kind of approach to it to say, hey, it's optional, but, you know, get on board with this idea. If this is something that you're excited about, I want you to be a part of this versus, hey, you've got to, that's your job. you know, I've been given the authority to, to demand that you be here and, and, and, you know, really want. So, so how do you. You know culture changes is obviously one of the hardest things to do in an organization. How do you start to if you're a change agent? How do you start to? Change the culture in the organization to be more in line with that April K. Mills (20:25) So my focus is always on the culture starts with one. So people will treat you the way you show up. And so show up as a change agent and the world will bend around you in reaction to it. Now I do have a chapter in the book where I talk about my son who's got special needs and he took a long time for him to walk. He had to walk with forearm crutches. And the first time we were really out in public, he was walking with his forearm crutches. And you could tell that people were really confused and concerned, right? It's different. He's a small child. He looks very fragile. And you had all these reactions from people about, well, you know, where's his mother? Cause I was watching him from a little ways away. I always joke, no one ever asked where's his father if a child is wandering off. But you know, they're watching him and you could tell there were people that wanted to either pick him up and do it for him. Take him someplace because he looks so fragile, let me help you. Or they were mad that he was off on his own and I wasn't hovering. And I use that story for the same thing here. Because when you go off and you say, let's make this optional, I'm passionate about it, I'm committed, and even if I'm alone in this room, I'm going to move this forward, people are going to look at you funny. Like my son with his forearm crutches because they're used to somebody walking off strong, demanding, creating space. But it doesn't mean that that's necessarily the best way to do it. And so you have to be comfortable being different. And I use the concept of change buffers to help people with that. A personal buffer might be like Richard Feynman, the noted physicist. I don't care what other people think. I'm going to be me, their concerns to the wind. A friendship buffer. I'm going to go off and do this. when somebody goes, April's crazy. I call my friend Brian and you go, you're not crazy. You're doing the right thing. Keep it up. Let's go for coffee, let's go for the beer, whatever. A leadership buffer, maybe you're my boss and you believe in this, you've seen it. I go off and do it, people give me a hard time. I go, hey, take it up with Brian, my boss. We do things this way in his group. Or back to that policy buffer. In my group, we drive change, not people. So when somebody shows up differently, folks go, you know, why are you doing that? it's just the way we work. And that's what I've built in organizations over the years. The people that were in The groups with me that were doing this, depending on how comfortable and how strong they felt, could either say, I'm different, live with it. Or they could say, we're different. Or the policy is different. Whatever they needed to feel strong enough to show up differently. Because when you show up differently, you get amazing results. Brian (22:58) Yeah. That's so, that's so awesome. I completely agree. What if people are listening to this and hearing all this and getting excited about it and thinking, yeah, this is, this sounds like something I want to participate in. is, it sounds like something I want to start to do. if someone feels inspired by this conversation and wants to be, become more of a change agent, uh, but they really just don't know where to start. What are some practical things that you would give them to say, here's, here's a good way to start to, to move down this path. April K. Mills (23:27) Yeah, well, the simplest one is that's why you write books, right? So my book is available. I self-published it on purpose to make it very affordable. So it's, think, $9.99. Everyone is a change agent. It's $14.99 for change tactics because I accidentally wrote a longer book than I intended. sorry. When I got the first copy, I'm like, oh, that's more than I thought it was. OK. But so both of those. So for, you know, the price of a meal. Brian (23:44) You April K. Mills (23:54) for one person these days with inflation, right? You can get two books that help you not only have the basis, but have some just simple tactics, almost like a recipe book you can use. And then later this spring, I'm rolling out with my Engine for Change Company, this Change Agent Essentials class, which is based on that content. I've been teaching it now for 10 years in corporations. As we were talking before we started, right, I'm a recovering hider in corporations, I guess. Now I'm coming out into the world. And so it's going to be available for folks if they want to take the class to get that more immersive experience. So I'm really excited to bring it to the world because it works. And I'm especially passionate about agile people using it because there's too much conversation around agile dying and we need better products delivered faster that customers love at the lowest possible costs. And I don't know a better way to get there. So we got to reclaim agile from the driving people. Brian (24:47) Yeah, I completely agree. you know, anyone who's been involved in Agile in any significant, you know, way I'm sure would probably agree that it's not that the core concepts in any way are, are less, valid or, or, or no longer practical or anything like that. It's just people have seen so much bad versions of things that now that that definition has been marred a little bit, I would say. And so now we, we, we have to kind of take Like you said, take back control of that a little bit and say, now here's what it really is, and here's why we do things this way. And I like your approach there. Find the common ground and say, here's, you know, we both believe in this. Well, what's the best way of doing that? You know, here's what we think. April K. Mills (25:28) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's going to be a really exciting time as we go into 2025. There's so much change happening, but so much of it is at that default of driving people. So there's a huge opportunity to show up differently, to create a ripple. That one person can create that ripple. You three people can support each other while they try these new things. By the time you get to five, you almost have critical mass, right? At least two of you will always be online at any one time to support each other. And you can grow it from there. And I've seen great, great things happen. And it really is an unleashing of energy. If people can remember the first feeling they had when they found Agile and it was like, yeah, that feels more like what a professional does. And that excitement and that energy, you can get back to that and you can get back to that by driving change. Brian (26:24) Love it, love it, this is awesome. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on. We're gonna put links to everything in our show notes for everyone so you can get to April's company and find out more about her classes and also find out more about her books there as well. So April, thank you so much for coming on. April K. Mills (26:40) Thanks for having me. It was an honor to be recommended. Brian (26:43) Well, and our honor to have you on as well. So thank you for our listeners and recommending people and thank you April for making the time for us.
From Intel's engineering labs to Silicon Valley's unicorns, OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have transformed how tech companies translate vision into measurable outcomes. But what separates successful OKR implementations from failed experiments? And how can technology leaders avoid the common pitfalls that derail even well-intentioned rollouts? In this episode, we dive deep with leaders who've shaped OKR practices at some of tech's most influential companies. Our guests Josh Seiden, Holly Bielawa, and Deepika Yerragunta share battle-tested insights from their experiences at Intel, Amazon, Google, and beyond. The episode compiles the best segments around getting started on your OKR journey, de-risking and iterating your rollout, and our guests' tips on self-checking the health of your OKR implementation. Whether you're launching your first OKR initiative or iterating on an existing framework, you'll learn practical strategies for cascading objectives across teams while maintaining strategic alignment. Our conversation includes war stories from the field, as well as intuitive insights on what actually works: fostering genuine collaboration, maintaining human centricity, and achieving the elusive balance between ambition and accountability. Watch full episodes with Josh, Holly and Deepika here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL31JETR9AR0FGx2A9HQbq2e1Xywkqb6BQ Inside the episode... Why OKRs are a powerful alternative to traditional goal-setting frameworks. How OKRs promote collaboration and alignment across all levels of an organization. Best practices for implementing OKRs: starting small, iterating, and setting clear priorities. Tips for integrating OKRs into your product teams using human-centered design principles. Differentiating between business OKRs and product OKRs to avoid organizational misalignment. How to set and measure strategic objectives with actionable, customer-centric key results. Lessons learned from failed and successful OKR implementations, including war stories from the field. The role of product operations in making data accessible for measuring OKR progress. Why tying OKRs to compensation or promotions can derail the intent of the framework. Mentioned in this episode Measure What Matters by John Doerr Outcomes Over Outputs by Josh Seiden Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres Who Does What by When by by Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton Convergence Episodes featured Building Customer-Centric Teams: Josh Seiden on OKRs and Agile Agile and Beyond Conference 2024: The Latest in A.I. Innovations and Product Development Strategies (features the interview with Holly Bielawa) Driving Cultural Change: PepsiCo's Deepika Yerragunta on Customer Obsession and Product Mindset Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral's player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge. Subscribe to the Convergence podcast wherever you get podcasts including video episodes to get updated on the other crucial conversations that we'll post on YouTube at youtube.com/@convergencefmpodcast Learn something? Give us a 5 star review and like the podcast on YouTube. It's how we grow. Follow the Pod Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/convergence-podcast/ X: https://twitter.com/podconvergence Instagram: @podconvergence
In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Abakar Saidov, CEO at Beamery, who shares his success story from Wall Street-er to tech unicorn. "A lot of entrepreneurs actually start businesses out of necessity. And necessity comes from two parts, either you have to do it because you have no other option, or you feel like you have to do it because you want the idea to exist so much. And usually I feel like if those are not your two reasons, one is like you can't imagine a world without this idea or you just have no choice. You're probably not going to make it through the the grind." Abakar shares: • On a mission to create equal access to work opportunities: The founding story of Beamery • Why customer experience is a key differentiator (and one of the reasons they've achieved such high NPS scores for implementations in an industry where low scores are common) • The top two qualities investors look for in founders • How evolving founder perspectives and motivations have shaped the company's growth • What he does to maintain energy after 10+ years as CEO • Why his ongoing process of growth and development is centred around Andy Grove's concept of the Competence Frontier and more! Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders
In this week's Thursday Thought, we explore the crucial role of 'Helpful Cassandras'—individuals with heightened perceptions of change within business environments. Drawing on analogies from nature, quotes from visionaries like Warren Buffet and Andy Grove, and the concept of 'Umwelt' by Jakob von Uexküll, we discuss how different sensory frameworks shape our understanding of market shifts and disruptions. The episode highlights the importance of recognizing and supporting these perceptive individuals to stay ahead of crises and seize new opportunities. Don't miss out on the launch of The Reinvention Summit, featuring a workshop led by Rita McGrath on early warnings and trend detection. 00:00 Introduction: Focus on the Playing Field 00:30 The Role of Helpful Cassandras 00:46 Developing Organizational Antennas 01:53 Understanding Umwelt in Business 03:14 Rodents: Masters of Olfactory Perception 04:26 Economic Signals: Smelling the Sausage 06:45 The Cassandra Story: Andy Grove and the Helpful Cassandras 09:16 Embracing Early Warnings 10:51 Conclusion: Join The Reinvention Summit Article: Navigating Change: The Hidden Scents, Sausages and Trip Wires “Games are won by players who focus on the playing field - not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.” - Warren Buffet. Just as different species perceive their environments in unique ways, individuals within a business environment experience and interpret the world around them through their subjective lenses. Some of these individuals—like modern-day Cassandras—are particularly attuned to early signs of change or disruption, but their warnings are often ignored. Using the analogy of rodents' heightened sense of smell, we explore how these Helpful Cassandras can guide companies away from crisis or towards new opportunities.yet are frequently overlooked. Embracing their foresight is crucial to navigating an uncertain future. "The capacity of an organization to read its environment somewhere out there, which requires hiring some people whose sole job is to pay attention to the things that we're not paying attention to. If you think about any system, any [00:01:00] creature has only certain antennas. Which means that those antennas allow them to be in touch with this part of the world and not that part of the world. And they get in trouble when the world suddenly has something as a threat to them that they have no antennas for. So it's very important in an organization to develop the capacity here to have these kind of emergent antennas. And or to have at least parts of things that are paying attention to what people are not paying attention to, because, in most every case, when a crisis is coming, there are people who know nobody wants to listen to them because things are going well. And you certainly don't help your career by talking about them. So I think organizations, if they want to really be on the edge of things, have to build in as capacity here to surveil parts of environment. That it has not been paying very much attention to." - Stan Deetz, Innovation Show 559 Jakob von Uexküll was a pioneering biologist interested in how living beings perceive their environments. [00:02:00] He argued that organisms experience life through species-specific, subjective reference frames he called Umwelt (The German word for environment). Each species experiences the world through its own unique sensory lens. A tick, for instance, uses the smell of butyric acid to locate a mammalian host, while a star-nosed mole relies on touch to navigate underground. Despite sharing the same physical space, animals perceive their surroundings in vastly different ways. This idea of Umwelt applies not only to biology but also to how individuals in a business environment interpret signals of change. In the business world, we each operate with different sensory frameworks. Some colleagues are tuned into technological advances, others are adept at...
Part Two. How many people do you know who walk into a public restroom and leave it cleaner than they found it? I do—and so does the wife of today's guest, Monte Wood. Like me, she does it because she wants to make things better for the next person. Monte, author of Generosity Wins and former CEO of Opus Agency, has worked with industry legends like Mark Benioff, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, John Chambers and Andy Jassy. He's learned from them, his mentors, and his mother what generosity truly means and how it leads to success in life and career. In yesterday's episode, we looked into Monte's definition of generosity and why he believes it's the key to a happier, more successful life. Today, we'll explore why generosity is tough in today's world and how to nurture a mindset focused on giving. Still skeptical about how generosity can lead to success? Tune in and join the conversation. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Generosity Beyond Kindness: Lessons from Steve Jobs, John Chambers, and Andy Jassy “Steve Jobs' goal to democratize technology was generous, even if his approach wasn't. Leaders like Chambers and Jassy showed that while generosity doesn't always come with kindness, the drive to uplift others' success is, in itself, a powerful form of generosity.” The 600-Day Challenge: How Practicing Generosity Daily Transforms You “Documenting a daily act of kindness, whether it's a smile or genuine listening, became a habit that revealed a thousand ways to be generous—proof that practicing generosity opens new perspectives.” Unexpected Generosity in a Hot Tub: A Chat with Elon Musk “In an unexpected encounter, Musk showed genuine interest and warmth, sharing laughs and stories. It was a small gesture, but a powerful reminder of the impact of unexpected generosity from those at the top.” The Hidden Costs of Greed and Division in Today's Media “With opinion-driven media stirring division, the challenge lies in overcoming these forces with conscious generosity and mutual respect—proving that true strength is found not in agreement, but in the ability to disagree respectfully.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives World's Number One Career Podcast Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI Top 10: GB, FR, SE, DE, TR, IT, ES Top 10: IN, JP, SG, AU 1.5 Million+ Streams 50+ Countries
Part One. How many people do you know who walk into a public restroom and leave it cleaner than they found it? I do—and so does the wife of today's guest, Monte Wood. Like me, she does it because she wants to make things better for the next person. Monte, author of Generosity Wins and former CEO of Opus Agency, has worked with industry legends like Mark Benioff, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, John Chambers and Andy Jassy. He's learned from them, his mentors, and his mother what generosity truly means and how it leads to success in life and career. In today's episode, we dive into Monte's definition of generosity and why he believes it's the key to a happier, more successful life. Tomorrow, we'll explore why generosity is tough in today's world and how to nurture a mindset focused on giving. Still skeptical about how generosity can lead to success? Tune in and join the conversation. Key Highlights of Our Interview: True Generosity in Leadership: More Than Just Charity “Being generous isn't just about grand acts of philanthropy. It's about caring for the individual. Whether it's helping employees grow beyond their roles or driving an old Toyota to work, leaders like Andy Grove and Mark Benioff show that humility and connection are what truly drive success.” Why Generosity is the Key to Confidence, Courage, and Success “Generosity isn't just about giving—it's a strategic move toward success. Helping others builds faster, more meaningful relationships, while also boosting your own confidence and courage. Harvard's 50-year study shows that close connections are the top predictor of happiness, and generosity is the engine that powers those relationships.” Tracking the Untrackable: The True ROI of Generosity “Generosity doesn't fit into the typical business models of ROI—no one's handing you a direct return. Yet, the rewards are undeniable. Life has a way of paying you back tenfold, proving that being generous might be the most strategic investment you can make, even if it can't be measured in dollars.” Generosity Isn't Always Grand – Sometimes It's Just a Smile “Even the smallest act of generosity can be life-changing. A smile, a kind word, or even cleaning up a public restroom can shift someone's day. In a world full of loneliness and depression, simple acts of generosity may be the most powerful way to create joy and connection.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Monte Wood Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives World's Number One Career Podcast Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI Top 10: GB, FR, SE, DE, TR, IT, ES Top 10: IN, JP, SG, AU 1.5 Million+ Streams 50+ Countries
Bienvenidos a un nuevo episodio de Indie vs Unicornio. Un episodio donde traemos dudas del público, las últimas noticias del mundo de negocios, y como siempre, a Lucas Lopatin y Cristobal Perdomo compartiendo su experiencia en el mundo del emprendedurismo. Arrancamos con algunas recomendaciones de las mejores apps de productividad, con una lista pendiente de las mejores rutinas de Lucas y Cristobal. También respondemos una pregunta del público: ¿Cómo cambia la estrategia de seducción y pitcheo cuando no buscas atraer a un VC, sino a organismos como el BID, la CAF o la CEPAL? Exploramos por qué no solo son valiosos sus fondos, sino también su apoyo y su red de contactos en toda LATAM. ¿Cómo adaptar tu pitch a estos gigantes institucionales? Nos metemos en un tema controversial: mientras muchos persiguen el sueño de la startup, cada vez más oportunidades se están abriendo en el mundo de los negocios tradicionales. Desde productos físicos hasta servicios de siempre, está resurgiendo este nicho olvidado? En otro orden de cosas, Elon Musk tiene la mira puesta en Argentina, mientras Qualcomm busca comprar Intel en un movimiento gigante. Además, analizamos por qué no siempre conviene levantar capital para abrir un nuevo país, salvo en situaciones muy específicas. Ahondamos también en los desafíos que enfrentan las empresas españolas de tecnología en LATAM, tomando como ejemplo el caso de Cabify. Cerramos el episodio con un análisis crucial: ¿dónde radican sus empresas los latinoamericanos? A raíz de la reforma del RIGI de Milei, discutimos el fenómeno de empresas argentinas que operan localmente pero están radicadas en el exterior. Te contamos los pros y contras de decidir dónde asentar tu negocio desde una perspectiva estratégica y fiscal. No te lo pierdas! __ Gracias a Kulkan Security por el apoyo! Un ataque de Ransomware puede detener tu operación o hundirte el negocio. Estás ocupandote de la seguridad de tus servicios e infraestructura o postergando lo inevitable? Kulkan Security posee un equipo especializado en seguridad ofensiva, con servicios que permiten impersonar atacantes, testear la seguridad de tus servicios, aplicaciones e infraestructura, y asesorarte en cambios necesarios para proteger tu información y la de tus clientes; y así permitirte dormir mejor de noche. Contactalos en www.kulkan.com - Menciona INDIE al contactarlos para tener un 10% off en tu primer test. __ Momentos del show: 05:42 Elon Musk 16:24 S&P 500 21:37 Apps de productividad 25:40 Radicar empresas 31:54 Oportunidades Negocios Trad 36:43 Startup Españolas en LATAM 41:36 Dinero de expansión __ Links del show: Annapurna Resigns: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/annapurna-interactives-entire-staff-resigns-leaving-developers-scrambling-report/articleshow/113306376.cms Libro High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 De la vida de Andy Grove: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284083.Swimming_Across Focus Mode: https://focusmode.app/ Haze over: https://hazeover.com/es/ Tenes alguna pregunta? Escribinos y seguinos en: Twitter: @CristobaPerdomo y @llopatin Linkedin: Lucas Lopatin y Cristobal Perdomo y Visitá: Indie Build Wollef
This week on Upstream, we're dropping the first episode of Logan Bartlett, Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, and Zach Weinberg's newest podcast This Won't Last. The show is an unfiltered backchannel where they unpack the hype cycles in venture, startup culture, and business. In this episode they discuss Paul Graham's essay "Founder Mode", AI valuations, the state of the venture market, and free speech concerns with Telegram and TikTok. —
This week we're dropping the first episode of Logan Bartlett, Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, and Zach Weinberg's newest podcast This Won't Last. The show is an unfiltered backchannel where they unpack the hype cycles in venture, startup culture, and business. In this episode they discuss Paul Graham's Founder Mode, AI valuations, the state of the venture market, and free speech concerns with Telegram and TikTok. -- Apply to join over 400 founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ -- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: This Won't Last Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/id1765665937 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast -- SPONSORS Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/cognitive Building an enterprise-ready SaaS app? WorkOS has got you covered with easy-to-integrate APIs for SAML, SCIM, and more. Join top startups like Vercel, Perplexity, Jasper & Webflow in powering your app with WorkOS. Enjoy a free tier for up to 1M users! Start now at https://bit.ly/WorkOS-Turpentine-Network Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. -- LINKS High Output Management by Andy Grove https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884/ Keith Rabois' lecture notes from 2013: How to Operate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fQHLK1aIBs Tesla vs Edison: The Last Days of Night: A Novel by Graham Moore https://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Night-Novel/dp/0812988922 Disruptive Innovation by Clayton M. Christensen https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing by Michael J. Mauboussin https://www.amazon.com/Success-Equation-Untangling-Business-Investing/dp/1422184234 Dark Wire by Joseph Cox https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wire-Incredible-Largest-Operation/dp/1541702697 On railroads: Engines That Move Markets by Alistair Nairn https://www.amazon.com/Engines-That-Markets-Alisdair-Nairn/dp/0857195999/ The Kremlin has entered your chat https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat/ The Logan Bartlett Show https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w -- TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Intro (01:01) Show origins (01:52) Kevin comes back from Burning Man (03:33) Paul Graham's Founder Mode, founder mode intuitive Keith, Pierre Lamond anecdote (06:11) Keith's response to kernel of Founder Mode, Andy Grove High Output Management (07:40) Zach asks what's unique about Founder Mode and Keith clarifies (08:25) Manager vs. Founder (12:09) Founder moral authority (14:12) Investing in founder driven CEOs (17:55) OCI | WorkOS Ads (19:56) State of venture markets (22:25) Driverless car future (28:35) Revenue quality in Al valuations (32:54) Squad Ad (36:33) New technology being disruptive or helpful for incumbents (39:12) Al in Biotech (42:14) Al impacting fund AUM (45:56) Al as the transistor (46:50) Hurdle to return Al CapEx (48:00) Unrealized Capital Gains Tax (50:56) Sweden's tax vs Norway and corporation tax rates (58:23) Medicare and Social Security, beneficial tax policies and misleading life expectancy stats (1:05:44) Lina Khan, Antitrust effect on tech industry (1:13:46) Perplexity shocking Google (1:15:59) Pavel Durov and Russia's Influence in Telegram (1:20:15) Not using TikTok & Telegram, risk in capital in Chinese companies (1:25:55) Closing
Pankaj Kedia has been a trailblazer across laptop PC, smartphone, and wearable products, having held leadership roles at Intel and Qualcomm over the last 3 decades. Now an active AI investor, advisor, mentor, and speaker, Pankaj founded 2468 Ventures in 2021 and has since made angel investments in such notable AI companies as Anthropic, Athena, Figure, Groq, and OpenAI. Recently appointed as the Chief AI Officer and board member at Biossmann, a Mexican healthcare solutions company, Pankaj brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the AI space. He holds engineering degrees from IIT Roorkee and the University of Michigan, along with an MBA from Wharton.In this conversation, we discuss:The journey of transitioning from early AI work in the 1980s to becoming a key player in the wearable revolution.Leadership lessons learned from working with iconic leaders like Andy Grove at Intel and Irwin Jacobs at Qualcomm.The evolution of wearable technology and its role in augmenting human capabilities through AI.The ethical implications and potential risks associated with the integration of AI in wearable devices.Insights into the mindset and qualities of successful AI entrepreneurs and the criteria for investing in disruptive technologies.Predictions about the future of work, the rise of AGI, and the shift towards an age of abundance where work becomes a choice rather than a necessity.ResourcesSubscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with PankajAI fun fact articleBabak Hodjat, co-inventor of Siri, on AI and the Future of Work
Skippy is enamored by Uber's cumulative to date operating losses. Doogles goes through the history of the one and only George Foreman Grill. Skippy shines light on the effectiveness of investing alongside Wall Street Bets. The episode wraps with the many failures of Intel and the history of dominant stocks in the market.Join the Skippy and Doogles fan club. You can also get more details about the show at skippydoogles.com, show notes on our Substack, and send comments or questions to skippydoogles@gmail.com.
Send us a Text Message.Most OKR frameworks focus on what you want to accomplish, but not how. They're great for setting strategy and direction, but they don't help you identify the tactical tasks that will get those things done. The real stumbling block ain't the strategies or the OKRs, it's how they align with daily tasks. That's where most OKR frameworks fall short.In this episode, I share how you can make OKRs work better for you and your team. To come up with a framework that works in real life, we borrowed some elements of Andy Grove's OKR model and Richard Rumelt's kernel of good strategy and then connected them to the projects and daily work.I work you through the key sections including a shared diagnosis, a clear strategy, measurable objectives, and a practical roadmap. This simple structure then syncs daily activities with overarching goals and helps your team connect the big-picture strategy with the daily grind.You can get our Notion OKR Template here: https://stunandawe.gumroad.com/l/strategy-okr-notion-template Here's what I cover:The Problem with Traditional OKRsBuilding a Better OKR Framework with NotionDiagnosing Your Current RealityDesigning Your StrategySetting Objectives and Key ResultsCreating a Roadmap and InitiativesImplementing with Sprints and TasksWhere to find Michel:Newsletter: https://www.stunandawe.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheljgagnon/X: https://twitter.com/michelgagnonSupport the Show. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer on the podcast or feedback to share? Leave me a message here. You'll find all the show notes, transcripts, and past guests at stunandawe.com Up your growth game with our hands-on Growth Marketing Course For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email marketing@stunandawe.com. Support the show on Patreon Follow us: LinkedIn Twitter
For our seventh episode of Working Smarter we're talking to Drew Houston, the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. If you've been online long enough, it's likely Dropbox was your introduction to the cloud. The goal is still more or less the same—give you one organized place for all your stuff—but it's no longer just about storing and syncing files. A hundred files on your desktop is now a hundred tabs in your browser, and Houston believes AI is what will finally bring calm to the chaos that's been created by the tools of modern work.For Houston, AI's potential is so great that its arrival feels like a civilization shift. It's also not just a professional preoccupation; AI is a personal interest too. A few years ago he decided to teach himself machine learning in his spare time—and some of the AI tools Houston now uses to run Dropbox are ones he built himself. Hear Houston discuss why it's gotten so hard to find the information you need to do your job, the types of tasks we'll increasingly offload to our silicon brains, and what Dropbox is doing to help make modern work more meaningful and fulfilling.Show notes:To learn more about Dropbox Dash and try Dash for free, visit dropbox.com/dashThe two books Houston mentions are “High Output Management” by Andy Grove and “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker~ ~ ~Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is changing the way we work and get stuff done.You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard, namely: our producers Samiah Adams and Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to Benjy Baptiste for production assistance, our marketing and PR consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and our illustrators, Fanny Luor and Justin Tran. Our theme song was created by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga.
Send us a Text Message.Today I am speaking with John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna Holdings, a pioneering developer of green data centers designed for batchable computing, utilizing wasted renewable energy. That's a mouthful - Soluna is essentially using unused energy or wasted energy from renewable energy, like solar power, to power AI servers. During our conversation, John shares his remarkable background, recounting his entry into the tech industry and sharing some fun anecdotes from his time at Intel during the era of Andy Grove. We then talk about the evolution of AI, discussing how Soluna (not to be confused with Solana) addresses energy challenges associated with AI and blockchain. John also shares a lot of insights into business, entrepreneurship, and his vision for the future of web3 and crypto.Show Notes and TranscriptsThe GRTiQ Podcast takes listeners inside web3 and The Graph (GRT) by interviewing members of the ecosystem. Please help support this project and build the community by subscribing and leaving a review.Twitter: GRT_iQwww.GRTiQ.com
What I learned from reading The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce: How the Sun Rose on Silicon Valley by Tom Wolfe. Read The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone with me. ----Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ----Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event----(1:00) America is today in the midst of a great technological revolution. With the advent of the silicon chip, information processing, and communications, the national economy have been strikingly altered. The new technology is changing how we live, how we work, how we think. The revolution didn't just happen; it was engineered by a small number of people. Collectively, they engineered Tomorrow. Foremost among them is Robert Noyce.(2:00) Steve Jobs on Robert Noyce: “He was one of the giants in this valley who provided the model and inspiration for everything we wanted to become. He was the ultimate inventor. The ultimate rebel. The ultimate entrepreneur.”(4:00) When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions. — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)(7:00) Bob Noyce had a passion for the scientific grind.(10:00) He had a profound and baffling self-confidence.(15:00) They called Shockley's personalty reverse charisma. — Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age by Joel Shurkin. (Founders #165)(25:00) What the beginning of an industry looks like: Anywhere from 50 to 90% of the transistors produced would turn out to be defective.(33:00) Young engineers were giving themselves over to a new technology as if it were a religious mission.(41:00) Noyce's idea was that every employee should feel that he could go as far and as fast in this industry as his talent would take him. He didn't want any employee to look at the structure of Intel and see a complex set of hurdles.(43:00) This wasn't a corporation. It was a congregation.(43:00) There were sermons. At Intel everyone, Noyce included, was expected to attend sessions on "the Intel Culture." At these sessions the principles by which the company was run were spelled out and discussed.(45:00) If you're ambitious and hardworking, you want to be told how you're doing.(45:00) In Noyce's view, most of the young hotshots who were coming to work for Intel had never had the benefit of honest grades in their lives. In the late 1960s and early 1970s college faculties had been under pressure to give all students passing marks so they wouldn't have to go off to Vietnam, and they had caved in, until the entire grading system was meaningless. At Intel they would learn what measuring up meant.(49:00) When you are trying to convince an audience to accept a radical innovation, almost by definition the idea is so far from the status quo that many people simply cannot get their minds around it. They quickly discovered that the marketplace wasn't just confused by the concept of the microprocessor, but was actually frightened by its implications. Many of my engineering friends scoffed at it was a gimmick. Their solution? The market had to be educated. At one point, Intel was conducting more seminars and workshops on how to use the microprocessor than the local junior collage's total catalog of courses. Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove became part of a traveling educational roadshow. Everyone who could walk and talk became educators. It worked. — The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
In this episode of Grow a Small Business, host Troy Trewin interviews Nima Gardideh, founder of Pearmill, about his journey scaling the company from 3 to 35 team members. Nima shares valuable insights on leveraging AI for operational efficiency, maintaining work-life balance, and achieving phenomenal revenue growth. Join us as we delve into Nima's strategies for success in the tech industry. Why would you wait any longer to start living the lifestyle you signed up for? Balance your health, wealth, relationships and business growth. And focus your time and energy and make the most of this year. Let's get into it by clicking here. Troy delves into our guest's startup journey, their perception of success, industry reconsideration, and the pivotal stress point during business expansion. They discuss the joys of small business growth, vital entrepreneurial habits, and strategies for team building, encompassing wins, blunders, and invaluable advice. And a snapshot of the final five Grow A Small Business Questions: What do you think is the hardest thing in growing a small business? Nima Gardideh believes that one of the toughest challenges in growing a small business is acquiring customers and maintaining revenue. This struggle highlights the ongoing effort required to sustain and expand a customer base, a crucial aspect of business growth. What's your favourite business book that has helped you the most? Nima Gardideh's favorite business book, which has been most helpful to him, is "High Output Management" by Andy Grove. He finds the book's insights and principles valuable for his work and business endeavors. Are there any great podcasts or online learning resources you'd recommend to help grow a small business? Nima Gardideh recommends "The Bartlett Show" and "All In" podcasts for tech-related insights, given his background in the tech industry. He also enjoys podcasts by thinkers like Sam Harris and Steven Pinker, as they often feature entrepreneurs and scientists whose perspectives expand his thinking and excite his mind. What tool or resource would you recommend to grow a small business? Nima Gardideh recommends using AI tools like Chat GPT or similar AI tools that can consume vast amounts of information on the internet. These tools can provide valuable insights and help automate tasks like writing press releases or copywriting, allowing business owners to focus more on sales and growth. What advice would you give yourself on day one of starting out in business? On day one of starting out in business, Nima Gardideh advises focusing on establishing a rhythm and building rituals for introspection earlier in the journey. This approach can enhance personal productivity and facilitate better decision-making throughout the entrepreneurial endeavor. Book a 20-minute Growth Chat with Troy Trewin to see if you qualify for our upcoming course. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your small business to new heights! Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey. Quotable quotes from our special Grow A Small Business podcast guest: Building a successful business is about creating momentum through rhythm and empowering your team to do the same – Nima Gardideh Creating the right incentives for your team and clients is crucial for sustainable growth – Nima Gardideh Professional development isn't just about business; it's about becoming a better person in all aspects of life – Nima Gardideh
Ron Whittier Interview Introduction Intel Corporation was founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who left Fairchild Semiconductor to start their own company. In the early years from 1970 to 1978, Intel went through major inflection points that helped transform it from a startup to an industry leader. Ron Whittier, who joined Intel in 1970 as an engineering manager, played a key role in navigating many of these pivotal moments. This included instilling the pioneering "Intel Culture" driven by Andy Grove, expanding into new product lines like microprocessors, raising funds through Intel's first public offering in 1972, and then rapidly scaling up design and manufacturing capabilities. From 1978 to 2000, Intel experienced explosive growth riding the PC revolution and the emergence of the world-wide web. Ron helped the company successfully navigate through additional inflection points like improving manufacturing processes under Craig Barrett's leadership, the famous decision to exit the DRAM business to focus on microprocessors, developing major marketing campaigns like "Intel Inside", transitioning to being a sole microprocessor supplier, and forming new groups like the Intel Architecture Labs and Intel Capital. Through recognizing and deftly navigating these many inflection points, Ron and Intel's leadership team transformed the company into a global technology powerhouse. We talked about How did Intel balance looking for outside ideas and developing things internally? When you listen to historians talk about the history of Intel, what are they missing or not getting 100% correct? What words do you want to say to the next generation of Intel employees and entrepreneurs out there? Did you ever look at the other companies in Silicon Valley and think that their businesses were being run in ways that you wished to model? And much more…
"Five Timeless Lessons From Bill Gates, Andy Grove and Steve Jobs"
In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Oomar Paurobally, a fellow Oxford alumnus and leader in hospitality megaprojects in South East Asia and Korea, to discuss his dissertation and his unique perspective on the Iron Triangle. The pair cover everything from stakeholder management and the universal complexity of major programmes to the interesting outcomes that can arise from a megaproject's royal flush. “What we found is that the more you look at an aggregate level, when you're looking at an aggregated industry level, you find that the root causes tend to be the same. So, the same root causes we learned during our programme as areas affecting major infrastructure projects were the same that were impacting our industry, which were stakeholder management processes, product management skills in itself across portfolios; the root causes were similar. But what was really interesting insight was, so what? Now what? So we know, that's a core issue. But what does it really mean to us?” – Oomar Paurobally After a degree in law, Oomar went to Dubai with a major project constructing a multi-billion dollar resort and waterpark. He has opened hotels, resorts and restaurants across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Now, he has pivoted his career into real estate in the tech industry. Key Takeaways:Is the hospitality industry immune to the iron law of major programmes? The similarity of Iron Triangle root causes in civil infrastructure major programmes and luxury commercial megaprojects: Infrastructure stakeholder management and leadership management Delays as strategy in private sector of hospitality major programmes; the sharp contrast from civil major programmes Oomar's dissertation research methodology; the successes and failures of thematic analysis and quantitative survey researchThe importance of pivoting to manage research bias The royal flush in hospitality megaprojects and the interesting outcomes they can bring If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. The conversation doesn't stop here—connect and converse with our LinkedIn community: Follow Navigating Major Programmes on LinkedInFollow Riccardo Cosentino on LinkedInFollow Oomar Paurobally on LinkedInRead Riccardo's latest at wwww.riccardocosentino.com Transcript:Riccardo Cosentino 00:05You're listening to Navigating Major Programmes, a podcast that aims to elevate the conversations happening in the infrastructure industry and inspire you to have a more efficient approach within it. I'm your host, Riccardo Cosentino. I bring over 20 years of Major Programme Management experience. Most recently, I graduated from Oxford University Saïd Business School, which shook my belief when it comes to navigating major programmes. Now it's time to shake yours. Join me in each episode as I press the industry experts about the complexity of Major Programme Management, emerging digital trends and the critical leadership required to approach these multibillion-dollar projects. Let's see where the conversation takes us. Riccardo Cosentino 00:51Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Navigating Major Programmes. We're here today with Oomar Paurobally. How are you doing, Oomar? Oomar Paurobally 01:02I'm doing great Riccardo, it's great to be here. Riccardo Cosentino 01:04Thank you for joining me today. Really, really excited to have you on. I believe today you are calling from Singapore. Am I correct? Oomar Paurobally 01:13That's right. Beautiful island of Singapore. Riccardo Cosentino 01:15There you go. And I'm in Toronto so I think we are covering most of the time zone around the globe today. We're here today to talk about, I mean, you attended the Master in Major Program Management with me, we were in the same cohort. And today I invited you to the podcast to talk about your research, your dissertation. But maybe before we do that, that you might introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your background and what did you do before Oxford, what are you doing now, and things like that. Oomar Paurobally 01:46Thank you so much, Riccardo. Well, pleasure to be on the podcast and invest. Here I'm standing on shoulders of giants who came before me and we're on the fourth podcast. So if you ask myself, I actually did not start in life thinking I was going into major programmes. I read law and management in my very first degree. But I was tapped on the shoulder for a very interesting project, my first major programme in Dubai, which was to join the project management team building the Atlantis in Dubai. So that was approximately 15 years ago now. And that's how I joined this world in this realm. After that. I've been plodding along in the world of construction, building hotels and resorts across Asia, Middle East and Africa. The programme was a seminal point in my life and my career because I did pivot into a different industry, into the technology industry, right after looking still looking after spaces, but in a very different way. Riccardo Cosentino 02:42Very interesting, your background is very different from mine, I mean, you do construction, but you did a different type of construction. So I was very intrigued by your dissertation because it looks a case study that is very different from what I used to know. What I found from the dissertation for your research even though the case study is a different day, the issues are similar because upon the the level of complexity of the problems that you were looking at, is as high as any other major programmes that I looked at. So that was why I was interested in that, I was very keen to have you on because when we think of major programmes, in my circle, we always think of the major civil project is very complex and like well, tunneling, big dams and power plants. But you'll be looking at major programme from a different perspective. And so I was very, very keen to have a different perspective on the podcast. Oomar Paurobally 03:38Thank you so much, Riccardo. I guess first, let me start by saying obviously, the views I'll be sharing today are mine and mine alone and do not reflect any of the views and perspectives of my previous or current employers. So now that that's out of the way, let's talk about perspective. So it's very interesting, actually, I joined the programme itself, I was asking myself that question, major programme is programmes that are currently focused on major infrastructure projects (inaudible) start, whereas I was coming from a commercial lens at this project philosophy commercializing it from day one. And the added element to this was the complexity of the programmes I was managing was due to scale. So they had already scaled. So, if you looked at each individual project I was working on, they would not make up a programme. They would fall very clearly within the realms of what we define as project management, that when you start multiplying, and you start building in different countries with different stakeholders, at the same time, then the complexities became the same complexities you would face at a major programme level. So for me, that's where the similarities were, as we started engaging into the programme. Riccardo Cosentino 05:00And maybe we can have a bit of a debate as I've had this debate in the past with other people. So obviously, you're saying one building is probably not a major project but when you are combining a portfolio of building projects, then that's when it becomes a major programme. So a portfolio does reach a level of complexity that brings something to the level of major programme with some (inaudible). And I don't like I never like to measure major programmes by the size, you know, either financial size or like, even one bedroom size. I always look at, it's a major programme when the complexity is high. And so I think when you have a portfolio, by their nature becomes very complex because you're now dealing with multiple stakeholdesr, multiple jurisdictions. So yeah, I, you know, to me, and I would like to get your view, is like, is it appropriate to define major programme by the level of complexity or should we have a discussion about the financial size? Well, what would be your experience during your research? Oomar Paurobally 06:08Well, I think just financial size of your portfolio matters, because it will determine the level of interest that there is from different stakeholders on managing a portfolio of let's say, you have 50 assets, but which are worth 10 million versus 20 assets that are worth $100 million each, it's very different. So I think the financial element plays a part, plays a role because the bigger the financial elements that you're working with, the higher the level of pressure. In my context, and it is about assets that are owned, mostly by conglomerates or high-net-worth individuals. So the pressure to perform can can be quite different, versus assets that are owned, or heavily subsidized by banks, for example, where timing becomes very important and staying within limits of initial plan execution. It's more critical. Riccardo Cosentino 07:11Interesting. Okay, switching gears a little bit, shall we talk about your dissertation? Well, what was your word? What was your area of research? What did you research when you were at Oxford? Oomar Paurobally 07:21I was looking in the hospitality industry and whether the iron law of major programme was also relevant there, which is, you know, programmes are delayed and produce under benefits over and over again. Across the industry and across different brands, we found that to be true and that as an industry, it was not immune to the iron law of major programmes. Riccardo Cosentino 07:49And did you find that, you know, I think we all are aware, people who listen to the podcast are aware (inaudible) of what is analysis of the root causes of the iron triangle? Did you find that it's very similar root causes of your currents of the iron triangle or you've done with different root causes in your industry? Oomar Paurobally 08:16Oh, that's a really interesting question, Riccardo, because what we found is that the more you look at an aggregate level, when you're looking at an aggregated industry level, you find that the root causes tend to be the same. So the same root causes we learned during our programme as areas affecting major infrastructure projects were the same that were impacting our industry, which is your stakeholder management processes. You're talking about project management skills in itself across portfolios. The root causes were similar but what was really interesting insight was, so what? Now what? So we know that's a core issue. But what does it really mean to us? And the answer, and what added to the complexity or the beauty of portfolios is it really depends. It depends on the organization you're working with. What are the different stakeholders we're working with? And for some organizations, being delayed was a good strategy. Well, it was a strategic decision to do so because unlike infrastructure projects, where you're using, again, Epic Funds to build something and you have an imperative all the time of making sure that every dollar counts when you're going into the private sector, there might be an erosion framework, and yet, you might have invested a bit too early, but it makes more sense for conglomerate to wait, better headwinds, better travel industry patterns. COVID was a fantastic example of that. It might have been the middle of construction, while opening you better wait buddy. Let that thing pass before you can even (inaudible) means having to keep certain fixed expenses. Riccardo Cosentino 10:02That's very, yeah, for sure. That's not something that we see in my project, you know, we build, like, right, like rapid transit system that you can never open there soon enough also, because the idea is these projects, these mega projects in the public realm, and I know I'm not subjected to the economic ups and downs, right? I mean, and then they're typically long overdue. Yeah. So I can see, I can see how the government capital plays a part in the strategic decision of the major programmes that you look at. What are the interesting findings? And finally, the deal, I mean, you always see, maybe you want to talk a little bit about your methodology for the research is something that we always talk about, but you know, Oxford has a very rigorous research methods. And we as a Master's student, we are asked to form a very, very specific research guidelines. So do you want to maybe talk a little bit about your process? Oomar Paurobally 11:02Sure, I guess, rigorous is a bit of an understatement. It was like it was very interesting. I took an approach over here because I was looking at an industry in general, of doing a whole literature review first. And then I went into interviews. The reason I started with a literature review approach, which is, you know, scour the web and websites like Web of Science, Scopus, where we really have, you know, the majority of academic articles are listed. It is really scour websites to find out how much information, how much literature had been written on these aspects of major programming. But the performance of major programmes in the hospitality industry there wasn't a lot I mean, when individual it's a lot, it's a lot to go through, I went to thousand plus abstracts to be read and filtered down to get to the core articles that we wanted to analyze where the approach was a literature review approach to really understand what was the status of knowledge with regards to major programmes in that industry. What was interesting is that 5000 as a number can sound like a lot, it is not when you look at it in other industries, you're talking about hundreds of thousands. So the first insight was it was an interesting dissertation because not a lot was written on the subject. And when you look at the conclusion of 90 odd articles in the selected foreword station and to really analyze it was a handful of offers. So there, the interest, the academic interest in the industry was not very high, which for me was really interesting because it really open up more opportunities for study. Riccardo Cosentino 13:09So you went for a qualitative versus quantitative research so you qualitatively assessed the issue, rather than quantitatively which means you basically interview, how did you select your participants in the research and you know, how big was the pool? Oomar Paurobally 13:26The pool was leaders in the sector, across major hotel organizations in Southeast Asia. (Inaudible) basic geographic delineation around the dissertation, which is it studies the industry from an Asian perspective, which is also where most hurdles have been built in recent years. Riccardo Cosentino 13:54Okay, so you interview your participant, you gather the data? And then what do you, and then I'm assuming you analyze the data using a specific model that you probably had built? Sorry, I'm going for this because I, I just realized that I'm not over, you know, I invite a lot of guests and we talk about their dissertation and give it, I always assume that people know what the process of a dissertation and I realize that they don't So, I'm not, I'm putting you for this just to give a sense of why it's important to have guests like you on the podcast to talk about your research and to actually explain the rigor and what we do. So yeah, but I was asking you, you know, once you have all the data, you actually you know, I think we all do it, we actually create a model to analyze and assess the data, right? Oomar Paurobally 14:46Correct. And the methodology I used was a methodology from have Mahler and key platinum book, which explains the different methodologies available when doing interviews and more specifically when writing dissertations. And the approach I took was a thematic approach, meaning you would run the interview and you would give full, obviously, full freedom, full length for the interviewees to give their point of view. But after the fact, you will look at how many times a fear would come up during the conversation without being prompted. Right. So he got really hard because you really don't want to influence the interviewee to keep on one subject, but you would let it naturally flow during the conversation. And what would happen is after a little while up to two or three questions, and as we go into our root causes, of performance or underperformance, each stakeholder start developing a fear as to why they shake (inaudible) I will then note the number of times that fear is coming up. So I would do that for all the interviewees. And at the end of the interview, I would highly tally shall be able to look at how many times project management skills or lack of knowledge of project management skills was coming up, the number of times stakeholder management was coming up. And that was the approach and the tricky part of the approach is, there's an inherent bias when you're selecting interviewees, because the higher up the corporate ladder you're going, the more the leaders would be guarding up stakeholder management, because that's where a bigger portion of their time is spent. While you're going to get the teams and within the teams then project management skills is really coming up soon. You're going to manage those different biases and try to find finely balance the interviewees you're looking for in the first place to make sure that the data doesn't go in one direction versus the other purely because of the set of interviewees that are on the pool. Riccardo Cosentino 17:05Thank you for explaining that. Because I think it's yeah, I think it's interesting and worth mentioning, as you said, these are experienced individuals, experienced participant, people who are, been working in the industry for a long time. So their views are very, very valid. And looking at patterns and models view of practitioners who have similar experiences, is what the research is about. And I found that a very, very interesting process because you do get a cross section of the industry or you do get a cross section of what's happening. So you talked about biases. And so did you try to balance off some of the biases by the type of participants? So you mentioned you had experienced project manager? Did you also try to balance so we'd, like, less experienced project manager to see if the (inaudible) a different views? Oomar Paurobally 18:02That's correct. You know, sometimes we talk about the things that work. But let me share something that did not work. My first approach was not an interviewing approach. My first approach was a survey approach. And it feels to be reserved, because I hadn't read the room correctly. You know, for context, while I was writing the dissertation, we were coming out of COVID years, and COVID had had a tremendous impact on, you see, with hospitality industry. So you can imagine how it would feel when you receive a survey telling you about, you know, what project is going wrong, the type of answers you would get shared good quality bias or influence, but there was certainly COVID looming behind the surveys, and I was trying to go for quantity and pushed it out to as many folks as possible are creating a wide region, the data that came in was just unworkable, because, you know, you get to read the room correctly for the balance correctly. So I had to pivot on the approach to get a better quality of data and to be able to get stock hurdles. So when you talk about biases, it was easier during an interview, to have a different conversation of COVID. But also, let's get COVID aside, you have X years of experience in the industry. Let's talk about those and what they taught you. It also covered of course, but you know, let's talk about your overall experience. So one way to reduce the bias was when looking at length of experience within various industries. So if somebody had joined the industry right before COVID or during COVID, I would not be interviewing them because of experience without being bothered by that (inaudible). Riccardo Cosentino 19:47Thank you for clarifying and thank you for your vulnerability. You're telling us that went down the wrong path that led to, but that's part of the research, right? That's exactly part of the research. It's you know, you try things and you try something different and the ending worked. Okay, so you did the literature review, you select your participant, you tailored questionnaire, you interview the participant, you gather the data, you analyze the data. And then I'm assuming you roleplay the discussion and then a conclusion. And maybe you can walk us through if you can on what were the main themes of your of your recent work. What came out as the main themes from interviewing a participant then what conclusions did you draw from the data that you collected. Oomar Paurobally 20:35Sure. The first elements, I guess, in a nutshell, we're very similar again to the infrastructure programs before project management came up, stakeholder management, lack or lack of stakeholder management came out. Those were the first set of answers that were coming out from the interviews, we hadn't gone to the level and we talked about biases a bit earlier, we hadn't gone to a level of, of bias yet, which I purposely bought into a question in the interviews to say, well, is poor project management a symptom? Is lack of stakeholder management a symptom of the bigger issue of the bias? And for me, this is where it became interesting, because when we looked, not only was the symptom similar, the biases are similar, I believe that's at major programme, so it's, it was an insight, which was interesting for me because there was also what when it came to the bias, first if we talk about biased strategic misrepresentation, right, so they could happen on many different levels, they could happen on the stakeholder level, not necessarily from the leaders of the programme, strategically misrepresenting this amount of time is going to build and get commitment to build. But there was a very (inaudible). So what? We knew that. You simply look at the past to know that it's going to take time and we see something we can live with. So what was interesting is our conversation of how much can, how much of the performance can we leave with before we decide to call it quits? So that was an interesting conversation, which I didn't find when talking to fellow colleagues or looking at the infrastructure. There are some fact in there. And so yeah, we know plus minus six months, that you plus two years, nobody's doing that. Versus in the commercial world yeah, it's two years, no problem as long as the conglomerate is still healthy and still working very well and the economy is right and ripe for the picking when you open. So I think that was interesting and that was different from infrastructure programmes. So, yeah, there is this strategic misrepresentation. Riccardo Cosentino 23:08So I think we touched upon why it's different, at the beginning you mentioned that there are, because I think it's important to dwell on the thought that yeah, when you delivered public infrastructure, it was always long overdue when the confession starts, because you know, thing takes a long time to get this project approved. And so the need for the infrastructure is already there, even before it gets built. And so then, therefore, a delay, all it creates is even more, you're already late when you start because you probably should have built that transit system 20 years ago, and so the further delays are not going to be acceptable. But in my field, we call that revenue transactions, where the asset is actually going to generate monetary revenues on the back end. And it could be yeah, I mean, there could be other reasons why a project, it could be delayed, or it's acceptable for a project to be delayed, because there are revenue consideration and cost consideration on the back end, something that doesn't really exist when you're building a public transit. I mean, it should exist, because ultimately, these are assets that generate benefits for the community. So your financial benefit should always be taken into consideration, but because the reason that exchange of money from the user or not a commensurate exchanging money for the user, that aspect, is that forgotten. And so sometimes being able to trade off delays with revenues or considering other reasons, it could be advantageous, but really, and we don't see that in the public realm. Oomar Paurobally 24:51Correct. I think the second element to your question of the findings were first, the first finding was a reaction of, sure what? Right? Set it to a bar set. So we've got it, it's an economic reality, which we live with. And because we were running a P&L, we manage a P&L, and as long as we're doing well, it's okay, let's live with it and move forward. So we don't dwell on it. But the second limit, which was not immediately coming across, but you would see, as we, you know, I was reading for the interviews was a collection of organizational inertia. So, for the inertia of a or I call it a (inaudible) company, that's managing the portfolio can slow down to a portfolio of projects itself. So if you're looking at a project, by definition, it's, it has a, an end date, it gets delayed, but there's an end date. If your teams are very nimble or if they're working like little organizations themselves. What's different in the hospitality industry is you, you have big organizations behind them. And what we saw is that to that nimbleness, sometimes we get lost at an individual project level, because you need to wait for the bigger organization for decision making. So organizational inertia, of bigger organization impacting individual project was also something that came up, which wouldn't exist in infrastructure programs, because we have one organization and designed for that speed and pace. Riccardo Cosentino 26:37Interesting, interesting. And so in your research in your conclusion, the way you're able to look at, okay, you look at so what and where you will also be able to look at now what? So what is supposed the solution or that was beyond the scope of research? Oomar Paurobally 26:57Yeah, look, we started to look at opportunities, right? I think I'll start with organization inertia first. I wonder who said that there was a code, that snow melts at the periphery. I won't be quoting him wrong, but it was Andy Grove of Microsoft, talking about this. And his point was that organizations can get too big before snow melts at the center and the center knows about it, it already melted everywhere else. And it sure felt that way. When I was studying the industry for a nation that where COVID had a major impact was redefining the industry. But it was also creating opportunities within the industry. So for example, Foodie Kiwi business was never hired while during COVID. And organizations that were nimble were able to take advantage of it so the term Goose Kitchens became popular. They werew opening up all over the place. Delivery services became massive and even after COVID they're still around and having taken with food for delivery services is now a thing. So what this created was a reckoning in the world of hospitality around the business opportunity that existed in that food and beverage area versus what was traditionally a very rooms focused, focused business. So a recommendation was to keep an eye on the periphery and what offers businesses coming up to adapt. Otherwise, if you look up the hotel today, it seem very different when I (inaudible) in the 1960s as it wounds through reception, and there is a (inaudible) on the right hand side. So it did give a moment of reckoning for the industry, which was quite interesting. Riccardo Cosentino 29:11Thank you for that perspective. Yeah. Very, very interesting. Yeah, I think we all anecdotally understand that but to hear it from professional from the hotel industry is very interesting. Okay, I think we come in towards the end of the podcast. And I have one final question before I let you go. But before I get to the final question at any other particular discovery from your research or you think you have you presented all your findings or what was there something else in your research that you want to share with the audience? Oomar Paurobally 29:45So the (inaudible) was interesting from the research was the importance of the country in which you're operating. So we discussed a bit earlier about complexity will be coming from jurisdiction in which you're operate and when you look at this part of the world in specific, we tend to put acronyms to things we'll say this is Southeast Asia, there's tens of countries, and the laws are very, very different. So when you are operating across them, having those acronyms in mind and thinking, oh, it's just one project under that acronym, how hard can it be? I think you can never discount the jurisdiction element. And again, that's a point of difference in I think, big infrastructure projects. But we know the country in which it's happening, if it's something that's being built between the countries, we're also very specific about those two, whereas when it's the portfolio, and it's across different countries, and different stakeholders we have in those countries being able to navigate, those jurisdictions become very, very important skill. Riccardo Cosentino 30:55Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Very interesting point. It's very peculiar to your industry. Also because you have an ongoing like with mega projects, either they get handed over to somebody else, but the operation politics is well entrenched into the business, right? So it's not just about the power, it's all of the facility. It's about running afterward. Okay, before I go, and hopefully you can you can answer these questions. I don't think this triggers any confidentiality. But I think you while we were in Oxford, you were telling us almost very specific commissioning process that the hotels, group of hotels, have to go through. Can you tell us what the royal flush is? Oomar Paurobally 31:44Well, one very, one very specific project that (inaudible) when you're you're commissioning a property, and you want to make sure all the mechanical and engineering systems and the pipings are working well. You test all the products and amenities in a room that includes turning on all your TVs, etc. And when it comes to the flush, it's about opening every faucet there is, from the bathtub to the shower to the water closet and picking and choosing the big button and flushing and doing it all at the same time to check your equipment. There have been some interesting outcomes of (inaudible). Riccardo Cosentino 32:32(Inaudible) as a civil engineer that as commissioned projects, you know, that part of the commissioning (inaudible), so thank you for sharing that. And now, on that line note, I want to thank you for joining me today. It was a fascinating conversation. Thank you for sharing with us your dissertation, your process, your findings, and I wish you all the best for your new endeavor. And thank you for joining me. Oomar Paurobally 32:55Thank you, Riccardo, always a pleasure. Riccardo Cosentino 32:59That's it for this episode of Navigating Major Programmes. I hope you found today's conversation as informative or provoking as I did. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider subscribing and leaving a review. I would also like to personally invite you to continue the conversation by joining me on my personal LinkedIn at Riccardo Cosentino. Listening to the next episode, we will continue to explore the latest trends and challenges in major programme management. Our next in-depth conversation promises to continue to dive into topics such as leadership risk management and the impact of emerging technology in infrastructure. It's a conversation you're not going to want to miss. Thanks for listening to Navigating Major Programmes and I look forward to keeping the conversation going. Transcribed by https://otter.ai Music: "A New Tomorrow" by Chordial Music. Licensed through PremiumBeat.DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy, opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Disenyo.co LLC and its employees.
She was absolutely determined to succeed. Hear how you can be too! I always want to bring interesting people to On the Brink with Andi Simon. You will love this interview with Maryles Casto. Her journey has been extraordinary, largely because of her ability to listen carefully, understand people's needs, and create solutions that are part of her personal style and amazing business savvy. Thanks to an unquenchable can-do attitude and sheer hard work, Maryles made her travel agency the go-to travel company in Silicon Valley, serving the biggest names in tech and beyond. Listen to her story, get inspired, and please share. Watch and listen to our conversation here About Maryles: “Asian hospitality with Yankee business sense” Born in the Philippines, Maryles Casto is a pioneering travel industry executive and entrepreneur with 47 years of experience founding and leading companies to profitability. A former Philippine Airlines flight attendant, Casto created and helmed Silicon Valley-based Casto Travel, the West Coast's largest privately owned travel management agency. (Casto Travel was frequently ranked among the Top 100 Fastest Growing Businesses in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, and ranked second in revenues among Silicon Valley women-owned businesses by Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2006.) In 2019, she sold the company to Flight Centre Travel Group of Australia. She is also the founder and owner of Casto Travel Philippines, Inc., as well as chairwoman and CEO of MVC Solutions, which provides travel industry businesses with back-office support, accounting and other services. Maryles has served on many business, civic and philanthropic boards, including the Commonwealth Club of California. She has been International Chair of the Committee of 200, an invitation-only group for the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and she is a founding member of the Northern California branch of the International Women's Forum. You can connect with Maryles on LinkedIn and her website, or email her at maryles.casto@castotravel.ph. Key takeaways from our interview: Business is all about anticipating the client's needs. If you can't believe in what you or your company is, how can you go out and sell? It's not what you do. It's what the clients are asking for. “There is a hole in the cloud, and whatever I do, I always have a hole in the cloud to get out.” It's time for us to be kind to each other. More stories of women who dreamed big and achieved success in business: Debra Clary—Yes, You Can Become The Curious Leader You Were Meant To Be! Roseann and Clara Sunwoo—How Did Roseann And Clara Sunwoo Build A Successful Women's Fashion Brand? Gemma Toner—An Exciting Woman Took A Moment Of Inspiration To Transform Other Women Additional resources for you My two award-winning books: Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business and On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, co-authored by Edie Fraser, Robyn Freedman Spizman and Andi Simon, PhD Our website: Simon Associates Management Consultants Read the transcript of our podcast here Andi Simon: We're giggling. But welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I'm here to help you see, feel and think in new ways. My job is to get you off the brink, and our podcasts are here to bring people to you whom you might not know or meet people who have stories to share that are going to help you change your story. Now remember, every time you hear someone's story, your own brain begins to shift things around until you go, oh, I can do that! Or wow, what a great idea. And so the whole idea of a podcast, whether you visualize it and see it or you listen to it, is to help you see, feel and think in new ways so that you can soar. And that's why I bring wonderful people here, and people bring wonderful people to me. To be here today is just going to start out a little bit different. The co-author of our book, Edie Frazier, who is on the bottom of our screen here, she and I wrote Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. And it's been quite a journey. And as Maryles Casto, who's come to us through Edie has said, is that turning a page and changing your life is really amazing. But that's what we wanted to do. And I wanted Edie to introduce Maryles to you, because she's very important in her own life. And then Maryles will talk about her own journey so that you can learn from it, because there's wisdom here that is going to be difficult to get from reading her bio or looking at her great website. So this is an opportunity for us to share. And in sharing, we can all grow together. Edie, thank you for joining us. Please, I can introduce Maryles Casto when you're done more formally, but this is so special for you. Please tell us about your experiences with Maryles Casto and why it makes you smile so. Edie Frazier: A joy to say thank you to a dear friend, Maryles Casto, because we go years without talking to each other. But when we get together and reminisce, we think of the qualities of a leader, a true trailblazer, and the best of friends. You know, Maryles wrote her book A Hole In The Clouds: From Flight Attendant to Silicon Valley CEO. And she did it. And she built this major travel business where she was the icon, and she knew all the founders in Silicon Valley who trusted her, respected her, and built with her. And she built that business across the US and world and runs the business now in the Philippines from her home there. But she gives joy and support, and she's the best you can find and firm of that word trust and respect and caring and she lives a legacy. So Maryles, I just want to say thank you for the friendship and know your spirit is in each of us who have gotten to know you, adore you, and we've got years ahead to salute one another. But I just say to Maryles Casto, you are the true blue of the hole in the sky. Andi Simon: Oh. Maryles Casto: I love you, too. Andi Simon: Edie, that's beautiful. Maryles, do you want to respond to Edie before she takes off? Maryles Casto: That's what friends are for is our song. Keep smiling and that's what friends are for. And, Edie, I just want you to know, can I plug this? This is my book. Andi Simon: Yes, of course. Maryles Casto: That's for you. And I want to talk about why this cover. We can talk about it later because it's natural. It happened. And the world needs to read that book on the sky and the hole in the sky. We love you, buddy. Andi Simon: This is such a wonderful way to introduce you. And maybe we will start almost with the book for a moment. But for my listeners, you know, before we jump in, I just want to give you a little context. Maryles Casto was born in the Philippines and lives in the United States and has for most of her life. She's a successful leader. But when you hear her story, she really is an explorer. And there's something about the way she has tackled her life and built something really special that's so important to share. But here's a quote that I think captures it. And remember, I'm an explorer. Sometimes I'm a philosopher or a futurist. But Maryles, listen, I care a great deal because we've been to 37 countries, not to the Philippines yet, but this is the way we discover. I've yet to see a problem where the best solution is to hide or be ignorant. It's only through contact with other cultures and peoples, and in their contact with us, that we can hope to bridge the divide between people of the world. As an anthropologist, my job is to help people see and feel and think in new ways through a fresh lens. And today, that's just what we're going to do. So I'm not going to read your bio, but I'm going to ask you to talk to our audience about your own journey. You started in the Philippines. You came here. You capture it much better than I could ever. And then what we'll do is, we'll sort of migrate into the lessons learned, the things that you, the wisdoms, you want others to understand. The kind of sharing person that you are and the kind of glorious life that you've lived. Maryles, please. Who's Maryles and how is this book been sort of this triumph of what's happened? Because we'll come back to your book. Maryles Casto: Okay. So let me tell you a story. I was born in the Philippines, and I was raised on a sugar plantation. So that was my background with my family and I think my inspiration really comes from my mother because she was always so kind and because we were privileged. My friends were all the workers, the children of the workers. So I developed a kind of relationship where there was no class basis for me. I mean, everybody is the same. And so I really valued that. But also, my father was my closest friend. And I learned a lot from my father as well. And my father was very competitive. I remember one time, and this was when I was growing up in the Philippines, we have a fair every year, and so I was entered as one of the contestants. I wanted to be the queen. I wanted to win. It really started about wanting to win. We arranged it. There were three candidates. And the big dinner that night, it was a gala dinner, and they were contributing money in the ballot box. And I was watching my father, and I was competing with the Chinese woman. The father was very wealthy, and the father kept putting some money into the ballot box and my father was doing nothing and I thought, doesn't he realize I need to win. But what I did not realize, and this is my father's competition. You never let the competition know what you're doing. But he had already positioned somebody who was standing very close to the ballot box. And at the very last minute, maybe a minute before it closed, he drops this whole bundle of money. That's when I became the queen. Andi Simon: Uh, that was not deception, but that was smart. Maryles Casto: Smart because he knew that he had to do it this way. And so I learned that, and that I was one of my first lessons in my business. I can be very open, but also never give, you know, everything that you can in the competition. I never liked schooI because I always wanted to be outside. I get very bored, especially when they tell you to do number one, number two, number three. And all I could think about is, why not do number ten? What do we have to go through this whole process of developing? And I also couldn't pay attention. I didn't realize at that time that my world was outside and I was very mischievous. And I remembered one time when they were trying, it was a Catholic school run by the nuns who were very strict. Of course, the rebel in me already said, I don't like to lose. I don't like this, and I don't like you in a way. I was in class and I was doing something mischievous. And anyway, I was reported. And so they punished me. They punished me by walking around with this garbage can on my head. And so what did I do? I went into the classrooms and then I started dancing. So they didn't know what to do with me. But I created the whole fiesta. So I was already learning through all these things that I was doing, and I think I applied a lot of that in my business world because I never saw the challenges. I always just went. And I thought that, you know, I'm going to try it. So I was in the Philippines. I ended up being a flight stewardess, and at the time, being a flight stewardess was the top of the field because when you were traveling, you were entertaining. And I learned so much when you were a flight attendant at that time. It took two months to train. You had to learn about the client's needs. It was very much anticipating the client's needs. A passenger came on board. That was your responsibility to make sure that they remembered what the flight was about. And you remembered everything about the passenger. So I was very focused on the passenger's relationship and how they felt. I was in the Philippines a long time, and I had never dated an American, and I was introduced to this American. And needless to say, after two days, I decided I was going to marry him. Of course, he didn't know anything about it. But when we have a mindset, he couldn't say no because I was determined. So needless to say, after that he fell in love with me, of course. And so we got married and I had to break this news to my father. Ah. My father. My father's Spanish, my mother's half Swiss. And he thought that this was just going to be one of those little romances. He had no idea that I was going to get married and move to this country. And it just broke his heart. But I was determined to come to this country, and I did. But my husband did not have any money. We had money, but my husband did not. And so it came to fruition when we were on our honeymoon, when all of a sudden we had to go on that $5 a day. Remember that book? And I thought, this is not going to work, because if I was hungry, I wanted to have this restaurant here. Now, we had to walk for 20 minutes to find a restaurant that was in that book. I hated that book. And then I realized that this was changing my life. And when we arrived in the United States, I had nothing. You couldn't fly as an airline stewardess if you were married. So I knew I had to do something. I remember one time we were going into this grocery store, and my husband was showing me comparison shopping, and I thought, why? And even now, I'm sorry to laugh. No, but, honey, I'm reading my book, and I'm laughing because I remember all this. I remember looking at this mayonnaise and he would say, well, what mayonnaise should you buy because of the ounces? And I thought, I have no idea. All I know is, it's my level. But I think my message is, I was having so much fun. Everything I did, I enjoyed. I was too passionate and so finally he said, you have to find a job. And so I thought, well, I don't have any experience. So he said, well what about Avon. And then I read something about Avon. So I thought, I can do that. So first I had to learn about cold calling because I'd never done anything cold calling. So we would practice. And this is so much fun, I mean, reliving what we had to go through. So I went on a cold call and I was petrified, I wouldn't get out of the car. I would knock on the door. Finally, I ended up buying all my things. And so I did not make any money and that was not my job. So I quit that and then ended up working for Macy's in the gift department, wrapped all the gifts, and I was so bad they fired me. So I thought, I've got to do something. And then a girlfriend said, why don't you become a travel agent? And that is how my world opened up. And when I started working for agencies, my first client in one agency that I worked with was Intel, and they were just a hundred people. And then I had GE. And so I started working in the corporate market. But I didn't last long because the owner was horrible. One thing I learned is, he did not take care of the employees. It was all about him and his family. But none of us were able to participate on trips. So I learned a lot about what not to do from him. And so, my girlfriend and I were running the corporate department. She was running the vacations, and I was getting so frustrated. And my husband said, why don't you start your own. I was petrified, I'd never done anything like this. But, you know, you try it. And with $1500 each, we partnered together and we opened this agency. But I did not tell anybody where we were going. I did not tell our clients. And so we opened this little agency in Los Altos. We had no money. We had Repo Depot, I mean, you know, name it. It's the same Silicon Valley how it started up, holding the hole in the ceiling. And I waited and waited and there was no clients because I had not told anybody. So I decided I was going to go cold calling, things that I hated the most. But I was dressed to the hilt, I had on my high heels, and I started walking around in the Silicon Valley park, and I was walking. And then I saw this gentleman that was standing, uh, it was a company called Rome Rollin. And of course they were bought by IBM. Very, very big now. And there was the owner, I think was in there in one of the corner suites with a glass window. And he was looking at me because I was pacing back and forth and he thought I was a street walker. You can not say the first street walker. And all of a sudden my heel broke. And so I'm limping towards this receptionist and I said, I need to see that man in the corner. And at that time, in the valley, you don't need reservations, you don't need appointments. Everybody could just walk in. So I walked in and he came out and then we became friends. And that was really the start of the whole Silicon Valley movement, because he was one of the founders. And through him, I started getting more and more business and then I got Steve Jobs and I got Apple. So it went crazy. And then again, I could talk about my story, but I know that there might be questions you might probably want to ask me. Andi Simon: Well, but you see, in some ways you've given us a nice foundation for how to begin the challenges of, I don't know how to do that, and I really don't like to do this, but I tried that. And next thing you know, you and your friend and you still have to find some customers. And this isn't sort of it. They don't drop into your lap. Although I must confess that if you hang out, all of a sudden things begin to happen. You were talking to them and learning from them. You began to craft something other than booking a ticket on a plane to go somewhere. And what I loved about what you did was that you created something far bigger. And I have a hunch you began to see things that they would ask for and you'd figure out how to do. But I'm putting words into your mouth. So how did you grow? Because you didn't grow a little. You grow with a whole different mindset completely. Maryles Casto: It was so fast. And I think there were so many. We were growing so fast. We couldn't control our growth. And, you know, since I was, and we talk about how you felt as being the first woman because there really was no one, there was no other woman. There were men in my industry, but I never even thought about it. All I knew was that I was not going to fail. I was going to do whatever it took to be successful, and I was damn good. I was very, very good. And I believed in that. Yes, because if you can't believe in what you or your company is, how can you even go out and sell? So I knew I would be pitching. I'd go in and before, I would pitch directly to the vice president or the presidents. But as it changed, you have to go through purchasing, you have to go through all this. So the dynamics change. But on a 1:1, give me the CEO. And I was a CEO and I would always say, I'm in the same seat as you are. If I founded this company with $1,500, and I would have this argument with Steve because I said, if you weren't given the $200 million, where would you be? So I was very respectful of them. But I also thought, you know, tell me when you have started your company on your own with the seat of your pants, and then I'll respect you more. So don't get any baloney about all this, you know, because anyway, I just went ahead. I just focused and I thought, I will make this happen. And again the growth. But then we also suffered because we couldn't perform as much as we wanted to because we were making mistakes. And finally I said, stop it. We're not accepting any clients. We have to figure out what is wrong with our company, because there definitely was something wrong. We were not delivering the product we talked about. We were not paying attention to the customer. So I decided we would clean house and we were hiring people we shouldn't have hired, I learned. And so gradually when we started saying, we can't accept the account, we can't accept. And then they respected me for that. And then gradually we started fixing. We did our own training. I'm very focused on customer service. For me it is my religion. And you have to pay attention. And it's not what you do. It's what the clients are asking for. And even long before that, I started doing profiles. Each of my clients that had this black book, I would write everything. Who wanted coffee, what kind of newspaper they had, every single detail. This was before anybody thought about putting it all down, but I did. And then I also came up with a new service. I decided I was going to do my own Visa passport. I did not want anything touching my client except me. So anything they needed, not just the travel part of it, it's how you get to the airport. So I had airport service, people with uniforms. They're all in the yellow necktie. I had a limo service that would pick up all my VIP clients. They didn't have to ask me. I anticipated every move they made because my responsibility is, one, they call Casto. I was responsible for them from when they left for the airport or when they left their home until I brought them home. I was sitting on that flight with them. I was getting in the car with them. I was in the hotel with them. I thought about only the clients, so. And I made sure everyone in our company understood that we don't survive without our clients, but we have to think ahead and anticipate whatever they need. Andi Simon: Let's think about it, though, because nobody came and said to you, you're missing a major part of the business. You're selling. You weren't selling anything, really. What you had done is become a colleague of your clients, right? An extraordinarily important part of their experiences. You were and it's really a beautiful story about, it's not a travel ticket. It's not a limousine. It's this whole experience where I don't want you to have to worry about a thing. And I understand the whole. So you didn't even have to tell them, do you want this or do you want that? You said, I got it all mapped out for you. You don't have to worry. Maryles Casto: One call. Andi Simon: One call. Now, how did you begin to scale? Because often I have entrepreneurs who arrive at 10 million or 20 million and want to scale to 100 million, and they're not sure how to do that. You scaled and you started to talk about training. I mean, that's really what we're talking about here, is scaling. How did you do it? Maryles Casto: Well, I started buying agencies again. Recession, remember when we had this major recession. And I thought, this is an opportunity, I can buy now. And I decided I was buying agencies, but strategically, I had 15 offices all over the United States because it had to be a very strategic move. And by the time, we had offices everywhere, but we were also very strategic. I did not want to just be Silicon Valley. I would be putting all my eggs in one basket. So my offices were in San Jose, in Palo Alto. I decided I needed a different kind of a base. I needed the banks. I needed a government contract. So I went to San Francisco and expanded my business there. And then I decided I needed 24 hour service because a client doesn't end at 5:30. When they travel, what happens? You know, they have to have a way of calling us. I didn't want them to call the airlines. They were my clients. They were my responsibility. I couldn't grow in Silicon Valley anymore because we were all looking for the same, we needed people. So I was having lunch with one of the senators who had come to the Valley for a business opportunity, and he was the senator from South Dakota. And he said to me, you know, South Dakota, we could use some business. So I had never been to South Dakota, Rapid City. So I flew there with him. He said, let's just check it out. So we put a blind ad to just say that we were coming for interviews. We got 500. Work for you. Andi Simon: Wow. Maryles Casto: There is a market here. But what I wanted to do was put my training there. But I also wanted my 24 hour service. No one was offering 24 hour service at that time. The airlines were, but not any travel agency. So these were all the things. I shouldn't say I, because there were a lot of people involved. But I would say I had the vision that you have to look at and say, what now? What else can you do? How can you enhance your service? But what is it that the clients need? And so as we were developing the corporate market, there was no one who could touch us in the corporate market because we had every account there was. And I also worked very closely with a lot of the venture people. So when they were funding companies, of course, for travel, I owned it. Andi Simon: Branded you, right? They endorsed you and you just came along. Maryles Casto: Yeah. I would say, you know, you're funding this company. How do you know they're protecting you? You know, travel is the second largest expense. Working with me, I will guarantee you, because I also bought stock for all these companies because I thought we have to be investors as well. So even if it's small. But I felt that every flight I was looking at that as a shareholder. Andi Simon: You are so wise. And so it's fascinating listening to you because once you got going, nothing stopped. You just keep figuring out pieces. You said something important, though, and it's not a bad time to sort of migrate into the team. How did you support yourself around you with smart people? And what were you looking for in that team? They gave you the ability to multiply. They were your multipliers. What kinds of folks came in and how? One of the things that I read was that you treated this like a family. Maryles Casto: I wanted them to feel proud. I bought my partner out after two years, I felt like she was so worried about expanding. She was so worried about losing money. And I thought, you know what, we're still very small. If we lost money, if we went belly up, I want to build it up myself. I don't want to drag her down. So I bought her out. And then we had to come up with a name because at that time, I think we had nine employees. When I bought her out, she wanted to do the vacation side only. She was not interested in the rest of it. So I had to come up with them and I said, okay, what is our name going to be? Because our original name was Travel Experience. And so we had this powwow and they said, well, why don't we call it Casto, it's your name. And I thought, no, I have to be very careful because if I give you my name, you have to guarantee you're going to back it up. It's not just about me, it's about all of us. So I then created this where they had to belong to this elite group, which happened to be customer travel. So I had all of us in uniform. They helped design this uniform, and we would go to all the functions in our uniform. Andi Simon: But you know the symbolic meaning of that. You know, you're a meaning maker and the symbolism is not inconsequential. They belonged. People wanted to belong. And therefore they knew how to behave, how to think. And they took it home to their families, and they were part of something much bigger than just having a job. Correct? Maryles Casto: Yeah. I made them very proud of being part of us. I said, it's not me, it's us. The Casto is you together. Of course, everybody thought it was Castro. And they look at me and say, oh, Castro. No. There's no answer. But you know what it was. I mean, we had so much fun. We really did. We put events together and the company would come in with different hats. We come in with different costumes. And, I couldn't wait to get into the office. And they felt the same way. There was so much joy. Lots of sorrow, too. I mean, we cry. I mean, we all shared a divorce. But we were together. Andi Simon: Yes. Maryles Casto: And that is very important. Andi Simon: Amazing, amazing, amazing because you did it and it worked. And it became something well beyond itself. I want to get to your book, but also you grew it and then you added new services and then you began to see it grow, and then you finally sold it. What was the impetus? Maryles Casto: Well, you know, when we started the business, about five years later, we got a big offer. This company, and in fact, this is a funny story because this company was a very large company, and they were interested in buying us because they wanted to get into the Silicon Valley when it was just starting. It was getting a lot of attention. And so, they made an offer and I said, no, I didn't want to, but anyway. And he and I had a good relationship because when Intel became such a big company, purchasing people came in, and then they decided I was too small now. And they were concerned about my capacity to service them. So he was very, very large, one of the largest agency in the United States. So they gave him the business. So we partnered together. And so that's when he really wanted to take my business. And me, I said, no, it wasn't going to work. So that was the first venture. And the second one was a company that was from Omaha, Nebraska, another very large company. And at that time we had Andy Grove, who became chairman of Intel. And Andy became a very good friend because, again, he was a client and he became a friend because I knew everything about his travel. And he was so paranoid that if I wasn't going to take care of him, something would happen to his travel. So the second offer came in and we said, okay, we'll take it seriously. The gentleman flew in from Omaha and somewhere, somehow, I just did not feel that they were the right partners. They didn't understand Silicon Valley. And I just felt that it's not going to grow. It didn't have the same spirit, they weren't willing to be, it takes a different personality. So we thought the deal was done. And at the last minute I had to call them to say, okay, you know, we've arranged it. I picked up the phone and I couldn't say yes. I said no, and oh my God, both my son and Andy were furious with me because I said no. And I said, it just can't work. So I knew that we had to do something. And because of my son, the offer came in and it was a really good offer, and we knew that the time would come that we would have to exit. And so we sold it two years ago. We sold it a month before the pandemic. Andi Simon: Oh, my, timing is everything. Maryles Casto: And now I'm a rich woman. Andi Simon: But, you know, I have a hunch you've been rich through this whole journey, haven't you? Maryles Casto: Yeah, I have, I have, yeah. Andi Simon: You know, the financial richness is nice, but at the end of the day, I'm not sure you worked for work's sake. I think you worked for the absolute... Maryles Casto: Love of it. Andi Simon: For the love, you know, for the joy that you gave others, for the way in which you helped their lives do better. Am I misreading that? And this was spiritual and almost religious on your part, right? Correct. Maryles Casto: Yes. It was, it is, and it still is. I still communicate with the people that, when we sold the company, we always kept the Philippines. The Philippines when we were growing so fast and we knew that we had to expand. I wanted to expand internationally, and I knew it was either India or the Philippines, and I knew the Philippines because I was from the Philippines and I knew the customer service, all the technology driven, because our business was very technology driven. I knew it was about personal travel and I knew that hospitality. It's like somebody said, it's Asian hospitality with Yankee business sense. That's how somebody describes me. Andi Simon: Well, that's terrific, but that's a great image of it, right? I mean, because you blended all of these together in such a way that you created a whole new way of doing things. But, my goodness, it worked, and it's really brilliant listening to you talk about it. Talk about the book. Was this a way of capturing this and having a legacy as a book about this journey that you just shared or something different? Maryles Casto: You know, it was something that I knew that I felt like there was a book in the making. I just never got the chance to sit down. And this was after we sold the company, and I was in the house and I was meeting with some friends, and just all of a sudden it just came to me. I had to write my book. I said, I'm ready for that. And I thought the story had to be told. I wanted other people to read what I went through and how much I have enjoyed my life. And I wondered, my grandchildren, maybe not now, but later on when they're older. Of course I dedicated the book for them, but I don't think they fully understood the challenges. But when they're grown. And maybe one day when they have a business, they can look at my book and say, you know what, Grandma did something. And I have to share the coverage. And remember, I was covered. Andi Simon: Yeah. Tell us about the cover. Maryles Casto: This cover was an actual one. And when I decided when we were doing so well and I thought, we needed exposure now. We wanted people to know more about Casto Travel, not just in the Valley, but other areas as well. And so I had this girlfriend who started her own business, a PR business. And so I called her as a brand and said, listen, I'm ready to do something. I want the exposure of Casto more globally or more internationally or more regionally. And so she said, okay. So San Jose Mercury News was going to do an article and the photographer said, I can do your shot, but I don't want to do it here. I have an idea. Meet me at the airport at 6:00 in the morning and we'll do a shoot. And I said, oh my God, what is this about? So I met him at the airport and he had this truck, and in this truck was this desk. And he told me, bring the thing that you really want to put on the table. And I said, okay. But I thought, well, maybe it's just at the airport. So I brought these two doves or two birds, because Casto Travel is all about birds because that was my logo. I want to fly. I want to spread my wings. So I brought these two birds and then I thought, where are we going? He said, just follow me. And at that time, nobody can tell you, there's no security, no nothing. So he drove this guy and his truck to the runway, and he put the desk in. He said, no, we'll stay here. Let's get this all organized and let's wait for the plane. I said, wait for the plane. It took three hours to get just the angle. Andi Simon: Oh, God. Maryles Casto: I'll put it up. I thought I had to use this book. Andi Simon: Just come in so we can see it, put it up again and hold it there for a second. Ah, so that's you. And that's the plane over you and this story is as beautiful as the cover of the book. We would not know why that book cover is so important, but that is cool. That captures you, doesn't it? Maryles Casto: And, you know, the flying was because my father, when we were little, when I was little, and I was growing up, my father had an airplane. He had a small airplane, and he would be traveling from different farms. I always loved to fly. And so my father and I would go up flying. And he would say, okay, Maryles, watch. Look for the hole in the clouds so that we could get in and we could fly higher, and then we would do our maneuvers. And that was in tribute to my father. There is a hole in the cloud, and whatever I do, I always have a hole in the cloud to get out. Andi Simon: Yeah, but your whole life has been finding that hole in the clouds and soaring up through this to get on top. This is something. Sometimes I ask the people I'm interviewing about some lessons that you wish someone had told you then. But I think that your story isn't easy to capture in a lesson or two. Unless there's something you think your younger self wishes somebody had told you. Is there something that you can share? Maryles Casto: Oh gosh, somebody told me and so many people told me things. I don't know. For me, it's maybe kindness. For me, it's not a word we use a lot, and it's time for us to be kind to each other. And you don't have to be a jerk. No, really, and I, this was my actual experience. I was invited by United Airlines to go to the Academy Awards. At the time, we were big producers of United. And so I went. And then that night, this was Pretty Woman. Remember that, Julia Roberts? Anyway, we were staying at this beautiful hotel, and when we were being picked up in the limo, they were invited too, Larry Allison was invited with his girlfriend, and she was just fantastic looking. And then John Chambers from Cisco, so we were all going together. And when we got down, the limo was there, the door opened, and Larry Allison came in and he closed the door. He says, I don't share my limo. This is an actual story. I don't share my room. And so we just looked at him because at that time, you can't find any limo, especially Academy Awards night. So he drove off and we had to find another limo. And that's when it's the yin and yang. And I said, you know, you really are a jerk. And here's John Chambers. He was so sweet. I mean, the difference between the personalities. And again, I just feel like, if you could just show a little bit more kindness and don't get into your ego. The ego is nothing. What does it really mean? Andi Simon: Yeah. That's beautiful. The joy that you can give, the kindness that you can show elevates you and someone else. And then an act of kindness that stayed in your mind as a moment that you never want to do again. How can I be kind? Correct. Maryles Casto: Okay. And that's why I think I'm doing what I'm doing now. I suppose I mentioned to you that I'm starting my foundation because that is what it is really about. I've been so fortunate. And look at me. I'm now into my old age and I love it. I love what I've lived, and I mean that I love it. For me, aging is not a disease. It's something to celebrate. How many of us can say, I've lived it. Andi Simon: I know, but that's so important because it's true. We're at a point now where we can be. We don't have to become. We can just enjoy the moment. Maryles Casto: Exactly. I love the whole process of aging. My body is what it is now, and I celebrate everything I have. I celebrate my hair. I no longer am going to dye my hair because I just love being white. I'm doing it. And I think that probably my message is just as we all go through our lives, enjoy the moments you have and don't worry about the rest of the nonsense. There's so much of that. Andi Simon: I'm going to I wish I didn't have to, but we're going to say goodbye and I'm going to thank you. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you, Edie, for introducing you. But I can understand why her friendship and yours transformed both of you over time. Because Edie is quite remarkable. This has been a gift to me and to our listeners. So thank you. So I'm going to say to our listeners, thank you for coming to On the Brink. I know that today has taken you off the brink. And then we're going to all soar. But the message is kindness and acts of kindness bring joy. So let's not just be nice, help each other also. In our book Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success that Edie Frazier and myself have written with 102 women about their wisdoms. And like what you heard today from Maryles Casto, the wisdoms help change your own lives. And I will tell you that every event that we're running, people share their wisdom a little like this podcast. And when they do, they are changing. And I've had people who keep coming back and saying, let me tell you what I heard and what I want to share again, and what I care about and what I'm now becoming. I had one woman who had yellow marks on the whole book, and I went, oh my goodness, and couldn't wait to show me her yellow marks. She says, I'm a better leader today. And I went, man, can a book do that? It can. And Maryles Casto, thank you for joining us. So I'm going to thank you so much. Remember everybody to take your ideas, your observations, turn them into innovations. And you too can soar, like Maryles says. Maryles Casto: Bye bye. WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)
Bob Sherwin has 20 years of operating experience as a Strategist, Chief Marketing Officer, Retail Executive, and Advisor. He's a board member at Articore (parent company of RedBubble and TeePublic) and an independent advisor to public and private companies on a range of strategic, marketing, and organizational topics, such as creating innovative and data-driven cultures. His most recent full-time corporate role was as Chief Marketing Officer at Wayfair, where he was responsible for the entire family of global brands. Prior to Wayfair, he was a consultant at McKinsey and began his career at IBM's Business Consultant Services. He shares with Josh and Mat about his trajectory, why he got an MBA, the early influence of data, important attributes for a career, the value of variety in what you do, and what to prioritize early in your career vs. later. In This Episode 0:00 - Seeking Variety & Learning Analysis in Consulting 6:01 - Getting an MBA 7:04 - McKinsey & IBM 9:02 - Wayfair 11:32 - Trade-offs, Titles & Building Teams 15:22 - Scope & Struggles 17:12 - Managing 1,000 People 19:14 - Having a Support System (Including The Marketing Academy) 21:02 - Being on a Board 22:57 - Career Attributes 25:42 - Prioritizing Skill & Content Accumulation 27:20 - Thank You Notes 31:12 - Top Picks Links Mentioned The Marking Academy High Output Management, Andy Grove "Peter Attic Drive" (Podcast) "Zoe Podcast: Science & Nutrition" (Podcast) Goodpods (Podcast Platform) Noble Rot Find us on LinkedIn Josh Boaz (host) Mat Zucker (host) Bob Sherwin (guest) Subscribe to never miss a show! Hosted by Josh Boaz and Mat Zucker, Rising is produced by Direct Agents and Prophet. For more information or to nominate a guest, please visit rising-podcast.com or email us at marketing@directagents.com. Original theme music created by Movers + Shakers. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/risingpodcast/message
Guest: Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Radical Respect: How To Work Together BetterAfter her first management book Radical Candor became a worldwide bestseller, Kim Scott found herself giving talks to all kinds of companies about how they could apply her advice and build a stronger, kinder culture. But then, after one such talk, the CEO — a longtime friend and former coworker — came up to Kim with an asterisk. As a Black woman, she explained, “as soon as I offer anyone even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, I get assigned the ‘angry Black woman' stereotype.” Kim realized in that moment that her book needed a prequel of sorts, explaining what you need to have before you can create radical candor: “You're not going to care about people who you don't respect,” she says.In this episode, Kim and Joubin discuss regret minimization, Juice Software, Sheryl Sandberg, saying “um,” moments of connection, Dick Costolo, negative truths, James March, snobbery, Charles Ferguson, Shona Brown, Fred Kofman, Christa Quarles, Jason Rosoff, Andy Grove, founders as outliers, Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, glows and grows, the Post Ranch Inn, failing your colleagues, sexual harassment, DEI, and intellectual honesty.In this episode, we cover:(01:04) - Loud voices (03:59) - Writing a bestseller (07:48) - Why Kim wrote Radical Candor (14:21) - How to show you care (18:04) - Coaching tech CEOs (21:24) - Ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression (25:40) - Leaving things unsaid (30:30) - Not an academic (35:21) - Learning from failed startups (38:55) - Performance reviews (42:30) - Why feedback feels risky (49:21) - How to reject feedback (53:11) - Creating space for feedback at home (56:08) - Running and sleeping (59:45) - Radical Respect and Kim's other books (01:04:27) - The hardest story to share (01:06:44) - Optimism about the future Links:Connect with KimBuy Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your HumanityPre-order Radical Respect: How To Work Together BetterTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
This is Matt Reustle. Today, we are breaking down Intel. In the late 80s, a newly appointed CEO, Andy Grove, pivoted to exit memory chips and focus on logic chips. They were the leading edge chip designer, but Intel missed out on the mobile market and EUV technology as technology shifted. Now they're left playing catch up and falling from their iconic status. To cover Intel, I am joined by Todd Ahlsten, CIO of Parnassus Investments. Todd started covering semiconductors in the mid-nineties and has since lived through eight cycles in the sector. We look at what separates secular changes from cyclical ones, and Todd helps outline what went wrong, what is changing today, and what we can monitor as this progresses. Please enjoy this breakdown of Intel. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by 10 East. 10 East is a platform where qualified investors can co-invest on a deal-by-deal basis across private equity, private credit, real estate ventures, and other one-off opportunities typically unavailable through traditional channels. It's no surprise that founders, executives, and portfolio managers from leading investment firms are using 10 East to diversify their personal portfolios. Their level of sourcing and diligence is institutional grade. To learn more, check out 10east.com. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Business Breakdowns (00:04:32) Introduction to Intel's History and Current Challenges (00:10:45) Intel's Missed Opportunities and Current State (00:12:02) Intel's Strategy for Recovery (00:18:30) Tracking Intel's Progress (00:21:43) Understanding Intel's Profit Pools and Future Potential (00:29:21) The Future of GPU and CPU Markets (00:34:34) The Future of Intel's GPU Space (00:35:49) Recovering Intel's CPU Business (00:44:21) The Geopolitical Dynamics Impacting Intel (00:48:25) Competition Landscape: NVIDIA and AMD (00:52:28) Intel's Diverse Portfolio: Mobileye, Altera, and More (00:56:09) Risks and Challenges for Intel (00:59:17) Intel's Role in the Semiconductor Cycle (01:05:47) Lessons from Intel's Business Model Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1 What's What You Do Is Who You Are Book by Ben Horowitz"What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture" is a book written by Ben Horowitz, a renowned technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist. In this book, Horowitz explores the importance of organizational culture and how it can shape the success or failure of a company. He draws insights from historical figures such as Genghis Khan and Shaka Senghor, as well as modern-day leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Andy Grove, to illustrate the impact of culture on both large and small organizations.Horowitz argues that while strategy and execution are crucial, it is the culture that ultimately drives the behavior of individuals within a company. He emphasizes the need for leaders to consciously design and cultivate a culture that aligns with their vision and values, as well as the importance of diversity and inclusion in creating a positive work environment."What You Do Is Who You Are" provides practical advice on how leaders can shape their organization's culture through effective communication, clear decision-making processes, and strong accountability systems. Horowitz also delves into the role of difficult conversations and the need to address toxic behavior in order to maintain a healthy cultural foundation.Overall, the book offers insights and tools for leaders to build a strong and sustainable organizational culture that can withstand challenges and drive long-term success.Chapter 2 Is What You Do Is Who You Are Book A Good Book"What You Do Is Who You Are" by Ben Horowitz is well-regarded by many readers. It offers insights into leadership, culture, and creating a strong organizational identity. The book explores the topic of company culture by sharing historical examples and case studies from various industries. If you are interested in understanding how culture shapes an organization's success, this book may be a valuable resource.Chapter 3 What You Do Is Who You Are Book by Ben Horowitz Summary"What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture" is a book written by Ben Horowitz and published in 2019. The book explores the importance of creating a strong company culture and provides insights into how leaders can shape and transform their organizations.Horowitz, a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, draws lessons from history to demonstrate how creating a strong culture is crucial for the success of any business. He discusses various historical figures and events, ranging from Haitian Revolution leader Toussaint Louverture to the samurai warriors of ancient Japan, and analyzes how their leadership and culture influenced their outcomes.The book highlights four key principles that leaders should consider when building a culture:1. Create shockingly good cultures: Horowitz emphasizes the need for leaders to create cultures that are designed to withstand challenges and adapt to different situations. He examines the transformative culture of the prison system in Haiti and how it helped the country overcome its violent history.2. Communicate the culture: Leaders must effectively communicate the values and principles of their culture to their employees. Drawing lessons from the slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, Horowitz illustrates the importance of clear communication in establishing a united front.3. Build culture through rituals: Rituals play a vital role in instilling culture in an organization. Horowitz explains how the samurai warriors of ancient Japan used rituals such as "The Way of the Warrior" to create a...
Shownotes and Transcript The question 'who is indigenous' comes up a lot while discussing demographics and immigration. And no country has this been asked more than Israel. Brian of London joins us to discuss a Twitter/X post and article titled "Israel Palestine: Who's Indigenous?". For some reason this question is contentious. Brian breaks it down (according to anthropologist Jose R Martin-Cobo) under a series of headings of Land, Culture, Common Ancestry, Language, Religion and Blood. Basically we are looking at a historic continuity. Brian uses these headings to look at whether it is the Jews or the Palestinians that fit this indigenous definition Brian of London completed a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics just as the Web was emerging. But then he left academia to do management consulting and eventually moved to Israel to do business. Brian's working on the cutting edge of the new Podcasting 2.0 to make sure this relic of the early web, stays free from capture by the centralising forces of Web 2.0 and their dangerous desire to turn us all into dairy cows. Brian was also the admin on Tommy Robinson's Facebook account that had over a million followers before it was nuked! In his spare time, he assists with a gigantic class action lawsuit in Australia on behalf of the entire crypto industry. Interview recorded 2.1.24 Connect with Brian... X https://x.com/brianoflondon?s=20 Connect with Hearts of Oak... WEBSITE https://heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS https://heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Support Hearts of Oak by purchasing one of our fancy T-Shirts.... SHOP https://heartsofoak.org/shop/ *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and on X https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20 Transcript (Hearts of Oak) And it's wonderful to have Brian of London join us once again. Brian, thanks so much for your time today. (Brian of London) Well, thank you very much for having me on. Not at all. There's lots to discuss in your neck of the woods, as they would say in the Brits, in your part of the world. And obviously we have had, we have a Tera Dahl who was just back from Israel. She'd been there three, four weeks for Real America's Voice reporting. We had Bridget Gabriel on actually discussing. But I think we want to go on a slightly different tact, and it was one of your tweets looking at, and I think part of it was from another article, Israel-Palestine, who's indigenous? and I've always had a very firm understanding because of biblical history and where I come at this from a Christian but even there's confusion amongst parts of the Christian world and community but that may mess this conversation up even more. But let's, Israel-Palestine, who's indigenous? Maybe tell us why this was of interest to you, and then we can go with some of the categories and how you define this term indigenous. Yeah, and I just realized I've got my window open. So if you're hearing background noise, tell me, otherwise I'll leave it open. I'm in my bomb shelter, which everyone should know. And fortunately, we actually haven't been in it for about 10 days now and the last major barrage of rockets was just to the south of us on midnight on new year's eve obviously they did the fireworks for us and that. We we had our Muslim mayor, Sadiq Kahn do the fireworks for us as well in London but it was different firework. Different and the thing with that was actually it was, they fired them. They always fire them at exactly on the hour. In fact, there's a joke that the guy controlling the missiles, his name is Abu Dekar. Dekar means on the minute. So we say, oh, Abu Dekar is firing again. Because they fire at exactly 12, so then the alarm goes at sort of 12.01, and the missiles arrive at sort of 12.01 or 12.02. Anyway, I didn't hear an alarm because it was south of me. I just heard the booms when we intercepted. But yeah, I'm in my bomb shelter. But what I sent you, I sent you an article which actually was published in 2014 by a friend of mine. And I helped get this published because Israeli Cool, the blog that it's on, the guy who runs that and me both found this guy who is a Métis Canadian indigenous person. Or they call them First Nations in Canada. That's the politically correct term. He doesn't mind being called an Indian. He's quite happy with that or whatever terminology, but he's Métis, which is a tribe that its original area was sort of somewhere in Canada. But he put out this article in a very obscure kind of place, and I just grabbed it and I said to him, can you just say all of this stuff again for the Israeli audience? And that's what we did. And because he has studied properly the way the UN came to regard what an indigenous person was. Because indigenous means something completely different from people than it does for plants and animals. Plants and animals are indigenous when they've been in the same place for thousands or millions of years. But people is a totally different beast. We have moved around the world ever since we were people. Vast migrations out of Africa. The term indigenous just doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean the same thing for a person as it does for a plant. The kind of way that this is seen in the academic literature, and remember, this is infused with leftism, so we're picking and choosing here a little bit. And this guy, Jose Martinez Cobo, he came up with this definition. And this has stuck. And this really is the way the entire field looks at indigenous. And I'll just read or direct from the summary of his work what these rules are. Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and acceptance as a member by the community. Okay, so you have to actually feel that you're indigenous, okay? Historical continuity with pre-colonial and or pre-settler societies, okay? I'll read them off and then we'll sort of go through them and what they mean for Jews and Israel and what they mean for Palestinians, for example, and then we can sort of look at this in relation to Brits and Irish people and, you know, English, Welsh, Scottish, and, strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources, distinct social, economic, or political systems, distinct language, culture, and knowledge. I'm going to skip one, and then I'm going to say resolve to maintain and reproduce ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities. Okay, this is anthropology language. But the basics are, and my friend summarizes them like this, land, language, culture, spirituality, and the last one is blood. And we'll get back to that because that's actually that's the one that's just the least important actually for Jews, especially for Jews. So Jews self-identify this is obvious it's like, we've been three and a half thousand years or so I mean the the numbers claim there's a book to my right, if you go full screen there's a book the atlas of Jewish history just behind me. And in that, this one here, the Atlas of Judaism, okay, we can go back to. If you go back to that, if you start looking for dates, Abraham kind of is dated at about 4,000 years ago, to 2,000 BC. He walked from Mesopotamia all the way down across the Middle East, Iran, Iraq. It's mixed up because none of those are real. Well, Iran and Persia became real soon, you know, later. Basically, none of it is what is there today. And he walked across that. And then he walked down through Israel. And he walked on a road that we have in Israel today called Highway 40. It's the road that runs down the backbone of what we call Judea-Samaria, what the Jordanians renamed the West Bank, that road follows the path that Abraham took and is described in the bible as the path that Abraham took and when you when you drive quickly down that road today you see the road signs in the order in which they appear in the bible. It's as real as that and that is 30 or 40 kilometres that way I'm pointing off to the east, the sea is that way that's my west, this stuff is real. Now, whether you believe the story of Abraham was real or not to the Jewish people, it is foundational. It is our ethnogenesis. It's the start of what led to being Jewish, but that's really. But I just want, actually, when you say it, it depends what you believe is real or or not, the level of documentation to actually prove that actually the Old Testament story and New Testament story is more documented than nearly any other historical event. And yet the world believes parts of history, but you've got this mountain of evidence and they say, oh no, that's just fables. So when you say, if you want to believe it or not, actually, it's there staring you in the face that there is no more evidence for the biblical events than there is for anything else in the world. Correct. And it's even more than the biblical events. It's that the book that was woven around it, the Hebrew Bible, it was something that Jews preserved through an enormous act of preservation that I don't think has a parallel in the world. Okay. The Torah, as we call it, the way it is passed down is we write it out by hand. And the people who write the Torah, they write it without making a mistake. And if they make a mistake, they throw it away and start again. And there's no tippex and there's no scratching it out and there's no backspace key. This is and this document is so unbelievably well preserved that when you dig up the dead sea scrolls that were that were, you know in the caves of Qumran for three thousand years or two and a half thousand years when you dig those up, actually I don't know they might be a bit more modern than that but when you dig them up I can go and look at them and my Hebrew is not great but I can read the words. Biblical Hebrew is different from modern Hebrew, but I recognize the words. And if I open a modern Torah, they are the same. The transcription errors down the Torah is… We have this record. Abraham ends up in Hebron. He buys a cave to bury his wife in. That purchase of the cave in Hebron again. It doesn't matter whether you believe it happened exactly. That purchase forms the basis of our property rights in the modern world. That purchase of a cave is the oldest recorded land transaction that follows the modern form of transactions, offer, consideration, acceptance. Our whole edifice of modern contract law is built around that cave purchase. And that's part of Judaism. Judaism, then, of course, and I'm no biblical scholar, but Joseph goes to Egypt, the children of Israel become numerous, they leave Egypt in a hurry, which is also a story of the emancipation of slavery. Again, Jews led the way in that. What's interesting about our civilization today is not that we had slavery. It's not that the Americans had slavery. It's that it was abolished, and Jews abolished slavery within their own systems a millennia before. What's interesting about the West is not having had slavery. What's interesting is having got rid of slavery. I'll put forward that that's a Jewish. You get that because eventually, and it took the South Africans a lot longer than anyone else to realize this, but when you read the Bible and you read all men are created in the image of God, you just have to get rid of slavery. It doesn't work. Again, a Jewish thing. All of these stories, and then the Jews come back to Israel, and yes, there's wars and stuff, and there's Canaanites and Philistines and battles and Jericho, and the walls come tumbling down. All of these phrases I can just throw at you. The majority of a reasonably educated Western populace, they just understand those cultural references in a way. I don't need to explain Jericho. You know, I don't need to explain a lot of this stuff. David and Goliath, that's David the Jew versus Philistine Goliath. It happened actually near Gaza. Well, in the hills, sort of inland from there. But Samson, Samson and Delilah, that story is in Gaza. All of these foundational stories for Jews, which Christianity also adopts, the whole of the Hebrew Bible is basically part of the Christian canon. That happens here. Those are place names. Into the New Testament, Armageddon is Megiddo. It's 80 kilometres that way. I can drive there. Yes, I think I can still drive there. It's not closed. We have such ties. We have our ancestors buried. The reason why Hebron is special today and why Jews want to live there is because there's a massive building that Solomon built. It's the same era as the famous Western Wall, the Temple Mount. That building is built on top of this cave that Abraham bought. That's why it's there. That's where we buried our matriarchs and our patriarchs. This is a, and you know when when Martinez talks about historical continuity and strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources, the strongest link you can have is ancestral burial sites, you know everybody sort of knows the kind of, from America, the you know, how, oh this is this is ancient burial lands, well Hebron is the burial site of Abraham's family, basically. Nablus, who is the modern name. The old biblical name is Shem. That's actually closest to me. That's literally inland from me now. That's the burial site of Joseph. There's a building there called Joseph's Tomb. Now, the Muslims sort of revere it because they stole our prophets and stuff. But they only revere it because we do. The site of the temple in Jerusalem is the site on which Abraham was supposed to sacrifice Isaac, where the whole story of the ram and the burning bush, the.. sorry, the ram caught in the bush, not the burning bush, that's Moses. That story happens on what is now today the temple mount. That was the position of the high holies. That's why we built the temple there, twice. That's why the Romans destroyed it. That's why the Muslims came along when they conquered it and built a mosque and a mausoleum on that spot, because it matters. Those are elements of colonization. These other components like distinct language, culture, and knowledge. Now, yes, we revived Hebrew as a modern language. That was controversial because some very religious Jews would say that Hebrew is the language of prayer. It's the language of the Torah. are we shouldn't use it for day-to-day stuff when we're going to be obscene and tell jokes and in fact what tends to happen is we use Arabic for the worst stuff but um, that was controversial but it was also hugely important that there is continuity that any Jewish child living in Israel, any Israeli child, can pick up an ancient scroll that was buried in the desert, and all the letters look familiar. That's amazing. Nobody reads hieroglyphics. The Roman Catholic Church teaches their clergy to read Latin, but it's not a day-to-day language anywhere. Hebrew is a day-to-day language, and it has biblical continuity back 3,000 plus years. Now, when I read through this list, which we'll post later, I missed one. I said I was going to miss one. In the UN, they've got this one line, status as a non-dominant social group. I can't help, and I've discussed this with Ryan. Ryan Bellerose is the Métis Canadian. That's almost like they had to put that in to try and find some way to make Jews not indigenous in Israel. Because we are, Jews are now the dominant social group in one place in the world, Israel. It's like we we won, we're the only ones actually, we're really the only indigenous people that lost our land and got it back and that is essentially, Zionism is that, it is the return of Jews to Zion, you know, by the rivers of Babylon, where, you know, that psalm, that's, what, 600 years BCE? That's Zionism. We've been trying to get back to Zion, Jerusalem, Israel, for thousands of years, ever since we were cast out by the Romans. I think the last time Jews really ran the place was up until when we revolted too much and the Romans kicked us out on 135 or 132 or whatever it was, and changed the name. And again, this is colonizer versus indigenous. What do colonizers do? They bring a new language, they try to crush whatever markers there are of indigenousness. And then they destroy, they build their new stuff on top of old stuff. They try and erase indigenous identities. And that's what's actually happened all over the world. You know, Native Americans cling on in America. Across Europe there are sort of lots of indigenous identities that were crushed by the Romans that never reappeared. I would say that the EU itself was trying to do this, it's it's trying to sort of flatten Europe and you all become Europeans in a horrible Marxist sense and I think that's one of the reasons why Israel is so hated by this globalist elite type thing, is that we are just this total exception. We are the indigenous people that came back, made it work, and made it work. And it doesn't mean, and let's just sort of circle back to the blood, and then I'll let you get a word in edge ways. Blood. This is the bit that gets thrown at us all the time on the internet. Okay? Every time I post indigenous, oh, you're from Europe. Well, actually, I was born in South Africa, so I'm African. You know, bite on that, you chumps. I'm second generation. My parents were born in Africa. I'm second generation African. So I don't know where you think I should go back to. I grew up in London. Yeah, that's true. My accent is London, but I never felt English actually. I've got my British citizenship, but am I English I don't think so. I'm Jewish, Jews belong here, so blood is uniquely unimportant to Jews for one good reason and the reason is Ruth, the story of Ruth in the bible is the story that actually to this day means that Jews accept converts. As soon as you accept conversion, it means blood doesn't matter. Now, we do not have an easy conversion process, okay? And in fact, you know, whenever I've, and I know some of my best friends here are converts, and they're more orthodox than me, more, you know, they observe of Sabbath, Shabbat, more than I do. And in many ways. But there's no hint or there's no feeling for me personally, or you don't find it anywhere in Israel, that if somebody has gone through the process of an Orthodox-recognized conversion, nobody here looks down upon them. In fact, many of us realize that's a lot harder than just being born. So blood. I don't know where his blood is from. In fact, I think the two converts I know the best, Australians and both, I think, from Catholic families, doesn't matter. So I don't care about blood. Now, it turns out I actually am Kohanim, and you can check, but there's DNA markers. But that's not what makes me Jewish. What makes me Jewish is self-identification, keeping the rituals, doing Shabbat dinners. And it doesn't even matter the level of observance. It's some level of observance and some recognition that it means something to be Jewish. So when they throw at you this Khazar crap and go back to Europe, and I mean, even that is ala panim, on its face. That doesn't mean the same thing. On its face, it's just ridiculous, because more than half the Jews in Israel are of Middle Eastern backgrounds. Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria. All of these places is where Jews came from. Right now, and Ethiopia, of course, we've airlifted them. All of these things mean that we're just a mongrel mix these days. And our kids are all meeting and intermarrying between different... There really isn't a level of racism that I can certainly recognize in America. So blood, what does blood mean? It doesn't... It's important. It's one of the markers. But it is not who makes you a Jew. Well, I think, yeah, there are a lot of points to pick up. For me, actually, it's the history. Abraham 4,000 years ago, David 3,000, establishing Jerusalem as the capital. So you've got 2,000 years of history on the land, in effect, before the Romans took over. The renaming of that land as Palestine to remove Israel off the face of the earth, just like Iran want to do.. That's deliberate.. Just exactly. Syria, Palestina and yeah of course the word came from the Greek from palash invaders from the sea, you can, it's like you can get you can get locked in all that crappy silly detail, it doesn't matter and it doesn't matter if it's Israel or the kingdom of David, it was or Judah or Samaria. Today it's Israel because when you form a modern nation, within the framework of modern nations that arose in the 1850s onwards. I can't remember the philosophical name for this, but Israel slots in within modern nationhood as the land of the Jews. Should there be a Kurdish nation? Yeah, sure. I just want to tell you something else about this. indigenous status is not zero sum, because there are indigenous people does not mean that nobody else is indigenous. Now, and I'm not coming to the Palestinians by any means next. We have Aramaic Christians living in the Galilee region. They are following a kind of Christianity that emerged very soon after Jesus died. And they are speaking Aramaic, or they're doing their liturgy in Aramaic. I've met one. There's a famous picture of Tommy Robinson standing next to a bearded guy with a big hat wearing his Mossad t-shirt. That's Father Nadav, and we went to meet him in Nazareth. That's in Nazareth. He lives there. There's a community of Aramaic Christians. The only place you can be an Aramaic Christian safely in the whole Middle East is Israel. And then we've got Druze. Druze is a kind of, it's wrong to call them completely Muslim. They're something else entirely. And their geographic region encompasses Syria and Lebanon and Israel. But where are they best off? Most of them, realize, in Israel. We've got some Baha'is who came from Iran, settled here. They're up in Haifa. We have Samaritans, actually. That's very close to me. This town of Nablus, okay? What's the Palestinian town of Nablus? Well, it comes from Neopolis, the Roman for new city. So even their name in Arabic of Nablus, it's a corruption of a Roman word. It's not Arabic. And you know this because Neopolis, anything with a P is not Arabic. So the P gets converted to a B. It's just like the Palestinians, when they say it, they call it a phalestini, because they can't say P, so they change it to E. So Nablus, which is the place of Shem, again, Romans, they knew Shem is in the Bible many times, but they have to rename the place Neopolis to assert Roman dominance, and that's what you do. The Samaritans live on a place called Mount Gruzine, which overlooks that. They're there. We've got Bedouin Arabs who have lived here for a long time, but Bedouins have moved across the whole Middle East for centuries. To call them indigenous, they have parts of their culture here, but it's not unique to Israel. That's the point, the Bedouin culture is across the whole of the Arab peninsula all the way out. So did any part of their culture arise in Israel? Not really. But they have something called rights of longstanding presence, for sure. And they serve in our armed forces, and we have all sorts of internal political disputes over where they live and how they live and what their place. But again, that's stuff we can deal with. It's not sort of virulent hatred all the time. But this point of, is Islam indigenous to Israel? No, nothing of it. The only bit that they talk about is the farthest, there's a passage in the Quran that talks about the farthest mosque, and that has been reinterpreted. And there's a very famous clip from Al Jazeera from years and years ago. Professor Mordechai Kadar, he went on Al Jazeera in Arabic and he asked the host, how many times is Jerusalem named in the Quran? And the Quran was written 700, 800 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Everybody in the whole world, the known, educated world, knew the name Jerusalem. But yet it does not appear once in the Quran. Not once. There's an oblique reference to a night journey by Muhammad to the furthest mosque. And he tied his horse up outside and ascended to heaven. That is the entire basis for Islamic claim to Israel and Jerusalem. Other than the fact that they assume everything. They're a replacement theology. So they brought in all of Christianity. They brought in all of Judaism. They then tell us we forged it to take out Muhammad. And they write their book, the Quran, which they then say, we're the corruptors of. Jews are worse than Christians because we went astray. Jews are the ones who went astray. Christians are the ones who were just led astray. You followed us instead of the Muslims so we're both cursed but Jews are cursed a bit more. But that's that's not the claim, that's the claim, that's what we're fighting over. And of course well yeah and of course you'd, you've got the period of the Romans and then the period of Arabs or Muslims from what 600... And crusaders, Sala in the Kurd, This history just goes, but all of it, the constant theme throughout is, one, there were Jews always here. Jews never left. There were Jews in Sfat. They came back in 1200 and 600. The only people who ever regarded this land as the place of genesis of their entire civilization is Jews. Yeah. And then you go through, you're right, all those histories with the Ottoman Empire, whatever morphing of Arabness or Muslimness there was on there. And then you're right that Muslims tie Jerusalem to a story about a flying donkey, but we'll not even go into that. We'll not have to base what you believe in that. But the issue, I guess, you have now is that the clash between Romans and the Jews living there was a land grab and dominance. It's something much deeper in terms of Islam, and I 100% believe that Islam was started. One of the main reasons is to eradicate who Jesus is. You can't say Jesus, son of God. You cannot, that he was simply a man. And at its heart, and that means at its heart is also hatred of the Jews and the Jewish people, because without Judaism, you do not have Christianity. It's impossible. But that hatred we have seen over the whole time, and 1948, it is an absolute miracle to see what happens. I think maybe the hatred is from, one, the hatred that Islam has against Judaism. That's one. But also there's a second hatred that I think the miracle of modern-day Israel, that many people cannot accept that, and they look for something darker. You know, Israel being the centre of everything, being in control. And they come up with this idea to remove any understanding that actually you can't explain. 1948, when you read about what happened, I've read it in 67, 73, and all of those, it is a miracle. It could not happen, should not happen. And yet Israel stands there as a proud country, hugely successful in the midst of basket cases of countries. But yeah, talk to us about that level of vitriol against Israel and against the Jewish people that exists not only in the Middle East, but actually exists in the media and across the world, really. Well, I, you know, every Jew does, you know, I guess my kids are starting to do it now. You start, you know, when you're brought up Jewish, eventually at some point you understand that this thing called the Holocaust happened. And what it does to a lot of us is you go through a phase where you try and, why? What's with the hatred? Why the hatred? And Islamic Jew hatred, I can see that in the Quran. I can see the hundred and whatever verses it is that mention Jews. And whereas we start off a little bit favourable in the early stuff, once Jews reject Muhammad and say no you're not a prophet we're done with our era of prophets, that was a thousand years ago, you're not one of them, once that happened he really then just goes on a the rest of his life is like, how can I f these Jews? And you know he kills a lot of Jews in Khaybar he takes their wives, their daughters, their and then also in Khaybar this other story, this very pivotal battle, after the battle when he kills all the men and he's got the women and one of the stories that's not well, it pretty authoritative, but again this doesn't matter whether it happened or not, it matters whether Muslims believe it, is that he was poisoned by this Jewish woman that he'd taken prisoner before he rapes her and that he died five years later from the poison he was was given then. Now, again, you get all sorts of scholars saying this is unlikely and it probably didn't happen. It doesn't matter. Do Muslims teach their children that a Jew killed Muhammad? Yes, they do. In large numbers, very large numbers. And so Jews rejected the prophet Muhammad. We don't call him a prophet. He isn't a prophet. He's their prophet. He's not our prophet. We rejected that. He fought lots of battles against us. He killed a lot of Jews, and eventually he was poisoned by a Jewess. These are not good things to teach your kids for coexistence. That's what they do. That kind of antisemitism, I understand that. That's ancient and it really hasn't changed. It can be dialled up or dialled down depending on the authoritarian rulers. UAE today might be dialling it down a lot. Great. In two or three generations, I'll feel a lot happier. Now, Nazi anti-Semitism, European anti-Semitism, again, Christianity had its creation stuff, and Christianity for a long time said that Jews killed Jesus. Despite Jesus being one of us, we, you know, and it took until, when did the Catholic Church change that? I mean, it was like in 1960 something or other, was the papal, you know, it's like, okay, thanks. It was the Romans. We can all agree on the Romans, but yes, Jews are stood accused of killing Jesus. That was one thing. Jews are successful. I don't know what it is. I personally have come to believe that Intel, the guy who founded Intel, Andy Grove, his autobiography was called Only the Paranoid Survive. I think Jews have been bred to be paranoid. There's other reasons which are genetically passed down. Whereas the Catholic Church, for a lot, makes its priests celibate, they become the most highly educated members of society, but yet they don't procreate. Jews did the opposite. You become a rabbi, the town supports the rabbi, and the smartest people who become rabbis then have 18 children. Perhaps that's the reason why we've got higher IQ. I don't know. We certainly value, as a culture, we value learning. We value books. We value, the fact that we've got troops in Gaza. What do they do at the weekends? Some of them, they drive armoured personnel carriers into Gaza with a gigantic Torah scroll so that they can stand in some house with bullet holes all around and do the Shabbat service with a real giant Torah scroll. First, they take in little ones, but once the roots are secure, what are we doing? Are we taking a book? This is the most ridiculous. And then what we do is, we do Talmudic rituals, as the Nazis and the anti-Semites would say. We're not doing it. It's not because, we're not out looking for the blood to drink and make my matzah. That's just utter crap. We're doing it because we value these traditions. We passed them down, and the continuity of Jews as a people has depended on us revering those words. That's why copying the Torah accurately for 3,000 years by hand, that's an astonishing cultural achievement that no culture on earth has managed. You know, Aborigines in Australia might have told stories orally, and that's a great sort of pass down. But we wrote it in a book, and the story of Abraham buying the cave becomes the root of Western civilization. So, you know, you can argue Judeo-Christian civilization for sure. And, you know, some people will say that democracy comes from the Greeks or whatever. Much more of our morality comes from the Jewish Hebrew Bible, the Ten Commandments, than any other foundational thing. And again, the Americans, I'll criticize the Americans and I'll criticize the West in a very specific way. Rights versus responsibility. Okay? If you read the Ten Commandments, what you are reading is not a charter of rights. You do not have the right to life. You do not have the right to property. You do not have the right to your wife. You read a responsibility. You read about honouring your parents. You read about not murdering people. You read about not coveting the other guy's ox or wife. Those are responsibilities. You follow those responsibilities within your tribe. Your rights are implied. And I think America and the whole Western notion of human rights and stuff, it puts the cart before the horse. What are your responsibilities? Your responsibility is not to lob rockets at civilian areas on midnight of new year's eve, your responsibility is not to break out through a fence and go murder and rape people in the most horrible way, if you follow the responsibility of not being complete and utter bleeps then you can have a right to life, we are going to remove we, you do not have a right to life when you commit those acts against us. That's what we're seeing now. We're not Christians, and the whole turn the other cheek thing, it's not in our book, and quite rightly. There's too much of that, and the modern Western Christianity has gone too far. Yeah. Yes. That's an interesting. Here, I'll not go down that route, but actually, I want to finish off with, I'm sure you've had, well, you face, I'm sure, a lot of abuse. And if you are a Zionist Shill, maybe you can share some of that, Brian, because I'll happily be a Zionist, but never get paid for it, which is a bummer. None of us get paid for this. It costs me a fortune living here. I know it would be much easier if we did get paid, but that's not how life works. But it's interesting what's happened. Maybe the backlash you get whenever you talk about Israel's existence and the history and that clash, and also what we are seeing at the moment. It's interesting, what's the term? Proportionality is the term that's used. And I always wonder, what's proportional to rape or murder of children? Do you really want to go down that? Because that's a very perverse path if you want to go down that. But yeah, tell us about that, the backlash, but also then Israel doing what it has to do to exist. And if other countries want to be peaceful, then that makes life a lot easier for everyone, including the Arab countries around. Well you know the backlash, first of all, hurty words on the internet doesn't doesn't hurt me, you know I'm very much a bit of a free speech absolutist, I'll block and I'll mute if they're boring. I mean but mostly I like, you know and I'll spar with a few of them you know. I'm just looking to my left, I've got a screen here, sort of one of these things that kicked this off was because someone said, so I get that a lot of Israeli Jews are scared right now. So here's an idea. Why don't we offer them refuge in our own countries? Invite them to Britain, the States, and Canada. It's a win-win. Israelis get to live somewhere they feel safe, and the locals get their land back. Now, after everything I've just said to you, firstly, we've tried living in other people's countries. It doesn't always go so well. You know, German Jews felt great in 1929, and Polish Jews felt great also. This was not a long-term, tenable solution. And so what I replied was, lol, no, we're home. When you dig up London, you find Roman stuff. When we dig up Jerusalem, we dig past that crap to the city of our Jewish King David. Pithy, short, you can't put all the history of the Middle East in a tweet or an x-post or whatever we're supposed to call it. Praise be to Elon. Now, so I get this back. This isn't how the world works. Just because you've owned something thing doesn't mean you always will. Also, the Celtic tribes inhabited London long before the Romans, and Canaanites existed in Palestine long before Israel. Well, as and when some Canaanites show up, and as long as they're not still doing the child sacrifice shit, we will give them a nice little bit of the country, and they can live and practice their whatever Canaanite religion. But the point is, there is no continuity of Canaanites, because probably because Jews genocided them, whatever, I don't care. Canaanite was absorbed into the Jewish tribes. That's what happened. There's nobody doing Canaanite today, so they don't exist. The Palestinians are not Canaanites. They're not Philistines either. They don't know anything about Canaanites or Philistines. But, you know, you get all of this stuff. David, this is a good one, actually. Chrissy, David was a corrupt criminal whose family came from Iraq. That's the Koran version of David. I was wondering. I missed that. I know. I know. That one's just brilliant. And it's just very simple. And it's with a little Canadian flag. And Chrissy is the name. Compassion, confidence, something about a sire. 170,000 followers. You kind of and then you know you get from sama Lebanese when you check your DNA it's east European, okay my yes yes my DNA did come a bit, because before South Africa we were somewhere in northeast Europe but again and then you know when I look through all of this telling me that I don't belong where I know I belong. Look, I came to Israel when I was 39 years old. I married my Israeli wife some years before that, tried to learn Hebrew in London. I'm crap at Hebrew, okay? I can barely read. I can sort of read, but more often than not, I'm copy-pasting into... Oh, Apple. Apple does not translate Hebrew by default. It's like not not one of their default languages. It's like, get with this. Anyway, I arrive in Israel as a 39-year-old PhD physicist, basically illiterate, but I feel more at home than I did in London. Explain that. I can't explain that. There's this woman, Eve Barlow, she's here visiting right now. She lands and she immediately feels at home. She lives in LA, She's a writer or she wrote, and writes about music. Why does she feel at home? And so many Jews you talk to, and this is a funny thing, when non-Jews come here and feel at home, they then start looking through their family tree and discover that four generations back, they are Jewish. And they start questioning their self. There's something that I can't explain to you that is is magical about being in Israel. Because it's tough. It is more comfortable to live in America and Britain. It really, it wasn't the easiest place to move to, but it just felt better. 100%. I think we'll finish it there. I think it's good to get a short conversation about this in Israel. And of course, you could take it wider into other countries. But that makes it very convoluted. And I think this perfectly fits to this current time. But, Brian, thank you so much. All the links for these will be in the description and our social media posts so people can follow the article and your post on it and have fun at the replies, which is sometimes the best part of Twitter posts. It certainly is. Anyway, yeah, we can do updates about the whole situation another time. But, yeah, thank you. This was really good. This is stuff I like talking about. This is positive. This is the reasons that people need to understand why Israel's not going anywhere. And that's the other. The last thing I'll say is this. You know, for 75 years, the Arabs have fought the correct, well, since 67 in particular, and through the 60s, basically, with the rise of Arafat and the PLO, which was a creation of the Soviet Union, the whole Palestinian identity. That's another point, but I'll just finish with this. They fought the correct battle to remove a colonial occupier from land. They fought the right battle that would have got the British out of India. Or the French out of Algeria, or half a dozen European countries out of bits of Africa. They fought the correct guerrilla warfare tactics, sort of terrorism, murders, all of this stuff. And it spectacularly fails to move Jews out of Jerusalem and Israel, because we are not colonial settlers. We will never be colonial settlers. The mindset, you know, and that's the other thing is, you know, when the Americans come here and tell us that we're not fighting the ground war in Gaza the correct way, and they're going to tell us how well they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were fighting thousands of miles from home. Our soldiers can actually stand at the top of a building with binoculars and see their homes. They go home, you know, if they're released at the weekend, they get taken to the border and they're home in 25 minutes. We are not projecting power as an imperial conquering army trying to make Iraqis be Democrats. It's not that. And so that the whole way in which the Palestinians are fought, encouraged by the entire world, encouraged by people shouting free Palestine from the river to the sea. When you do that, you encourage millions of poor Arabs to fight a war that they will never, ever win by the methods that they're fighting. They will never, ever win. They will never commit an act so atrocious that I will wake up in the morning and say, because believe me, October 7th was that act, that I will wake up in the morning and say, you know what? I think I'm going to go live in Berlin. That's not going to happen. You're not going to force me off my land with these acts. They don't work. it's wrong it's just totally the wrong approach, killing us doesn't matter, how many you rape, how many you kill, the only thing that will happen is the scale of our response and the sheer biblical nature of the response will come out, go read the story of Dinah, the men of Shechem, that's the story that's what's going on in Gaza right now, go read that story if you don't know your Bible. One woman was raped in the Bible. Dinah, go read that. Well, maybe those who live in Gaza, the Muslims or the Arabs, if they took this indigenous rights, then maybe they can move the refugee camp to Mecca. I'm sure it would be wonderful and they can enjoy that. Here's a little bit about Yemen. Yemen is Arabia, Arabs to Arabia.
In this episode of "Dreams With Deadlines," host Jenny Herald welcomes Kenneth Lewis, co-founder of OKR International, to explore the dynamic world of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in business. With over two decades of experience and a rich history of working with renowned companies like Colgate, Swift, and Bosch, Kenneth delves deep into the practicalities and philosophies of OKRs.Key Things Discussed: The Journey to OKRs: Kenneth shares his personal and professional journey, revealing how a background in sales, teaching, and organizational development led him to the world of OKRs. His story highlights the transformational potential of OKRs in aligning strategy with execution, focusing on goals, and fostering organizational transparency. Integrating OKRs with Performance Management: The conversation delves into the nuances of combining OKRs with performance management systems. Kenneth outlines various approaches, such as the hybrid system where OKRs feed into performance assessments and the impact of this integration on employee engagement and organizational control. Real-World Applications and Challenges: Drawing from his extensive experience, Kenneth offers vivid examples from companies like Colgate-Palmolive and discusses the practical challenges and solutions in implementing OKRs. He emphasizes the importance of adapting OKRs to the organization's culture and goals, rather than strictly adhering to predefined frameworks. Show Notes [00:00:06] Introduction to Kenneth Lewis and OKR International. Jenny Herald introduces Kenneth Lewis, highlighting his extensive experience in business and his role as the co-founder of OKR International, the first OKR consulting company in India and Asia. [00:04:16] Kenneth Lewis's Origin Story and Discovery of OKRs. Kenneth shares his journey from being a sales professional and teacher to discovering OKRs, emphasizing his experiences in sales, teaching, and organizational culture that led him to this methodology. [00:08:09] Fundamentals and Misconceptions of OKRs. Kenneth discusses the basic principles of OKRs, addressing common misunderstandings and returning to the core ideas behind the methodology, as initially envisioned by Andy Grove and John Doerr. [00:13:37] OKRs in Relation to Budgets and Investments. Kenneth explains how OKRs interact with company budgets and investment strategies, using Colgate-Palmolive as a case study to illustrate how businesses can balance budget constraints with aspirational OKRs. [00:48:00] Quick-Fire Questions for Kenneth Lewis: Dream with a Deadline: Kenneth aspires to positively impact a million lives during his career and another million post-retirement. Additionally, he has a goal for one of his invested companies to reach $5 million in revenue by 2026. When things start to go sideways in OKR implementations, what advice do you give to turn things around? He emphasizes viewing challenges as learning opportunities and advises not to be too hard on oneself, but to learn from experiences and move forward. What do you believe is the role of the C-level, or the CEO even, in the OKR program? Kenneth believes that C-level executives should have a mix of conviction and hope in the OKR program, actively participate in it, and understand that OKRs are a means to a broader organizational goal, not the end in themselves. What is the single most impactful lesson or insight you've gained from your experience with OKRs and performance management within an organization? He finds that OKRs are fundamentally simple and effective for setting and achieving goals. Their simplicity and holistic approach make them a powerful tool for organizational development. Book That Shaped His Thinking: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand has significantly influenced him, teaching him about human potential, the importance of reason, and aiming beyond perceived limitations. Relevant links: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand "The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand About the Guest:Kenneth's purpose is to be that eternal flame that ignites passion and performance in others. He is the founder of Atlas Learning, an investor and advisor at Purposetrade, Grassroute, and Docmode, and a consultant with multiple firms. He's also the Co-founder of OKR International, the world's largest OKR training, coaching and consulting company.Follow Our Guest:LinkedIn | Atlas Learning | Purposetrade | Grassroute | Docmode | OKR InternationalFollow Dreams With Deadlines:Host | Company Website | Blog | Instagram | Twitter
The Frontier Psychiatrists is a newsletter. It's written by one Psychiatrist, Owen Muir, M.D. It's a health-themed newsletter. It's also an exercise in imperfection. That imperfection is not an accident. Here is the story…An influential book in my life? It is not about medicine. The book is called Measure What Matters. It is by John Doerr; you can buy it on Amazon with that link! John writes about the system called objectives and key results (OKRs). Andy Grove originally developed this management and goalsetting methodology at Intel.I think it's a meaningful bulwark against perfectionism. It is a philosophy. OKRs are a system for setting measurable goals. But—there is a quirk. This quirk makes it different—and more powerful— than other goal-setting approaches. The system works as follows: * set an overarching objective, and the point is to be audacious. I'll give you a very real-world example:“I'm going to write a great health-related newsletter (all by myself) that influences people's decision-making towards a better future.”Now, here's the trick: you have to figure out how to determine if you're moving toward that goal. And it has to be measurable. When you start this process, you don't necessarily know the best way to measure things for yourself or a larger organization; this is the scaffold.There are rules: * At the end of your audacious goal, you add the statement: “as measured by:”Next, you limit yourself to between two and three (easily) measurable key results demonstrating that you are appropriately pursuing that goal. The quirk is* if you achieve more than 70% of your key results in any given quarter, you did it WRONG. Getting it perfect means you didn't get it RIGHT.My God, right?This is a system to learn how to set audacious goals! I could've set my goals for this newsletter— and did— as follows: “as measured by… publishing an article every single day.”That is a “key result.”This is not the same as a key performance indicator (KPI). Key performance indicators are measurable. Some, however, are all or never—you don't want to close 70% of surgical wounds! Many things are measurable; not all KPIs are useful tools in this OKR framework.All Key Results are KPIs; not all KPIs are suitable Key Results for your strivings.I write an article almost every single day. I will calculate that for my readers at the end of this quarter, and you can see how I did. I didn't know what key results were the best way to build an influenced audience with this newsletter. Did I get it wrong with this key result? First, I have achieved the goal more than 70% of the time! I underestimated the difficulty, and thus the audaciousness, of a daily one-person newsletter for me as a writer. By writing a daily Health-themed newsletter, I failed to be audacious enough! Or I didn't select the right tools with which to measure. I would probably want to set another key result to guide me when I revisit the original goal and its measurement. Which is very much the point. OKRs are not “set and forget”. They are set and revisited. It's an iterative process. We learn, with OKRs, that successfully striving is the meta-goal. We know if we succeed by measuring iteratively, and in failing to be perfect, we learn the right degree of stretch in any epoch.Perfection is imperfect. Striving is a learned behavior and a set of skills. Not always striving is an easy way to avoid the audacious. In my example, my daily publication schedule might not be the best way to achieve my goals.I'd have to find a better way to measure. Repeat.Perfection is poison for those who wish to strive. To succeed at striving is to fail… the right amount, over and over. OKRs are an antidote to the hopelessness of perfectionism and the fragility of narcissism. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefrontierpsychiatrists.substack.com/subscribe
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In the immortal words of Andy Grove, “Training is one of the highest leverage activities a manager can perform.” WorkRamp is the learning cloud for leading B2B companies such as Box, Lattice, Loom, and Intercom. The company has raised almost $70M across multiple rounds from top VCs and angels including Jack Altman, Elad Gil, Initialized Capital, Y-Combinator, and Susa Ventures to name a few. I absolutely loved this conversation with WorkRamp's founder and CEO, Ted Blosser, and have no doubt that you will walk away with a ton of actionable ideas. Topics covered include: How the company struggled with PMF early on and how they overcame it The importance of vision and the framework he learned from the CEO of Cisco How the best SaaS businesses leverage customer education for acquisition, activation and retention Why “being 10x better” is terrible advice for startups How to break into an existing market and compete against incumbents Why it's so important in this economy for everyone in the company to be a seller How AI is poised to change education (in a corporate setting and for children) Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:42 What is WorkRamp? 03:45 WorkRamp in numbers 04:51 Struggling with PMF 06:26 Finding PMF 10:03 Grand Vision 12:49 What did your background have to do with founding WorkRamp? 15:09 The founding story 16:33 Advice on entering an incumbent category 19:13 Selling strategy 21:40 Onboarding switching clients 24:45 How do customers use the LMS? 29:37 WorkRamp growth channels 34:09 Finding PMF multiple times 37:24 New products 38:13 Employee learning categories 40:20 How do founders leverage enablement training? 43:30 How is AI changing the educational space? 46:27 Lightning round Guest Contact Info: WorkRamp linkedin.com/tedblosser Learn Podcast Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.comwww.pmfpod.com
This episode breaks down Andy Grove's idea that only the paranoid survived. Andy was the former CEO of Intel. In 1988, Andy wrote the book, Only the Paranoid Survive. To this day, the book holds relevance. Learn more about this idea of why the paranoid survive. CONQUER SHYNESS
What I learned from reading Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words.This episode is brought to you by Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. ----This episode is brought to you by Meter: Meter is the easiest way for your business to get fast, secure, and reliable internet and WiFi in any commercial space. Go to meter.com/founders ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain ----[3:48] He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time.[4:24] He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it.[7:27] Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Video and My Notes.[10:02] Edwin Land episodes:Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)[13:23] Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.[14:10] One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock. (Founders #260)[15:42] Read Jeff Bezos's shareholder letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations(Founders #282)[19:45] If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)[30:47] How important product is based on how much time you spend with it: People are going to be spending two, three hours a day interacting with these machines—longer than they spend in the car.[39:02] Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz. (Founders #76)[40:32] The real big thing is: if you're going to make something, it doesn't take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it's really great.[45:07] Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull [45:31] Steve's enthusiasm kept him writing check after check to Pixar, ultimately investing some $60 million.[47:47] It is better to have fewer people even if it means doing less. Let's build our company slowly and carefully.[53:36] I'm not so dominant that I can't listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don't listen, don't survive long. — Driven From Within by Michael Jordan (Founders #213)[54:40] You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times in the process of getting there.[1:00:11] There wasn't a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.[1:03:33] Don't be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the “Career.” A career is a concept for how one is supposed to progress through stages during the training for and practicing of your working life. There are some big problems here. First and foremost is the notion that your work is different and separate from the rest of your life. If you are passionate about your life and your work, this can't be so. They will become more or less one. This is a much better way to live one's life.[1:05:11] Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.[1:05:58] Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.[1:09:27] In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)[1:10:52] Much of it is also drive and passion—hard work makes up for a lot.[1:13:28] A risk-taking creative environment on the product side required a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.[1:13:57] You've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully.[1:14:38] A remarkably consistent set of values that Steve held dear: Life is short; don't waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward.[1:19:24] Steve Jobs speaking to Apple employees (Video) [1:29:48] Apple is the world's premier bridge builder between mere mortals and the exploding world of high technology.[1:30:14] Steve's favorite quote: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle[1:32:29] The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by Leslie Berlin. (Founders #166)[1:42:27] That's been the most important lesson I've learned in business: that the dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives—and to try to find those really great people who really love what they do. [1:43:00] Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)[1:47:27] It's a circus world, and you never know what's around the next corner.[1:53:40] Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219)[2:01:00] All glory is fleeting.----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book----I use Readwise to organize and remember everything I read. You can try Readwise for 60 days for free here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
What I learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard.This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders. ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ![2:01] Do our products offer something unique?[3:00] Customer satisfaction second to none is the only acceptable goal.[4:00] What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters for the 3rd time (Founders #282)[5:00] In Silicon Valley, the ultimate career standard was set by David Packard: start a company in a garage, grow it into the leading innovator in its field, then take it public, then take it into the Fortune 500 (or better yet, the Fortune 50), then become the spokesman for the industry, then go to Washington, and then become an historic global figure. Only Packard had accomplished all of this; he had set the bar, and the Valley had honored his achievement by making him the unofficial "mayor" of Silicon Valley.—The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone [6:00] Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)[9:00] Gates read the encyclopedia from beginning to end when he was only seven or eight years old. — Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)[10:00] My father wouldn't let me quit.[11:00] Given equally good players and good teamwork, the team with the strongest will to win will prevail.[13:00] Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. (Founders #278)[17:00] That was a very important lesson for me —that personal communication was often necessary to back up written instructions.[21:00] Insisting On The Impossible: The Life Of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny [28:00] More businesses die from indigestion than starvation.[33:00] I found, after much trial and error, that applying steady, gentle pressure from the worked best.[38:00] Bill and I knew we didn't want to be a “me too” company merely copying products already on the market.[38:00] Netbooks accounted for 20% of the laptop market. But Apple never seriously considered making one. “Netbooks aren't better than anything,” Steve Jobs said at the time. “They're just cheap laptops.” Jony proposed that the tablets in his lab could be Apple's answer to the netbook.—— Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)[46:00] Gains in quality come from meticulous attention to detail, and every step in the manufacturing process must be done as carefully as possible, not as quickly as possible.[47:00] Exponential growth is based on the principle that the state of change is proportional to the level of effort expended.----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes. ----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book----I use Readwise to organize and remember everything I read. You can try Readwise for 60 days for free here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
Today I'm talking to Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel. I've been excited to have this conversation for a very long time – ever since Pat took over as CEO a little over a year and a half ago. After all. Intel is a very important company with a huge series of challenges in front of it. It's still the largest chip manufacturer by revenue, and makes more chips than any other company in the United States. In fact there are basically only three major chip manufacturers: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, which is in Taiwan, Samsung, based in South Korea. And Intel, here in the United States. The Intel Pat took over was struggling, and was losing ground to in a variety of markets. But in the past year and a half, Pat's restructured the company, turned over almost all of its leadership positions, opened a new line of business that would compete with TSMC and make chips for other companies including Intel's competitors, and generally tried to reset Intel's famous engineering culture around engineering. Glossary: IFS - Intel Foundry Service. Raptor Lake - codename for intel's Gen 13 processors that were just the day before we had our conversation. Sapphire Rapids - the codename for Intel's 4th generation Xeon server processors. 20A and 18A - 20A is a rebranding of what was intel's 5nm process scheduled to debut in 2024 and 18A is a rebranding of Intels 5nm+ node due out in 2025. Packaging - integrated circuit packaging is the last step of semiconductor fabrication. It's where a block of semiconductor material is put into a case. The case, is known as a "package" and that is what allows you put a circuit on a board. Wafers - When a processor is made they make processors you make hundreds of them at once on a giant wafer. EUV - is Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography. It's the most advanced way to make chips. ASML - Is the company that makes the machines that lets you make chips. They are the only company that makes EUV machines. RibbonFET - A new transistor technology that Intel developed. ISV - Independent Software Vendors. PDK - Process Design Kit is a set of files that have data and algorithms that explain the manufacturing parameters for a given silicon process. EDA tools - stands for Electronic Design Automation tools. Basically software tools that are used to design and validate the semiconductor manufacturing process. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore - the founders of Intel. Andy Grove - employee #3 who went on to become one of their most successful CEOs. Links: Moore's Law Intel is replacing its CEO in February Intel has to be better than ‘lifestyle company' Apple at making CPUs, says new CEO Apple is switching Macs to its own processors starting later this year Apple MacBook Air with M1 review: new chip, no problem What we know about Intel's $20 billion bet on Ohio Intel is building a new €17 billion semiconductor manufacturing hub in Germany Intel delays ceremony for Ohio factory over lack of government funding Intel needs 7,000 workers to build its $20 billion chip plant in Ohio Biden signs $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act President Joe Biden speaks after groundbreaking for Intel's $20 billion semiconductor plant Intel's top Arc A770 GPU is priced at $329, available October 12th Intel's 13th Gen processors arrive October 20th with $589 flagship Core i9-13900K Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23149693 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today's episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
➡️ Like The Podcast? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory ➡️ About The Guest Ian Tien is CEO and co-founder of Mattermost, Inc., which delivers high trust collaboration to leading enterprises on a vibrant open source platform. Thousands of companies trust Mattermost for vital communications across the web, PC, and phone, with archiving, search, and integrations with hundreds of business applications. Ian has also won the 2018 Gartner Cool Vendor Award. Ian previously founded SpinPunch, Inc., an award-winning online video game company whose titles were played by millions of people across 190 countries. He was formerly VP of Product at Flickme, a movie streaming startup backed by Sequoia Capital, Warner Brothers, and Sony Pictures. Before that, he ran product management for Microsoft's SkyDrive and Windows Live Photos services (now "OneDrive") and was product management lead for Hotmail (now "Outlook.com"). Prior, he led engineering teams for Microsoft Office in its enterprise software business across SharePoint and business intelligence product lines. Ian holds over a dozen patents in analytic applications and is an alumnus of the University of Waterloo, where he worked at Trilogy Software during school, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he served as a teaching assistant for Andy Grove and Myron Scholes. ➡️ Show Links https://twitter.com/iantien/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/iantien/ https://mattermost.com/ ➡️ Podcast Sponsors HUBSPOT - https://hubspot.com/ ➡️ Talking Points 00:00 - Intro 03:39 - Ian Tien's origin story 04:35 - What was the career journey that brought Ian Tien to Mattermost? 10:22 - What is the concept of open source and how was it important for Ian? 16:00 - Conversations with VCs who are investing in an open source company 22:45 - Is an open source program more secure than a closed source program? 28:23 - What was Ian Tien's customer acquisition strategy? 31:12 - How to find, scale up, and maintain great talent? 36:54 - Ian's advice for entrepreneurs regarding open source companies 39:49 - Evolving trends and common practices of remote work 42:54 - Which software companies have done remote work well before Ian's company? 46:27 - Where does Ian Tien want to take Mattermost in the next 5 to 10 years? 47:26 - How can people connect to Ian Tien? 47:49 - Is there anything Ian Tien would like to redo in his career? 48:34 - What keeps Ian up at night? 49:08 - What was the worst point in building Mattermost and how did Ian overcome it? 50:41 - The biggest challenge Ian Tien ever faced in his personal life 52:01 - The most impactful person in Ian Tien's life 53:42 - Ian's book or podcast recommendation 54:00 - What would Ian Tien tell his 20-year-old self? 54:14 - What does success mean to Ian Tien? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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