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Andrew and David discussed the financial industry, focusing on timeless topics and the role of Jeremy Grantham. In this episode, we also explored the challenges of valuing private equity investments, the importance of having a clear investment strategy, and the impact of government intervention in capital markets. A spirited discussion followed about our contrasting views on China and Japan, and discussed the current state of the economy, particularly focusing on inflation and the actions of the Federal Reserve. Guest: David Salem - HedgeEye David Salem, Managing Director – Capital Allocation @ Hedgeye Prior to joining Hedgeye in early 2023, David served as founding President and Chief Investment Officer of The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF) and as a partner at GMO, working closely with Jeremy Grantham on investment solutions for large institutional funds. David received a JD cum laude from Harvard Law School and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was elected a Baker Scholar. A member of the District of Columbia Bar, David has held adjunct faculty positions at Middlebury College, from which he earned his undergraduate degree summa cum laude, and the University of Virginia, and served in the White House Counsel's office while enrolled at Harvard. David's has given talks at many colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Middlebury, Northwestern, and Oxford, and at conferences organized by the Association of Governing Boards, the CFA Institute, the Council on Foundations, the Foundation Financial Officers Group and NACUBO among other organizations. Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/ CHARTS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE Follow @andrewhorowitz Looking for style diversification? More information on the TDI Managed Growth Strategy - HERE Stocks mentioned in this episode: (META), (AAPL), (NVDA), (MSFT)
Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking
Welcome to an interview with Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, HBS professors and the hosts of 'Think Big, Buy Small' podcast. In this episode, we discuss current market trends related to entrepreneurship through acquisition. We also touch on the demographic trend of baby boomers retiring and needing to sell their businesses, and its impact on buying and selling businesses. Most importantly, Richard and Royce share their advice on how to find the right business to buy, the key considerations and how to evaluate businesses, common buyer errors, and the challenges of buying from baby boomers. Think Big, Buy Small is a new podcast from Harvard Business School that explores this innovative approach to entrepreneurship: acquisition entrepreneurship. The show is an extension of their courses on small firms, including “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition,” which has been taken by thousands of MBA students, and their highly-regarded book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company, which has sold more than 65,000 copies. Richard S. Ruback is a Baker Foundation Professor and the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. Over the last 15 years, he and Royce Yudkoff have been developing and teaching a second year course titled “The Financial Management of Smaller Firms” and a field course called “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition”. Ruback and Yudkoff's book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2017. The book is a practical roadmap through the steps required to find, evaluate, negotiate, and finance the acquisition of a smaller firm. Ruback earned his Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Rochester in 1980 and taught at MIT's Sloan School before joining the HBS faculty as a visiting professor in 1987. He was appointed associate professor in 1988 and full professor in 1989. Ruback has served as an editor for the Journal of Financial Economics and is the author of numerous articles on corporate finance and valuation. Royce Yudkoff is the MBA Class of 1975 Professor of Management Practice of Entrepreneurial Management at the Harvard Business School and a General Partner and co-founder of ABRY Partners, LLC in Boston, MA. Alongside Professor Richard Ruback, Royce currently co-teaches a second year case course titled “The Financial Management of Smaller Firms” and a field course called “Entrepreneurship through Acquisition”. These courses focus on how to acquire, finance, and operate your own smaller firm. As was mentioned above, Ruback and Yudkoff's book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2017. The book is a practical roadmap through the steps required to find, evaluate, negotiate, and finance the acquisition of a smaller firm. In 1989, Royce co-founded ABRY Partners, a private equity firm focused on the media, communications and business and information services markets. Since 1989 the firm has completed over $27 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity investments involving approximately 450 properties. Over this period Royce has also served on numerous private and public corporate boards. Royce graduated from the Harvard Business School in 1980 as a Baker Scholar and is an honors graduate of Dartmouth College. Get a copy of HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company: https://rb.gy/2omnrh Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 485, featuring an interview with Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, HBS professors and the hosts of 'Think Big, Buy Small' podcast. In this episode, we discuss current market trends related to entrepreneurship through acquisition. We also touch on the demographic trend of baby boomers retiring and needing to sell their businesses, and its impact on buying and selling businesses. Most importantly, Richard and Royce share their advice on how to find the right business to buy, the key considerations and how to evaluate businesses, common buyer errors, and the challenges of buying from baby boomers. Think Big, Buy Small is a new podcast from Harvard Business School that explores this innovative approach to entrepreneurship: acquisition entrepreneurship. The show is an extension of their courses on small firms, including “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition,” which has been taken by thousands of MBA students, and their highly-regarded book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company, which has sold more than 65,000 copies. Richard S. Ruback is a Baker Foundation Professor and the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. Over the last 15 years, he and Royce Yudkoff have been developing and teaching a second year course titled “The Financial Management of Smaller Firms” and a field course called “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition”. Ruback and Yudkoff's book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2017. The book is a practical roadmap through the steps required to find, evaluate, negotiate, and finance the acquisition of a smaller firm. Ruback earned his Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Rochester in 1980 and taught at MIT's Sloan School before joining the HBS faculty as a visiting professor in 1987. He was appointed associate professor in 1988 and full professor in 1989. Ruback has served as an editor for the Journal of Financial Economics and is the author of numerous articles on corporate finance and valuation. Royce Yudkoff is the MBA Class of 1975 Professor of Management Practice of Entrepreneurial Management at the Harvard Business School and a General Partner and co-founder of ABRY Partners, LLC in Boston, MA. Alongside Professor Richard Ruback, Royce currently co-teaches a second year case course titled “The Financial Management of Smaller Firms” and a field course called “Entrepreneurship through Acquisition”. These courses focus on how to acquire, finance, and operate your own smaller firm. As was mentioned above, Ruback and Yudkoff's book, HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2017. The book is a practical roadmap through the steps required to find, evaluate, negotiate, and finance the acquisition of a smaller firm. In 1989, Royce co-founded ABRY Partners, a private equity firm focused on the media, communications and business and information services markets. Since 1989 the firm has completed over $27 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity investments involving approximately 450 properties. Over this period Royce has also served on numerous private and public corporate boards. Royce graduated from the Harvard Business School in 1980 as a Baker Scholar and is an honors graduate of Dartmouth College. Get a copy of HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company: https://rb.gy/2omnrh Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking
Welcome to an interview with the authors of Career Forward: Strategies from Women Who've Made It, Christiana Smith Shi and Grace Puma. In this book, the authors challenge negative stereotypes about female ambition, and urge women to be bold, follow their dreams, and seize the chance to lead “big” lives. The secret is to focus on career first, job second. Instead of chasing a better job title or a salary bump, the goal should be a long-range career path that leads to success. “Career forward” means keeping a focus on the future and recognizing that being good at your job is often not enough—that you should take every opportunity to boost your connections, take on “difficult” assignments, and work actively to broaden your skills. Christiana Smith Shi is the former president of Nike's consumer-direct division where she led the company's global retail and ecommerce business. Before that she was a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. Christiana has been named one of the Most Influential Corporate Directors by Women, Inc. She currently leads Lovejoy Advisors, which is focused on digitally transforming consumer and retail businesses. Shi is a graduate of Stanford University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Grace Puma is the former executive vice president and COO of PepsiCo, and before that held senior positions with United Airlines, Kraft Foods, Motorola, and Gillette. A board member of both Organon & Co and Target, she has been ranked on the “Most Powerful Latina” list by Fortune magazine and recognized as the “Executive of the Year” by Latina Style magazine. Puma holds a BA in business administration and economics from Illinois Benedictine University. She lives in Tampa, Florida. Get Career Forward here: https://rb.gy/t7e8f9 Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
238 Business for the Changing Social Fabric with Courtney Leimkuhler, Co-Founder Springback Collective; New York, NY, USA In this electrifying episode, we delve into the future of career, care, and consumer behavior with Courtney Leimkuhler, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Springback Collective. Join us as we uncover the secrets behind Courtney's journey from the heights of corporate finance at Marsh and the New York Stock Exchange, to her current role as a venture capitalist shaping the landscape of the new care economy. With the mindset of a futurist and a firm background in finance and infrastructure knowledge, Courtney and the team at Springbank seek to elevate unique companies that are positioning services to meet the challenges of the next generation of the workforce. With an eye on gender equity and family care, they partner and invest in mission-based companies referred to as 'The Builders' to be catalysts of change. Here are some of the topics we touched on in our conversation: - Venturing into the Unknown: Courtney shares her insights on transitioning from the traditional corporate world to the dynamic realm of venture capital, and how her diverse background has shaped her approach to investing in disruptive startups. - Pioneering Business for the New Care Economy: Dive deep into the innovative ventures Springback Collective supports, and discover how they are revolutionizing how we approach caregiving and inclusive work environments. For example, Wealthy is a company that offers human-powered care concierge and it is sold as a benefit through employers for employees. And Risk is using AI to build tools for teachers to make their workflows much more efficient. - Trends that Every Business Must Watch: Understand the data behind key areas that leaders must understand and evolve within corporate activity, government activity, the insurance landscape, and consumer behavior and how these trends if not addressed will affect worker productivity, presence, and ultimately profits. - Unveiling Financial Frontiers and Shinning a Spotlight on Data: Explore the next wave of financial progress as Courtney discusses the evolving landscape of fintech and the opportunities it presents for investors and entrepreneurs alike. Courtney also serves as a board member or advisor to several companies including New Front, Dandi, Parento, Orchard, Coverwallet (sold to Aon in 2020), Betterment and Asta Capital. Courtney is a graduate of Harvard College summa cum laude and Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar. Courtney and her husband live in New York City with their two daughters. Connect with Courtney: Website: https://www.springbank.vc/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-leimkuhler-32459b/ Connect with Allison: Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web and it is ranked the number 10 CEO podcast to listen to in 2024! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/ceo_podcasts/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/ Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/ Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO #digitalmarketing #branding #socialgood #Bcorp #CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #business #businesspodcast #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 425, an interview with the authors of Career Forward: Strategies from Women Who've Made It, Christiana Smith Shi and Grace Puma. In this book, the authors challenge negative stereotypes about female ambition, and urge women to be bold, follow their dreams, and seize the chance to lead “big” lives. The secret is to focus on career first, job second. Instead of chasing a better job title or a salary bump, the goal should be a long-range career path that leads to success. “Career forward” means keeping a focus on the future and recognizing that being good at your job is often not enough—that you should take every opportunity to boost your connections, take on “difficult” assignments, and work actively to broaden your skills. Christiana Smith Shi is the former president of Nike's consumer-direct division where she led the company's global retail and ecommerce business. Before that she was a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. Christiana has been named one of the Most Influential Corporate Directors by Women, Inc. She currently leads Lovejoy Advisors, which is focused on digitally transforming consumer and retail businesses. Shi is a graduate of Stanford University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Grace Puma is the former executive vice president and COO of PepsiCo, and before that held senior positions with United Airlines, Kraft Foods, Motorola, and Gillette. A board member of both Organon & Co and Target, she has been ranked on the “Most Powerful Latina” list by Fortune magazine and recognized as the “Executive of the Year” by Latina Style magazine. Puma holds a BA in business administration and economics from Illinois Benedictine University. She lives in Tampa, Florida. Get Career Forward here: https://rb.gy/t7e8f9 Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
This week we are continuing in our conversation with Harry Dent where bond yields, real estate, and the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin take center stage.Unravel the complex relationship between inflation, economic growth, and investment strategies as the conversation sheds light on unexpected vulnerabilities in luxury real estate and potential dramatic shifts in the tech and crypto markets.Tune in to gain invaluable insights on your investments approach in an ever-changing economic landscape.Loral's Takeaways:Inflation, Bonds, And Real Estate Investments (00:43)Housing Market Downturn And Inflation (03:42)Cryptocurrency Market Trends And Potential Future Growth (08:37)Stock Market Trends And Potential Crashes (13:02)The Impact Of A Potential Economic Downturn On Small Businesses (16:57)Global Economic Bubble And Safe Investment Options (22:23)Investing During Economic Downturns (28:13)Economic Forecasting And Market Analysis (33:53)Meet Harry Dent:Harry S. Dent, Jr. is a best-selling author and one of the most outspoken financial editors in America. Using proprietary research, Harry developed a unique method for studying economies around the world, and uses his analysis to provide insights on what to expect in the future. Instead of focusing on endless graphs that assume people behave rationally, Harry instead looks at real people, making real economic decisions for themselves and their families. He combines demographics with actual spending to inform his research. Harry received his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. He then joined Bain & Company as a Fortune 100 business consultant and now heads the independent research firm HS Dent Publishing. Since then, he's spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world about demographics and the power of identifying different trends. Harry has appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN, Fox News and is a regular guest on Fox Business. He has also been featured in Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Harry has written numerous bestselling books over the last few decades, from The Great Boom Ahead in 1992 to Zero Hour in 2017. In 2019, Harry published his latest book Spending Waves, where he shares decades of extensive research covering over 200 businesses across 14 different industries to give readers insight into business and investing trends for the years ahead. Connect with Harry:https://harrydent.com/Meet Loral Langemeier:Loral Langemeier is a money expert, sought-after speaker, entrepreneurial thought leader, and best-selling author of five books.Her goal: to change the conversations people have about money worldwide and empower people to become millionaires.The CEO and Founder of Live Out Loud, Inc. – a multinational organization — Loral relentlessly and candidly shares her best advice without hesitation or apology. What sets her apart from other wealth experts is her innate ability to recognize and acknowledge the skills & talents of people, inspiring them to generate wealth.She has created, nurtured, and perfected a 3-5 year strategy to make millions for the “Average Jill and Joe.” To date, she and her team have served thousands of individuals worldwide and created hundreds of millionaires through wealth-building education keynotes, workshops, products, events, programs, and coaching services.Loral is truly dedicated to...
In this compelling episode, renowned economist Harry Dent shares his unconventional journey and insights into the world of economics, challenging traditional theories with his practical approach. Having honed his analytical skills at Harvard Business School, Dent shifted his focus from the corporate sphere to aiding small businesses and individual investors. His groundbreaking research on generational spending cycles reveals a clear, predictable pattern in economic booms and busts, influenced by human behavior and life stages. This episode is more than just an economic discussion; it's a deep dive into the mind of a maverick economist who brings clarity to the complex world of finance.Loral's Takeaways:Economics, Business, And Personal Experience (01:19)Economic Trends And Predictability (03:25)Economic Cycles And Generational Spending Patterns (08:59)Demographic And Economic Trends In China And India (14:46)Economic Bubbles And Inflation (25:59)Financial Asset Bubble And Its Potential Impact On Investors (31:01)Economic Bubbles And Their Impact On The Market (36:13)Meet Harry Dent:Harry S. Dent, Jr. is a best-selling author and one of the most outspoken financial editors in America. Using proprietary research, Harry developed a unique method for studying economies around the world, and uses his analysis to provide insights on what to expect in the future. Instead of focusing on endless graphs that assume people behave rationally, Harry instead looks at real people, making real economic decisions for themselves and their families. He combines demographics with actual spending to inform his research. Harry received his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. He then joined Bain & Company as a Fortune 100 business consultant and now heads the independent research firm HS Dent Publishing. Since then, he's spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world about demographics and the power of identifying different trends. Harry has appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN, Fox News and is a regular guest on Fox Business. He has also been featured in Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Harry has written numerous bestselling books over the last few decades, from The Great Boom Ahead in 1992 to Zero Hour in 2017. In 2019, Harry published his latest book Spending Waves, where he shares decades of extensive research covering over 200 businesses across 14 different industries to give readers insight into business and investing trends for the years ahead. Connect with Harry:https://harrydent.com/ Meet Loral Langemeier:Loral Langemeier is a money expert, sought-after speaker, entrepreneurial thought leader, and best-selling author of five books.Her goal: to change the conversations people have about money worldwide and empower people to become millionaires.The CEO and Founder of Live Out Loud, Inc. – a multinational organization — Loral relentlessly and candidly shares her best advice without hesitation or apology. What sets her apart from other wealth experts is her innate ability to recognize and acknowledge the skills & talents of people, inspiring them to generate wealth.She has created, nurtured, and perfected a 3-5 year strategy to make millions for the “Average Jill and Joe.” To date, she and her team have served thousands of individuals worldwide and created hundreds of...
About Steve Kraus:Steve Kraus is a partner at Bessemer in the Cambridge office and a world-renowned healthcare investor. He is the author of Bessemer's 10 Laws of Healthcare, Benchmarks for Growing Health tech Businesses, and is a co-host of A Healthy Dose podcast. Steve currently sits on the boards of Bright Health Group, Headspace Health, Groups, Qventus, AspenRx, HouseRx, Oshi Health, Folx Health, Mural Health, Alcresta and US Health Partners.Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve worked for a growth-stage, private equity firm and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He has also worked on several different political campaigns throughout his career.He serves as an Observer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an advisor to Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Business School's Center for Entrepreneurship, and on the investment committees of BCBS Massachusetts and Rock Health.Steve graduated from summa cum laude from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar.Things You'll Learn:With a dedicated healthcare practice for over 40 years, Bessemer brings a unique advantage by integrating partners with diverse industry expertise and networks. This approach allows them to make strategic investments in various industries, including healthcare, software as a service, fintech, consumer, and crypto.The Intersection of Healthcare and AI: One of the fascinating topics discussed is how Bessemer leverages the convergence of healthcare and AI.By combining Bessemer's healthcare team's knowledge with a deep AI team, they have built one of the most extensive portfolios in healthcare AI today. This focus on innovation and emerging technologies positions them to tap into the potential of AI to drive down costs, improve outcomes, and revolutionize the healthcare industry.Navigating the Current Landscape: With recent economic challenges, including market downturns and valuation adjustments, the VC industry has faced some headwinds. However, Steve Krause highlights that the current valuation reset has created opportunities for investors.Steve emphasizes that the healthcare sector, in particular, holds immense potential, and as the public markets open up, the next cohort of healthcare tech companies will emerge, propelling the industry forward.Resources:Connect with and follow Steve Kraus on LinkedIn.Follow Bessemer on LinkedIn and visit their website.
About Steve Kraus:Steve Kraus is a partner at Bessemer in the Cambridge office and a world-renowned healthcare investor. He is the author of Bessemer's 10 Laws of Healthcare, Benchmarks for Growing Health tech Businesses, and is a co-host of A Healthy Dose podcast. Steve currently sits on the boards of Bright Health Group, Headspace Health, Groups, Qventus, AspenRx, HouseRx, Oshi Health, Folx Health, Mural Health, Alcresta and US Health Partners.Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve worked for a growth-stage, private equity firm and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He has also worked on several different political campaigns throughout his career.He serves as an Observer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an advisor to Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Business School's Center for Entrepreneurship, and on the investment committees of BCBS Massachusetts and Rock Health.Steve graduated from summa cum laude from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar.Things You'll Learn:With a dedicated healthcare practice for over 40 years, Bessemer brings a unique advantage by integrating partners with diverse industry expertise and networks. This approach allows them to make strategic investments in various industries, including healthcare, software as a service, fintech, consumer, and crypto.The Intersection of Healthcare and AI: One of the fascinating topics discussed is how Bessemer leverages the convergence of healthcare and AI.By combining Bessemer's healthcare team's knowledge with a deep AI team, they have built one of the most extensive portfolios in healthcare AI today. This focus on innovation and emerging technologies positions them to tap into the potential of AI to drive down costs, improve outcomes, and revolutionize the healthcare industry.Navigating the Current Landscape: With recent economic challenges, including market downturns and valuation adjustments, the VC industry has faced some headwinds. However, Steve Krause highlights that the current valuation reset has created opportunities for investors.Steve emphasizes that the healthcare sector, in particular, holds immense potential, and as the public markets open up, the next cohort of healthcare tech companies will emerge, propelling the industry forward.Resources:Connect with and follow Steve Kraus on LinkedIn.Follow Bessemer on LinkedIn and visit their website.
In this episode you will learn:00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:37 - Productivity of Agriculture in India00:05:34 - Why Manufacturing isn't where it's supposed to be00:06:54 - Opportunities for Tech Investment in Agriculture00:07:59 - Omnivore's Investment Focus00:09:27 - Life Sciences00:11:28 - Can ALT protein address protein deficiency in the Indian diet?00:13:52 - Structural Changes in Diet00:19:04 - Opportunities in Life Sciences00:23:05 - Policy Changes for Agriculture00:27:52 - Land Reforms and Digitization00:30:30 - Leasing Land00:33:34 - Entrepreneurial Talent in Agri Tech00:36:42 - Diverse Business Models in Agri Tech00:38:06 - IPOs in Agri Tech00:40:07 - Small Holder Farming00:41:23 - Drawing Wisdom from Rudyard KiplingAbout:Mark co-founded Omnivore with Jinesh Shah in 2010. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, one of India's foremost diversified agribusiness companies. At Godrej Agrovet, Mark was responsible for corporate strategy, M&A, R&D, and new business incubation. Earlier in his career, Mark worked for Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (Honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.
Courtney Leimkuhler is the co-founder and managing partner of Springbank Collective, an early-stage investment firm focused on building the infrastructure to close the gender gap. By investing in companies creating the tools, technology, and services that support women and working families, Springbank's goal is to catalyze the new care economy and the future of inclusive work. Before founding Springbank, Courtney was the Chief Financial Officer of Marsh, the world's leading corporate insurance broker with 35,000 employees in over 100 countries. Previously, Courtney spent a decade at the New York Stock Exchange from pre-IPO through the sale of the public company in 2013. She served as a member of the Management Committee and the Head of Corporate Strategy and M&A during a transformational period for the company and the global exchange industry. Courtney began her career at Goldman Sachs. Courtney serves as a board member or advisor to several fintech and insurtech companies, including New Front, Orchard, Coverwallet (sold to Aon in 2020), Betterment, and Asta Capital. Courtney is a graduate of Harvard College summa cum laude and Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar. Courtney and her husband live in New York City with their two daughters. In this episode of Takin' Care of Lady Business®, Jennifer Justice speaks with Courtney Leimkuhler, a seasoned professional with a background in financial services began her career at Goldman Sachs, gaining valuable experience in electronic trading, fintech, and regulatory matters. However, she decided to take a year off to travel and reflect on her career goals, giving her a unique perspective on navigating career paths and taking risks. Courtney believes in letting go of the idea that there is a specific path or set of boxes to check off to achieve success. Instead, she emphasizes the importance of being prepared to make the best of whatever opportunities come along and being open to alternative ways of acquiring skills. Her experiences, from starting in a traditional role at Goldman Sachs to co-founding Spring Bank, a company focused on building better childcare and making paid leave universal, have taught her the value of embracing flexibility, seizing unexpected opportunities, and adaptability. Here is what to expect on this week's show: Learn the importance of trusting your instincts when making career decisions. Discover why you should be adaptable and willing to take calculated risks to achieve career growth. Why you should align your career decisions with societal challenges and find ways to make a positive difference. Understand how to critically evaluate advice and make decisions based on your unique circumstances. Quotes: “We have massive problems to solve. I'm talking about one of them. But we have some really big societal challenges that I'd love to see more smart people with experience, without experience, engineering, everyone working together." - Courtney Leimkuhler “My perception was like those practical and logistical supports were actually the main barrier and the way we worked was the problem." - Courtney Leimkuhler "I think just sort of letting go very early on of this idea that there is a path and there's a specific set of boxes you're trying to check off has proved to be very valuable to me over the rest of my career." - Courtney Leimkuhler “Nothing is objectively bad or good. It's sort of trying to understand what is the set of experiences that is leading to this piece of advice and do I think that those sets of experiences are actually relevant to me in this circumstance." - Courtney Leimkuhler This episode is sponsored by Medjet. Medjet is the top-rated air medical transport and crisis response membership for travelers. If you're hospitalized while traveling or your safety is threatened abroad, they get you home. Join Medjet before your next trip at Medjet.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Vikram Gandhi is a Professor at Harvard Business School, where he co-pioneered their Sustainable Investing Course, “Investing: Risk, Return & Impact.” The course won the 2021 Teaching Recognition Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education from the Financial Times. He is also a Visiting Faculty member at Tsinghua University. Vikram Gandhi is a Founding Partner at Asha Ventures, an Indian-focused impact investment fund, and a Senior Advisor to The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Growth for Good Acquisition Corporation, a Climate Tech SPAC, which recently merged with ZeroNox, a leader in commercial and industrial vehicle electrification. Prior to his teaching and investing endeavors, Vikram Gandhi was a Global Investment Banking executive for 25 years with Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. He graduated from the University of Mumbai and Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar. He is also a Chartered Accountant. Check out the Climate Finance Podcast website for more information. Topics discussed: Vikram's career transition from being a Global Investment Banking Executive to teaching at Harvard Business School and initiating Climate Venture Investment firms. The process of an alumnus coming back to Harvard Business School as a faculty member and collaborating with Shawn Cole and George Seraphim to create an award-winning course. Growth Drivers of Sustainable and Impact Investing. Teaching Case Studies at Harvard Business School: Investment Banks Goldman Sachs: Making an Imprint in Impact Investing Morgan Stanley: Building Long-Term Sustainability Private Equity The Rise Fund: TPG Bets Big on Impact Public Markets Generation Investment Management Public Equities Impact Investing at BlackRock State Street—The Development and Growth of SHE Engagement and Activism Engine No.1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil JANA Partners: Impact through Activism? CalSTRS Takes on Gun Violence Corporate Finance TotalEnergies CVC Investment in Hyzon Motors The Ford Motor Company Green Bond Vikram´s Investment and Entrepreneurial Engagements Asha Impact Ventures Growth for Good Acquisition Corp - Sustainability SPAC Impact Investing Potential in India (Bullish India) Personal Advice to Investors, Young Professionals, and Students interested in Climate and Sustainable Finance and Investing. Note: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice. The interview took place on 1st June 2023.
Leadership expert, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer and bestselling author of Friendly Fire Scott A. Snook discusses what he's learned over his time in the military and academia about what it takes to lead. Snook, a decorated veteran and victim of friendly fire himself, studies these incidents of tragedy as a way to make sense of — and ultimately prevent — organizational dysfunction. Among other things, they discuss why every leadership program should cover “followership” and the art of managing up; how leaders fundamentally cannot control outcomes, and can only shift the odds; the importance of finding the right balance between high challenge and high support; and why ultimately, what leaders need most is self-awareness and self-acceptance — or, in other words, to be both socially intelligent and secure. Learn about: 11:42 How Scott describes leadership 14:13 The deep connection between leadership and “followership” 19:00 The organizational lessons from a “friendly fire” incident 23:45 Why your core values are so critical for leaders 28:58 The worst attribute in a leader 29:52 The intersection of high performance, high support and high challenge 38:22 Scott's summary lessons for leaders — Scott A. Snook graduated with honors from West Point, earning the Royal Society of Arts Award for the most outstanding overall cadet in his class. Following graduation, he was commissioned in the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he served in various command and staff positions for over 22 years, earning the rank of Colonel before retiring in 2002. He has led soldiers in combat. Among his military decorations are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Master Parachutist badge. He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar. Dr. Snook earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Organizational Behavior, winning the Sage-Louis Pondy Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management for his study of the Friendly Fire Shootdown in Northern Iraq. Until July of 2002, Colonel Snook served as an Academy Professor in the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department at the United States Military Academy. He also directed West Point's Center for Leadership and Organizations Research as well as its joint Master's Program in Leader Development. Scott's passion is to help others live more "meaning-full" lives. More specifically, he is interested in unpacking and understanding transformational leader (human) development experiences --how to make the most out of life's curriculum, as well as how to create high-leverage/high-impact interventions to accelerate the growth of leaders. Professor Snook's book Friendly Fire was selected by the Academy of Management to receive the 2002 Terry Award as the most influential book on managerial thinking published during the past two years. He has also co-authored a book that explores the role of "common sense" in leadership titled, Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life (2000) and co-edited The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being (2011). Most recently, he co-authored The Discover Your True North Fieldbook (2015), which is the primary text for “Authentic Leader Development,” the popular MBA elective he has taught for over 10 years. Professor Snook has shared his leadership insights in formal executive education programs at Harvard and with numerous corporate audiences around the world. ABOUT LET GO & LEAD Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers. Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world. Full episodes also available on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M — Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Rick and Kaleem have a fun chat with Brian Elliott, Executive Leader and the former SVP and Executive Director of Slack's Future Forum. Brian is a graduate of Northwestern University and a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School. After a brief moment of wondering how we could share the same room with Brian, we quickly learned he is not only a brilliant mind but a cool cat with a great sense of humor.Despite his impressive education and professional experience, Brian's goal is really very simple: to make work better for everyone. The world has moved past financial and physical capital as the determinants of success. Business challenges and competitive advantages in this century come down to people: how you attract and retain diverse talent, align them against a common purpose that engages them fully, and enable them to act with agility to achieve great things.Learn More About Brianhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/belliott/ https://futureforum.com/
In Part Three, Avanish and Allan discuss: The evolution of monetization models (3:00) Understanding the three buckets of tech partner monetization (6:45) How Procore's model resulted in much higher levels of adoption and engagement, and a much higher orientation around how to make the magic happen (10:50)How to turn ISVs from flavor-adders to the meal, into the whole meal (16:34)Allan's favorite monetization model: the reciprocity or reciprocal model (20:37) Bringing it all back to sourced revenue attribution (28:14) The importance of finding lagging and leading indications (30:33)Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent. As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society. He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential. Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders. Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark
Umaimah Mendhro is the Founder of VIDA, a global platform offering unique, sustainable, and beautifully design-driven products that aim to positively impact people's lives and overall well-being. Umaimah grew up in rural Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - with no access to formal education most of her life - but a deep passion for design and art and a drive to make a difference in the world. She paved her way to Cornell University and later Harvard Business School, and built a career in technology, working with a highly select portfolio of game-changing tech companies and managing and growing million dollar businesses. Umaimah is also the Founder of thedreamfly.org, a global initiative connecting communities in conflict around common causes with presence across four countries touching over 5,000 lives. dreamfly kickstarts seed initiatives that are 100% financially sustainable within one year.Currently, Umaimah is the Founder and President of One League, a global education institution connecting the world's highest potential talent with the world's best opportunities by offering an Ivy League Plus quality education, irrespective of financial means. Umaimah has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, and a BSc from Cornell University in Human Development with coursework in Computer Science.In This Conversation We Discuss:[00:00] Intro[01:04] The types of products Vida brings to market[02:15] The idea of VIDA goes way back[02:56] Creating her own products initially[03:58] Noticing the divide between creators and brands[05:04] The impetus of VIDA[06:16] How Umaimah got started with VIDA[08:25] How VIDA achieved product-market fit[10:01] How VIDA takes advantage of economies of scale[11:34] Sponsor: Electric Eye electriceye.io/connect[12:30] Sponsor: JSON-LD for SEO jsonld.app[14:15] How VIDA does “digital manufacturing”[15:02] Getting customers for VIDA's designers[15:55] COVID affecting VIDA's manufacturing process[18:25] VIDA pivoting to health care because of COVID[19:30] Other health-related products developed during COVID[21:25] How VIDA products evolved over time[22:45] Investing in education and empowermentResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeA collaboration between designers and makers around the world that brings original, inspiring apparel and accessories to you - creating beauty every step of the way shopvida.comConnect with Umaimah linkedin.com/in/umaimahTake the first step towards Shopify success electriceye.io/connectGet your free structured data audit for your store jsonld.appIf you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!
In this HCI Podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Bill George about his book, True North: Emerging Leader Edition. Bill George (https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamwgeorge/) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. Bill is the author of: Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Field book, Authentic Leadership, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis True North, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. He served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, and Mayo Clinic. He received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College and Bryant University. Part of the LinkedIn Podcast Network #LinkedInPresents Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon and leaving a review wherever you listen to your podcasts! Check out FindLaw at FindLaw.com. Check out Shopify at www.shopify.com/hci. Check out the HCI Academy: Courses, Micro-Credentials, and Certificates to Upskill and Reskill for the Future of Work! Check out the LinkedIn Alchemizing Human Capital Newsletter. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Future Leader. Check out Dr. Westover's book, 'Bluer than Indigo' Leadership. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership. Check out the latest issue of the Human Capital Leadership magazine. Each HCI Podcast episode (Program, ID No. 592296) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, aPHRi™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®). Each HCI Podcast episode (Program ID: 24-DP529) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) SHRM Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCPHR recertification through SHRM, as part of the knowledge and competency programs related to the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge™ (the SHRM BASK™). Human Capital Innovations has been pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute to offer educational programs that can be used towards initial eligibility and recertification of the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials. Each HCI Podcast episode qualifies for a maximum of 0.50 points. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Part Two, Avanish and Allan discuss: Understanding taxation, reciprocal, and mutuality models (3:30) The role of NRR and ARR (7:27)The “stickiness” justification when monetizing tech partnerships (9:30) Understanding universal success models (12:00) Hyperscalers (14:01) Why your go-to-market or the go-to-eco motion has to be multi-threaded(20:50) Why Allan likes to look at the journey of go-to-eco very similarly to the journey of making a product(24:30) Understanding that is incumbent on partner leaders to recognize that partner operations is not a “nice to have.”(30:29)Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent. As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society. He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential. Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders. Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark
Avanish and Allan unpack a wide range of topics to kick off this series, including:Why tech partnerships harness so much power (3:42) The role tech partnerships play between channel and alliances (5:43) The commercial envelope concept and what it means for technology partners (8:02) Distinguishing between the strategy and the platform business model (10:34) Going to market directly vs. going to market through an ecosystem (12:00) Where does the customer fit in? (15:40) Why is digital transformation happening, and what does it mean for customers? (20:26) The important CEO to CPO conversation that needs to be had (24:13) And much more!Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent. As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society. He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential. Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders. Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark
Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, Ph.D. student Nai Kalema and MPA alumni Justin Beirold talk to IIPP Visiting Professor of Practice, Damon Silvers. For over 30 years, Damon has been a leading voice in the US labour movement. He tells Justin and Nai how he got involved in labour activism during the dining hall worker strikes and anti-apartheid protests when he was an undergraduate at Harvard. He talks about how the labour movement has changed over his career, and how we are now at a crucial inflection point for aligning the objectives of unions, environmental activism, and innovation policy. As Damon is also a scholar of constitutional law, he also provides a lengthy explanation of the recent right-wing supreme court rulings in the US, and how we might be able to overcome them. This is a long interview - the longest we have done so far on this podcast. But it is also a really good conversation! So rather than cutting it into pieces, we've provided a few time stamps so you can skip around if you desire. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Damon Silvers! ******* - 3 min 40 sec: Damon's life journey, undergraduate labour activism. - 29 min 30 sec: the anti-apartheid movement - 35 minutes: How Damon started working for unions - 44 min 30 sec: The past, present, and future of the organised labour - 59 min 30 sec: Joining IIPP, and his lectures on "Climate Change, innovation, and the labour movement." - 1 hr 33 min: The US Supreme Court rulings of Summer 2022 ********Guest Bio: Damon A. Silvers a Visiting Professor in Labour Markets and Innovation at the UCL IIPP. He is on sabbatical from the AFL-CIO where is has served as the Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO. He joined the AFL-CIO as Associate General Counsel in 1997. From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Silvers served as the Deputy Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. Mr. Silvers has also served on the Treasury Department's Financial Research Advisory Committee, as the Chair of the Competition Subcommittee of the United States Treasury Department Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession and as a member of the United States Treasury Department Investor's Practice Committee of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. Mr. Silvers led the successful efforts to restore pensions to the retirees of Cannon Mills lost in the Executive Life collapse and the severance owed to laid off Enron and WorldCom workers following the collapse of those companies. He served from 2003 to 2006 as pro bono Counsel to the Chairman of ULLICO, Inc. and in that capacity led the successful effort to recover over $50 million related to improperly paid executive compensation. Mr. Silvers received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School. He received his M.B.A. with high honors from Harvard Business School and is a Baker Scholar. Mr. Silvers is a graduate of Harvard College, summa cum laude, and has studied history at Kings College, Cambridge University. Recorded in Summer 2022 *******-Check out Damon's IIPP lectures on Labour, Innovation, and Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u34XWAmzeJ0 -Blog: "The End of the Roberts Court" https://damonsilvers.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-roberts-court -Follow Damon on Twitter:@DamonSilvers -See Damon's full bio: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/people/damon-silvers Learn about our hosts: - Justin Beirold - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/justin-beirold - Nai Kalema - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/nai-lee-kalema -Follow IIPP on Twitter: @IIPP_UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/ -Production and music by Justin Beirold
How do you go from being literally dirt poor to becoming a serial entrepreneur responsible for founding, investing in, or serving on the board of over 100 companies? How can an eagerness to learn and serve shape your life in a way that influences local and global communities for the better? Listen as our guest shares his path from a subsistence farm life to one filled with “FinTech” and “Impact investing,” the importance of knowing what you are good at and creating a dream team to handle the rest, and how a willingness to serve can open doors to amazing opportunities for growth. Wade T. Myers, a serial entrepreneur, advisor, investor, author, and speaker, has turned a lifetime of learning into a multi-faceted career that impacts local and global communities. Growing up on a subsistence farm in North Dakota, Wade worked his way through intermediate grades, high school, and college while also enlisting in the Army Reserves. After graduating, Wade went active duty in the Army Corps of Engineers before volunteering for Ranger School, ultimately completing Airborne training and then commanding a special weapons unit. Ever in pursuit of knowledge, Wade decided to get a graduate degree in Computer Information Systems while on active duty. When he left active duty, he was recruited to work at Mobil Corporation in their plastics division until he was called up to serve in the Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. Upon returning home, Wade knew that he wanted to buy or start a company so to learn how to do so he attended Harvard Business School and graduated with an MBA as a Baker Scholar. Following a post-graduate stint with the prestigious Boston Consulting Group, Wade started his career as a serial entrepreneur. Since then, Wade has founded, invested in, or served on the board of over 100 companies. In addition to his own entrepreneurship, Wade has an advisory focus to help startup entrepreneurs achieve their vision. Wade is also a featured speaker at conferences and has taught seminars at business schools. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Agricultural Economics from North Dakota State University, a Master's degree in Computer Information Systems from Texas A&M University Central Texas, and an MBA as a Baker Scholar at Harvard. He has five children and currently lives with his wife, Lisa, in Westover Hills, Texas. Bigger Than Business is the show where you'll discover real-world stories of business owners living their purpose. You'll encounter men and women all over the world who draw strength from understanding why they do what they do and how they remain true to that purpose through the ups and downs every business owner will face. www.thecapitalchartroom.com
Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. In the search for life's purpose, Bill George has an authentic perspective. His brilliant insight hones in on the characteristics needed to shape the next generation of leaders, inspiring others through courage, empathy, and vision for the future. In his latest remastering of the subject, The Emerging Leaders Edition of North, Bill explores the topic of leadership with top executives of the business world with honest conversation about their fears, failures, and ultimately how they overcame those hardships and emerged successful. Bill George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. Bill is the author of: Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Field book, Authentic Leadership, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis True North, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. He served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, and Mayo Clinic. He received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College and Bryant University. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… emerging leaders and seasoned professionals alike who wish to find their purpose and lead with their hearts full of passion and courage. TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… the real magic happens when business leaders, employees, and customers alike can align their values with the values of the business. This creates genuine value for the company and inspires the public view of your brand. WHAT I LOVE MOST… Bill has a practical approach to leadership that involves empathy from the bottom up. In his view, the only way to be a successful leader is understanding the needs of workers across all levels of the business spectrum to create a sense of belonging and inclusion. Running time: 30:36 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Find Bill on social: Website Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Brian's Book: True North Emerging Leader Edition
Nihar Bobba hosts Seema Amble, a partner focused on fintech investments at a16z. She primarily focuses on B2B fintech, such as payments, CFO tools, and vertical software, globally. She serves on the boards of Mvmnt and Stoik. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Seema had been investing in fintech for over a decade. She was a vice president at Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, a venture growth fund, where she focused on leading investments in fintech and Latin America. Previously, she worked at LeapFrog Investments, an emerging markets fund, and at Altamont Capital Partners. She began her career at Blackstone. Seema also worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while in law school. Seema has a BA in Economics, magna cum laude, and a JD/MBA from Harvard University, where she was a Baker Scholar. In this episode you will hear about: - Seema's path into fintech - Her thoughts on fintech business models in emerging markets - Why she's excited about b2b payments, and a whole lot more
Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking
Welcome to an episode with Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic and currently a professor at Harvard Business School. He has written two of the most enduring leadership classics of all time: Authentic Leadership and True North. Now, Bill has written a new book aimed at the next generation of leaders, the Emerging Leaders Edition of True North, coauthored with millennial entrepreneur Zach Clayton. Get Bill's new book here. This book is a clarion call to emerging leaders to step up to lead their organizations with their hearts, not just their heads, as authentic leaders who lead with purpose by inspiring and coaching their teammates. It heralds the end of the baby boomer era of Jack Welch, when too many leaders focused on maximizing shareholder value and taking shortcuts rather than building sustainable enterprises to serve all of their stakeholders. Our best hope for a better world is to empower the next generation of emerging leaders – not just those on top – to follow their True North to make this world better for everyone. The stories in this book, which came from 220 interviews with exceptional leaders, illustrate that most authentic leaders first discovered their True North through their life stories and crucibles, developed self-awareness, and then found their North Star – the purpose of their leadership. Wisdom learned from leaders like Satya Nadella, Mary Barra, Ken Frazier, Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, and Hubert Joly will guide emerging leaders at all levels in their development. Bill joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Field Book, Authentic Leadership, Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. He has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, and Mayo Clinic. He received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College, and Bryant University. True North: Leading Authentically in Today's Workplace, Emerging Leader Edition. Bill George & Zach Clayton. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
Tina Bou-Saba is Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at Verity Venture Partners, an early-stage consumer-focused investment firm. Verity Venture Partners invests in purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are building the next generation of great consumer companies, including emerging brands and the technologies that enable them. Tina has been actively investing since 2016 through CXT Investments, her personal investment vehicle, with a focus on beauty, personal care, health and wellness, e-commerce, and enabling technology. Tina is a problem solver, creative and independent thinker, and trusted partner to entrepreneurs, with sharp instincts for commercial opportunities. After starting her career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley, she covered retail as an equity analyst at Sanford Bernstein and Berman Capital, and has broad knowledge of the industry from mass to specialty to e-commerce. As a member of the strategy team at Victoria's Secret, Tina worked closely with VS leadership to commercialize new business opportunities, and led extensive quantitative and qualitative customer research. She attended Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College, and Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/skincareanarchy/message
Former Medtronic CEO and current professor, Bill George shares foundational principles for excelling as a leader in today's world of work. — YOU'LL LEARN — 1) What a “true north” is and why it's so critical 2) The top three distractions leaders must overcome 3) Powerful questions to clarify your purpose Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep812 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT BILL — Bill George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. Bill is the author of: Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Field book, Authentic Leadership, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis True North, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. He served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, and Mayo Clinic. He received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College and Bryant University. • Book: True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership • Book: True North: Leading Authentically in Today's Workplace, Emerging Leader Edition — RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Researcher: Richard Davidson• Book: Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge • Past episode: 371: The Keys That Make a Great Team with Don YaegerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Upasana Unni is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sayata, a marketplace where wholesale brokers can find small business insurance from multiple carriers in just a few minutes. Upasana oversees market partnerships and carrier relationships and says insurance remains a relationships business, with people on the phone. Insurance remains a very relationship-driven place, needing well-respected voices making the calls to place business. She does not see a zero-touch digital-only experience being possible in more complex insurance areas like commercial and speciality lines. Brokers need support on the 20% of policies that do not fly through the underwriting/renewal process, and to learn where to place policies in speciality markets like cyber. In the current state of insurtech evolution, insurance carriers still own the product and MGA insurtechs' own distribution. Carriers have tried to launch or buy their own marketplaces, but there is a disincentive to list on that marketplace if you are an agent who does not work with that carrier and seek truly neutral offers. They tend to buy marketplaces that do not have a profitable, growth-ready customer acquisition process. Upasana sees tremendous growth opportunity for marketplaces. There are many more uninsured risks to cover today, for example how could insurers cover an invasion, which is considered uninsurable much the same as cyber risk was ten years ago. Upasana sees a future evolving where insurtech MGAs are acquiring their own capital and becoming full-stack insurers. Upasana is actively seeking candidates in various roles at Sayata so get in touch with her to find out more! Previously, Upasana spent 10 years at McKinsey & Co. as an Associate Partner guiding blue-chip insurers to develop digital strategies and build platforms for digital risk placement. Upasana served over a dozen carriers on topics ranging from board strategy, portfolio optimization, capital strategy, and operating model transformation. Upasana is a graduate of Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar and holds a Bachelor's, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.
Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 274, an episode with Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic and currently a professor at Harvard Business School. He has written two of the most enduring leadership classics of all time: Authentic Leadership and True North. Now, Bill has written a new book aimed at the next generation of leaders, the Emerging Leaders Edition of True North, coauthored with millennial entrepreneur Zach Clayton. Get Bill's new book here. This book is a clarion call to emerging leaders to step up to lead their organizations with their hearts, not just their heads, as authentic leaders who lead with purpose by inspiring and coaching their teammates. It heralds the end of the baby boomer era of Jack Welch, when too many leaders focused on maximizing shareholder value and taking shortcuts rather than building sustainable enterprises to serve all of their stakeholders. Our best hope for a better world is to empower the next generation of emerging leaders – not just those on top – to follow their True North to make this world better for everyone. The stories in this book, which came from 220 interviews with exceptional leaders, illustrate that most authentic leaders first discovered their True North through their life stories and crucibles, developed self-awareness, and then found their North Star – the purpose of their leadership. Wisdom learned from leaders like Satya Nadella, Mary Barra, Ken Frazier, Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, and Hubert Joly will guide emerging leaders at all levels in their development. Bill joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Field Book, Authentic Leadership, Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. He has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, and Mayo Clinic. He received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College, and Bryant University. True North: Leading Authentically in Today's Workplace, Emerging Leader Edition. Bill George & Zach Clayton. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
Sharing his philosophy and process for owning great businesses is Cory Whitaker, Founder, and CIO at Bowie Capital, who, like the legendary Peter Lynch, articulates clarity, passion, and conviction, even going back to his early teens when he bought Nike and still owns to this day. Cory launched Bowie Capital Management in 2014, serves as an advisory director for Petrus Trust Company, the trustee for the Perot family's trusts, and serves on the advisory board of the Terry Foundation. He has over 25 years of personal and professional investing experience across all major asset classes. Prior to founding Bowie, Cory was the portfolio manager for public equities and sourced/ executed private equity and debt investments at Perot Investments. Prior to Perot, he worked in New York as an investment associate with J.P. Morgan Partners in private equity and as an investment banking analyst with Citigroup. Cory was born in Bowie, Texas, hence the name of his firm. He graduated summa cum laude from Texas A&M University where he attended as a Terry Scholar and earned a BBA in Accounting and MS in Finance. He was active in the Corps of Cadets and student government. Cory also earned his MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School where he was designated a Baker Scholar and awarded the John Loeb Fellowship as the top finance graduate. He is also a CFA Charterholder. Disclaimer: All podcast discussions represent only the views and opinions of the host and guests. This podcast in no way constitutes investment advice and is not an offer to buy or sell any products or services.
For the past thirty years David J. Collis has been a professor at the Harvard Business School, where he was only the second ever full-time Adjunct Professor appointed, having also completed five years as the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Business Administration at the Yale School of Management and two years as a professor at Columbia Business School. The winner of the 50th Anniversary McKinsey Award for the best article in the Harvard Business Review in 2008, and a Harvard Business Review best-selling author, he is an expert on corporate strategy and global competition, and is the author of the recent books International Strategy: Context, Concepts and Choices; Corporate Strategy (with Cynthia Montgomery); and Corporate Headquarters (with Michael Goold and David Young). As the author of over thirty articles and book chapters, his work has been frequently published in the Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and in many books including Managing the Multibusiness Company, International Competitiveness, and Beyond Free Trade. The over one hundred cases and articles he has authored have sold nearly 2.5 million copies, with over 14,000 citations. David Collis received an M.A. (1976) with a Double First from Cambridge University where he was the Wrenbury Scholar of the University. He graduated as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, MBA (1978), and received a Ph.D. (1986) in Business Economics at Harvard University where he was a Dean's Doctoral Fellow. From 1978 to 1982 he worked for the Boston Consulting Group in London. He is currently a consultant to several major U.S. corporations, and on the Board of Directors of Cambridge in America, the Board of Trustees of the Hult International Business School, and the Advisory Boards of Vivaldi Partners, Muzzy Lane and formerly of Walter Scott, PICIS, Ocean Spray, and WebCT. He is also the cofounder of the elearning company E-Edge, and the advisory firm Ludlow Partners. Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/david-collis/ for the original video interview.
Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week we had the man, the myth, the legend Ram Charan on the show to talk about his business consulting experience. Ram is a world-renowned business advisor, author, and speaker who has spent the past 40 years working with many top companies, CEOs, and boards of our time. Fortune magazine has called him "the most influential consultant alive." Ram began his business education early in his life while working in the family shoe shop in northern India. As a young engineer, his bosses recognized his business talent and encouraged him to develop it. He went on to earn MBA and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School, where he graduated with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar. He has written over 30 books that have sold more than 4 million copies in more than a dozen languages. Three were Wall Street Journal bestsellers, and Execution, co-authored with former Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy, spent more than 150 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… business leaders that are looking to hone in on a clear, decisive strategy for goal setting and achievement in the workplace. TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… What does it mean for a company to have a successful growth period? Well, that actually depends on the context of historical past data used as a baseline comparison to metrics from the current year. Success must be measurable, and by using “key performance indicators” we can set our own definitions of success and begin to determine for ourselves just what it means to be successful. WHAT I LOVE MOST… During the hiring process, managers are looking to select the right person for the job, but Ram insightfully flips the question and asks if the job is right for the person. Sometimes people aren't able to showcase their full talents in certain roles, and can really come alive if you put them in the right conditions. Running time: 37:42 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Ram online: Official Website Twitter LinkedIn Ram's Book: Talent: The Market Cap Multiplier
Randy Shumway founded Cicero Group (www.cicerogroup.com) in 2001. It began humbly, with fourpeople working out of Randy's house. Today, Cicero has grown to a highly respected, global managementconsulting firm, rated one of the globe's top 50 overall consulting firms, and one of the five bestconsulting firms in the world to work for, with offices located across the United States.In 2016, Randy was awarded Utah's CEO of the Year and in 2017, Randy was recognized with Utah'sLifetime Accomplishment award.Randy's vision in founding the company was for Cicero to reside at the crossroads of data, strategy, andtransformation, with Cicero helping organizations – both traditional for-profit operations as well as non-profit and educational institutions – make and implement better, evidence-based decisions.During his 21 years at Cicero, Randy has led multiple strategy, transformation and operational excellenceengagements for Fortune 1000 clients as well as non-profits and government entities. His experiencespans such sectors as High Tech, Telecommunications, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Financial Services,Non-Profit, Government, and Education.Prior to starting Cicero, Randy was an Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Answerthink(Nasdaq: ANSR), a 2,500-person global consulting firm. Before completing graduate school, Randyworked for Bain & Company and Dow Chemical.From 2010 - 2019, Randy served as Economic Advisor to Zions Bank and as an Adjunct Professor ofStrategy at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business.Today, Randy serves on the University of Utah Board of Trustees and on the State of Utah HomelessBoard. He serves on two corporate boards, a publicly traded software company and a privately heldhospitality company, and multiple state and community volunteer, service-oriented boards. He is aprolific author in the Deseret News and in Forbes regarding effective education and economic publicpolicy.Randy obtained his MBA from Harvard Business School, graduating with highest academic honors(Baker Scholar). He earned bachelor's degrees in Business Management and in Political Science fromBrigham Young University. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, having lived in Taiwan for two years as avolunteer Christian missionary.Randy is married to Maureen Shumway and is the father of five. Maureen has a Bachelor of Science inNursing and a Master of Science in Early Childhood Development. She is a pediatric nurse at PrimaryChildren's Hospital and is currently completing her Doctor of Nurse Practitioner, Pediatrics at theUniversity of Utah. The Shumways live in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Michael Graffeo, CEO of Fluidform, is a senior executive with a proven track record in the commercialization of innovative medical technology. Throughout his career, he has gained extensive experience translating highly complex devices and clinical data into successful businesses, both in the US and globally. Mike holds a BS in Engineering Physics and an M.Eng in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, as well as an MBA with high distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School.
The HR department's priorities, processes, and tools have changed in the past couple of years. New research from TrustRadius, a popular review website for business technology, underscores the extent of the transformation and gives a glimpse of what lies ahead in 2022.Using data sourced from more than 700 HR pros across the country, the 2022 HR Trends Report breaks down some of the biggest trends on the horizon for HR departments and the workplace in general, from the continued impact of The Great Resignation and technology's role in DEI efforts to work-life balance and spending forecasting.Joining Bill on the HRchat show to talk about the findings is Vinay Bhagat, founder and CEO of TrustRadius, a site helping buyers make better product decisions based on unbiased and insightful reviews. Questions Include:Tell us about TrustRadius' 2022 HR Trends Report: why it was conducted, the demographics of respondents, and who the findings are aimed at. What findings from TrustRadius's recent 2022 HR Trends Report do you find most interesting and why? Was there anything from the report that surprised you?What are your thoughts on the “Great Resignation” and how do you think companies can position themselves for success amidst ongoing talent shortages? How do you see DEI investments and efforts expanding in 2022 and beyond? Which vendors are doing a good job helping to provide solutions for rollout, adoption etc? More About VinayVinay is an entrepreneur passionate about improving the software buying process so professionals like HR teams can make better decisions for their organizations. Vinay started TrustRadius after experiencing challenges when buying enterprise solutions at his last company. In 1999, Vinay founded Convio, the leading Software as a Services platform for nonprofits. In April 2010, Convio became a public company, and was acquired in May 2012 for $325 million. Prior to Convio, Vinay was at Trilogy Software and Bain & Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, an MS Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University, and a MA Engineering Information Sciences from Cambridge University with First Class Honors. When he's not working, Vinay loves spending time with his family, playing squash and racing cars.We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast, and Iceni Media Inc.
A special Spring Meeting edition of ULI Toronto's 12th annual Fireside Chat took place in 2020 with Gary Berman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Director, Tricon. Since joining Tricon in 2002, Mr. Berman has built on the company's 30+ year history of innovation and continuous improvement to help transform Tricon from a private provider of equity and mezzanine capital to the for-sale housing industry to a publicly listed, residential real estate company with a clear focus on rental housing in North America. Tricon is the third-largest public owner of single-family rental homes in the U.S. and recently acquired a major portfolio of multi-family properties in the U.S. sunbelt. The Selby, the first of Tricon's purpose-built rental buildings in Toronto, was FRPO's Residential Development of the Year in 2019. Mr. Berman is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and serves on the Board of Governors of the Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, where he was designated a Baker Scholar and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University.
Martha Notaras serves as Independent Director of the Company. Ms. Notaras is Managing Partner at Brewer Lane Ventures. Prior to joining Brewer Lane, Ms. Notaras was a Partner at XL Innovate, investing in insurtech, including startups focused on data & analytics and new business models. XL Innovate's investments include Lemonade, Embroker, New Energy Risk, Notion, Cape Analytics, Slice Labs, Pillar Technologies and Stonestep. Ms. Notaras served on the boards of: Cape Analytics, which leverages geospatial imagery, computer vision, and machine learning to deliver more accurate property data; Pillar Technologies, an end-to-end environmental monitoring solution to reduce risk at construction sites and in commercial buildings; GeoQuant, creator of a revolutionary platform for measuring political risk in real time, using machine learning; and Notion, an IoT home awareness solution provider, which reduces risk for insurers and homeowners. Ms. Notaras continues as a board observer at Cape Analytics and Pillar Technologies. Previously, Ms. Notaras ran corporate development for DMG Information, the business data and analytics division of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc. Of the 20 investments Ms. Notaras made at DMG Information, two achieved valuations over $1 billion. Ms. Notaras has served as board director for many early and growth stage companies focusing on fintech, insurtech, proptech, edtech and digital media. Ms. Notaras's prior experience includes investment banking at Merrill Lynch and commercial banking at Credit Suisse. Ms. Notaras earned her A.B. cum laude from Princeton University and her MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, awarded for graduating in the top five percent of the class. Highlights from the Show Martha Notaras is a venture capital investor who started investing in data and analytics companies over 25 years ago, including RMS when it was still very small Having focused on later stage companies, she shifted to earlier stage companies when Tom Hutton, who had been the CEO at RMS, went to XL to launch their CVC, XL Innovate, and asked Martha to join right before the wave of InsurTech (or the word) took off Some of their investments included companies like Lemonade, Zendrive, Cape Analytics, Emrboker and Slide Labs This gave Martha great insight into what makes selling into insurance so tough and what having insurers as your customers means At XL Innovate, Martha and the team focused on P&C, while her move to her current firm, Brewer Lane, has allowed her to look across P&C, Life, Health and solutions around all of those spaces and FinTech, too Brewer Lane also takes an earlier stage focus, which has been fun because it allows Martha to engage in things when they're still forming rather than when so much is already fixed, as it can be with later stage companies, allowing for investors to be able to pull more levers to help the business When funding is so plentiful, as it is today, what the VC offers is so much more important than when money is tighter as you can really look for a better fit in your investor BL has a framework for selecting investments in InsurTech and FinTech, with four kinds of companies Engagement Layer - companies that reach out to customers as their primary business, like Hi Marley Risk & Analytics - things that drive better risk selection, understanding and decision making around it, like Cape Analytics (for jer fifth time) and Codoxo Infrastructure - core systems, like Socotra Disruptors - could be disrupting all of these categories and more, like Ladder Life, Brella and Cowbell Cyber For some of these disruptors, how do you know early on whether they have a real, robust platform that has legs? Martha shares how they looked at investments like Ladder, and how they looked for decisions Day 1 on how they can underwrite better As a VC, you can't have a single view of the future, so you need to place a few bets on different teams and operating plans that have the ability to scale One thing they're seeing is a lot of companies building APIs, especially for connecting agents, and marketplaces to connect different insurance products to other sales avenues As a VC, Martha thinks about scale - how much can your top line scale, and is it going to be enough to have an impact on the market When you are going after a large market, you have to believe you are doing something special, and that you can communicate that The quality and relationship of the founding team really matters, and was a hard thing to judge when things shifted to Zoom because you can't always read how people are interacting, interrupting, supporting, challenging, etc As advice for founders, Martha thinks you need to be sure your team doesn't just agree – you need diversity to push you outside of your comfort zone She also says you should really talk to everyone – ask questions, learn and grow This episode is brought to you by Hi Marley (himarley.com), and by the the book series, The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution by Bryan Falchuk (future-of-insurance.com). Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of UPbeat Music, available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Google Play. Just search for "UPbeat Music"
Paul Mango was the Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2019-2021. During this time, he served as Secretary Azar's formal liaison to Operation Warp Speed where he was involved in nearly all strategic, operational, and financial aspects of the program, and facilitated its day-to-day activities among the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, and the White House. Prior to his role as Deputy Chief of Staff, Paul served from 2018-2019 as the Chief of Staff at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He started his professional career as a field artillery officer in the United States Army, serving both in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC, and the 8th Infantry Division in Germany. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1981, where he graduated as a Distinguished Cadet. He received his Master's in Business Administration from Harvard University in 1988, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.
The business author and journalist is a popular Today Show and CNBC contributor, as well as the author of the New York Times bestseller 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea, a guide to values-driven decision making. Lately, Suzy has had shows on CNBC about careers, notably ‘Fix My Career: With Suzy Welch', and ‘Get To Work: With Suzy Welch', which get millions of views. She has also been a hands-on tech leader of an exciting music tech start-up (Quadio) which has 50 employees. Throughout her career, her view on leadership has changed and modernized. An assiduous writer and diary keeper since a young girl, Suzy always knew she wanted to work with storytelling and journalism. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, Suzy joined The Miami Herald as a reporter. At the newspaper, she was unexpectedly asked to cover a business conference, a world she knew nothing about but immediately fell in love with. She left daily journalism to attend Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar in 1988. She worked as a management consultant at Bain&Co. for several years before joining the Harvard Business Review, where she was named editor-in-chief in 2001. Suzy stepped down from the Harvard Business Review after becoming romantically involved with the famed business leader, Jack Welch. Jack and her have been happily married for the 13 years since. Between them, Jack and Suzy have 8 children – 4 each from previous marriages. Suzy and Jack form a real team, together they have written several books, a weekly column on business and career challenges that appeared in BusinessWeek magazine from 2005 to 2009, and founded the Jack Welch Management Institute, ranked as one of the top online MBA programs in the world. The Caring Economy made it onto FeedSpots Top 30 CSR Podcasts Don't forget to check out my book that inspired this podcast series, The Caring Economy: How to Win With Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toby-usnik/support
About MatthewMatthew Prince is co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. Cloudflare's mission is to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world's largest networks, which spans more than 200 cities in over 100 countries. Matthew is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, winner of the 2011 Tech Fellow Award, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. Matthew holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a George F. Baker Scholar and awarded the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship. He is a member of the Illinois Bar, and earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago and B.A. in English Literature and Computer Science from Trinity College. He's also the co-creator of Project Honey Pot, the largest community of webmasters tracking online fraud and abuse.Links: Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com Blog post: https://blog.cloudflare.com/aws-egregious-egress/ Bandwidth Alliance: https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/ Announcement of R2: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage/ Blog.cloudflare.com: https://blog.cloudflare.com Duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Writing ad copy to fit into a 30 second slot is hard, but if anyone can do it the folks at Quali can. Just like their Torque infrastructure automation platform can deliver complex application environments anytime, anywhere, in just seconds instead of hours, days or weeks. Visit Qtorque.io today and learn how you can spin up application environments in about the same amount of time it took you to listen to this ad.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate: is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards, while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other, which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at Honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability, it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. Today, my guest is someone I feel a certain kinship with, if for no other reason than I spend the bulk of my time antagonizing AWS incredibly publicly. And my guest periodically descends into the gutter with me to do the same sort of things. The difference is that I'm a loudmouth with a Twitter account and Matthew Prince is the co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, which is, of course, publicly traded. Matthew, thank you for deigning to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.Matthew: Corey, it's my pleasure, and appreciate you having me on.Corey: So, I'm mostly being facetious here, but not entirely, in that you have very publicly and repeatedly called out some of the same things I love calling out, which is AWS's frankly egregious egress pricing. In fact, that was a title of a blog post that you folks put out, and it was so well done I'm ashamed I didn't come up with it myself years ago. But it's something that is resonating with a large number of people in very specific circumstances as far as what their company does. Talk to me a little bit about that. Cloudflare is a CDN company and increasingly looking like something beyond that. Where do you stand on this? What got you on this path?Matthew: I was actually searching through really old emails to find something the other day, and I found a message from all the way back in 2009, so actually even before Michelle and I had come up with a name for Cloudflare. We were really just trying to understand the pricing on public clouds and breaking it all down. How much does the compute cost? How much does storage cost? How much does bandwidth cost?And we kept running the numbers over and over and over again, and the storage and compute costs actually seemed relatively reasonable and you could understand it, but the economics behind the bandwidth just made no sense. It was clear that as bandwidth usage grew and you got scale that your costs eventually effectively went to zero. And I think it was that insight that led to us starting Cloudflare. And the self-service plans at Cloudflare have always been unlimited bandwidth, and from the beginning, we didn't charge for bandwidth. People told us at the time we were crazy to not do that, but I think that that realization, that over time and at scale, bandwidth costs do go to zero is really core to who Cloudflare is.Cloudflare launched a little over 11 years ago now, and as we've watched the various public clouds and AWS in particular just really over that same 11 years not only not follow the natural price of bandwidth down, but really hold their costs steady. At some point, we've got a lot of mutual customers and it's a complaint that we hear from our mutual customers all the time, and we decided that we should do something about it. And so that started four years ago, when we launched the Bandwidth Alliance, and worked with almost all the major public clouds with the exception of Amazon, to say that if someone is sending traffic from a public cloud network to Cloudflare's network, we're not going to charge them for the bandwidth. It's going across a piece of fiber optic cable that yeah, there's some cost to put it in place and maybe there's some maintenance costs associated with it, but there's not—Corey: And the equipment at the end costs money, but it's not cloud cost; it just cost on a per second, every hour of your lifetime basis. It's a capital expense that is amortized across a number of years et cetera, et cetera.Matthew: And it's a fixed cost. It's not a variable cost. You put that fiber optic cable and you use a port on a router on each side. There's cost associated with that, but it's relatively de minimis. And so we said, “If it's not costing us anything and it's not costing a cloud provider anything, why are we charging customers for that?”And I think it's an argument that resonated with almost every other provider that was out there. And so Google discounts traffic when it's sent to us, Microsoft discounts traffic when it's sent to us, and we just announced that Oracle has joined this discounting their traffic, which was already some of the most cost-effective bandwidth from any cloud provider.Corey: Oh, yeah. Oracle's fantastic. As you were announced, I believe today, the fact that they're joining the Bandwidth Alliance is both fascinating and also, on some level, “Okay. It doesn't matter as much because their retail starting cost is 10% of Amazon's.” You have to start pushing an awful lot of traffic relative to what you would do AWS before it starts to show up. It's great to see.Matthew: And the fact that they're taking that down to effectively zero if you're using us is even better, right? And I think it again just illustrates how Amazon's really alone in this at being so egregious in how they do that. And it's, when we've done the math to calculate what their markups are, it's almost 80 times what reasonable assumptions on what their wholesale costs are. And so we really do believe in fighting for our customers and being customer-centric, and this seems like a place where—again, Amazon provides an incredible service and so many things, but the data transfer costs are just completely outrageous. And I'm glad that you're calling them out on it, and I'm glad we're calling them out on it and I think increasingly they look isolated and very anti-customer.Corey: What's interesting to me is that ingress to AWS at all the large public tier-one cloud providers is free. Which has led, I think, to the assumption—real or not—that bandwidth doesn't actually cost anything, whereas going outbound, all I can assume is that one day, some Amazon VP was watching a rerun of Meet the Parents and they got to the line where Ben Stiller says, “Oh, you can milk anything with nipples,” and said, “Holy crap. Our customers all have nipples; we can milk them with egress charges.” And here we are. As much as I think the cloud empowers some amazing stuff, the egress charges are very much an Achilles heel to a point where it starts to look like people won't even consider public cloud for certain workloads based upon that.People talk about how Netflix is a great representation of the ideal AWS customers. Yeah, but they don't stream a single byte to customers from AWS. They have their own CDN called Open Connect that they put all around the internet, specifically for that use case because it would bankrupt them otherwise.Matthew: If you're a small customer, bandwidth does cost something because you have to pay someone to do the work of interconnecting with all of the various networks that are out there. If you start to be, though, a large customer—like a Cloudflare, like an AWS, like an Azure—that is sending serious traffic to the internet, then it starts to actually be in the interest of ISPs to directly interconnect with you, and the costs of your bandwidth over time will approach zero. And that's the just economic reality of how bandwidth pricing works. I think that the confusion, to some extent, comes from all of us having bought our own home internet connection. And I think that the fact that you get more bandwidth up in most internet connections, and you get down, people think that there's some physics, which is associated with that.And there are; that turns out just to be the legacy of the cable system that was really designed to send pictures down to your—Corey: It wasn't really a listening post. Yeah.Matthew: Right. And so they have dedicated less capacity for up and again, in-home network connections, that makes a ton of sense, but that's not how internet connections work globally. In fact, you pay—you get a symmetric connection. And so if they can demonstrate that it's free to take the traffic in, we can't figure out any reason that's not simply about customer lock-in; why you would charge to take data out, but you wouldn't charge to put it in. Because actually cost more from writing data to a disk, it costs more than reading it from a disk.And so by all reasonable accounts, if they were actually charging based on what their costs were, they would charge for ingress but they want to charge for egress. But the approach that we've taken is to say, “For standard bandwidth, we just aren't going to charge for it.” And we do charge for if you use our premium routing services, which is something called Argo, but even then it's relatively cheap compared with what is just standard kind of internet connectivity that's out there. And as we see more of the clouds like Microsoft and Google and Oracle show that this is a place where they can be much more customer-centric and customer-friendly, over time I'm hopeful that will put pressure on Amazon and they will eliminate their egress fees.Corey: People also tend to assume that when I talk about this, that I'm somehow complaining about the level of discounting or whatnot, and they yell at me and say, “Oh, well, you should know by now, Corey, that no one at significant scale pays retail pricing.” “Thanks, professor. I appreciate that, but four years ago, or so I sat down with a startup founder who was sketching out the idea for a live video streaming service and said, ‘There's something wrong with my math because if I built this on AWS—which he knew very well, incidentally—it looks like it would cost me at our scale of where we're hoping to hit $65,000 a minute.'” And I checked and yep, sure enough, his math was not wrong, so he obviously did not build his proof of concept on top of AWS. And the last time I checked, they had raised several 100 million dollars in a bunch of different funding rounds.That is a company now that will not be on AWS because it was never an option. I want to talk as well about your announcement of R2, which is just spectacular. It is—please correct me if I get any of this wrong—it's an object store that lives in your existing distributed-points-of-presence-slash-data-centers-slash-colo-slash-a-bunch-of-computers-in-fancy-warehouse-rooms-with-the-lights-are-always-on-And-it's-always-cold-and-noisy. And people can store data there—Matthew: [crosstalk 00:10:23] aisles it's cold; in the other aisles, it's hot. But yes.Corey: Exactly. But it turns out when you lurk around to the hot aisle, that's not where all the buttons are and the things you're able to plug into, so it's freeze or sweat, and there's never a good answer. But it's an object store that costs a fair bit less than retail pricing for Amazon S3, or most other object stores out there. Which, okay, great. That's always good to see competition in the storage space, but specifically, you're not charging any data transfer costs whatsoever for doing this. First, where did this come from?Matthew: So, we needed it ourselves. I think all of the great products at Cloudflare start with an internal need. If you look at why do we build our zero-trust solutions? It's because we said we needed a security solution that was fast and reliable and secure to protect our employees as they were going out and using the internet.Why did we build Cloudflare Workers? Because we needed a very flexible compute platform where we could build systems ourselves. And that's not unique to us. I mean, why did Amazon build AWS? They built it because they needed those tools in order to continue to grow and expand as quickly as possible.And in fact, I think if you look at the products that Google makes that are really great, it ends up being the ones that Google's employees use themselves. Gmail started as Caribou once upon a time, which was their internal email system. And so we needed an object store and the sometimes belligerent CEO of Cloudflare insisted that our team couldn't use any of the public cloud object stores. And so we had to build it.That was the start of it and we've been using it internally for products over time. It powers, for example, Cloudflare Images, it powers a lot of our streaming video services, and it works great. And at some point, we said, “Can we take this and make it available to everyone?” The question that you've asked on Twitter, and I think a lot of people reasonably ask us, “What's the catch?”Corey: Well, in my defense, I think it's fair. There was an example that I gave of, “Okay, I'm going to go ahead and keep—because it's new, I don't trust new object stores. Great. I'm going to do the same experiment twice, keep one the pure AWS story and the other, I'm just going to add Cloudflare R2 to the mix so that I have to transfer out of AWS once.” For a one gigabyte file that gets shared out for a petabyte's worth of bandwidth, on AWS it costs roughly $52,000 to do that. If I go with the R2 solution, it cost me 13 cents, all of which except for a penny-and-a-half are AWS charges. And that just feels—when you're looking at that big of a gap, it's easy to look at that and think, “Okay, someone is trying to swindle me somewhere. And when you can't spot the sucker, it's probably me. What's the catch?”Matthew: I guess it's not really a catch; it's an explanation. We have been able to drive our bandwidth costs down low enough that in that particular use case, we have to store the file, and that, again, that—there's a hard disk in there and we replicate it to make sure that it's available so it's not just one hard disk, but it's multiple hard disks in various places, but that amortized over time, isn't that big a cost. And then bandwidth is effectively zero. And so if we can do that, then that's great.Maybe a different way of framing the question is like, “Why would we do that?” And I think what we see is that there is an opportunity for customers to be able to use the best of various cloud providers and hook the different parts together. So, people talk about multi-cloud all the time, and for a while, the way that I think people thought about that was you take the exact same workload and you run it in Azure and AWS. That turns out not to be—I mean, maybe some people do that, but it's super rare and it's incredibly hard.Corey: It has been a recurring theme of most things I say where, by default, that is one of the dumbest things I can imagine.Matthew: Yeah, that isn't good. But what people do want to do is they want to say, “Listen, there's some really great services that Amazon provides; we want to use those. And there's some really great services that Azure provides, and we want to use those. And Google's got some great machine learning, and so does IBM. And I want to sort of mix and match the various pieces together.”And the challenge in doing that is the egress fees. If everyone just had a detente and said there's going to be no egress fees for us to be able to hook these various [pits 00:14:48] together, then you would be able to take advantage of a lot of the different technologies and we would actually get stronger applications. And so the vision of what we're trying to build is how can we be the fabric that can stitch the various cloud providers together so that you can do that. And when we looked at that, and we said, “Okay, what's the path to getting there?” The big place where there's the just meatiest cost on egress fees is object stores.And so if you could have a centralized object store, and you can say then from that object go use whatever the best service is at Amazon, go use whatever the best service is at Google, go use whatever the best service is at Azure, that then allows, I think, actually people to take advantage of the cloud in a way which is what people really should mean when they talk about multi-cloud. Which is, there should be competition on the various features themselves, and you should be able to pick and choose the best of all of the different bits. And I think we as consumers then benefit from that. And so when we're looking at how we can strategically enable that future, building an object store was a real key part of that, and that's part of what we're doing. Now, how do we make money off of that? Well, there's a little bit off the storage, and again, even [laugh]—Corey: Well, that is the Amazonian answer there. It's like, “Your margin is my opportunity,” is a famous Bezos quote, and I figure you're sitting there saying, “Ah, it would cost $52,000 to do that in Amazon. Ah, we can make a penny-and-a-half.” That's very Amazonian, you could probably get hired over there with that philosophy.Matthew: Yeah. And this is a commodity service, just [laugh] storing data. If you look across the history of what Cloudflare has done, in 2014, we made encryption free because it's absurd to pay for math, right? I mean, it's just crazy right?Corey: Or to pay for security as a value-add. No, that should be baked into whatever you're doing, in an ideal world.Matthew: Domain registration. Like, it's writing something down in a ledger. It's a commodity; of course it should go to whatever the absolute cost is. On the other hand, there are things that we do that aren't commodities where we are able to better protect people because we see so much traffic, and we've built the machine learning models, and we've done those things, and so we charge for those things. So commodities, we think over time, go to effectively, whatever their cost is, and then the value is in the actual intelligent services that are on top of it.But an object store is a commodity and so we should be trying to drive that pricing down. And in the case of bandwidth, it's effectively free for us. And so if we can be that fabric that connects the different class together, I think that makes sense is a strategy for us and that's why R2 made a ton of sense for us to build and to launch.Corey: There seems to be a lack of ability for lots of folks, at least on the internet to imagine a use case other than theirs. I cheated by being a consultant, I get to borrow other people's use cases at a high degree of turnover. But the question I saw raised was, “Well, how many workloads really do that much egress from static objects that don't change? Doesn't sound like there'd be a whole lot of them.” And it's, “Oh, my sweet summer child. Sure, your app doesn't do a lot of that, but let me introduce it to my friends who are hosting videos on their website, for example, or large images that get accessed a whole bunch of times; things that are written once and then read forever by the internet.”Matthew: And we sit in a position where because of the role that Cloudflare plays where we sit in front of a number of these different cloud providers, we could actually look at the use cases and the data, and then build products in order to solve that. And that's why we started with Workers; that's why we then built the KV store that was on top of that; we built object-store next. And so you can see as we're sort of marching through these things, it is very much being informed by the data that we actually see from real customers. And one of the things that I really like about R2 is in exactly the example that you gave where you can keep everything in S3; you can set R2 in front of it and put it in slurp mode, and effectively it just—as those objects get pulled out, it starts storing them there. And so the migration path is super easy; you don't have to actually change anything about your application and will cut your bills substantially.And so I think that's the right thing to enable a multi-cloud world where, again, it's not you're running the exact same workload in different places, but you get to take advantage of the really great tack that all of these companies are building and use that. And then the companies will compete on building that tech well. So, it's not just about how do I get the data in and then kind of underinvest in all of the different services that I provide. It's how can we make sure that on a service-by-service basis, you actually are having real competition over time. And again, I think that's the right thing for customers, and absolutely R2 might not be the right thing for every use case that's out there, but I think that it wi—enabling more competition is going to make the cloud better for everyone.Corey: Oh, yeah. It's always fun hearing it from Amazonians. It's, “You have a service that talks to satellites in orbit. You really think that's a general-purpose thing that every company out there has to deal with?” No. Well, not yet, anyway.It also just feels to me like their transfer approach is antithetical to almost every other aspect of how they have built their cloud. Amazonians have told me repeatedly—I believe them—that their network is effectively magic. The fact that you can get near line rate between any two points without melting various [unintelligible 00:20:14], which shows that there was significant thought, work, effort, planning, technology, et cetera, put into the network. And I don't dispute that. But if I'm trying to build a workload and put it inside of AWS, I can control how it performs tied to budget; I can have a lot of RAM for things that are memory intensive, or I can have a little RAM; I can have great CPU performance or terrible CPU performance.The challenge with data transfer is it is uniformly great. “I want to get that data over there super quickly.” Yeah, awesome. I'm fine paying a premium for that. But I have this pile of data right here. I want to get it over there, ideally by Tuesday. There's no good way to do that, even with their Snowball—or Snow Family devices—when you fill them with data and send them into AWS, yeah, that's great. Then you just pay for the use of the device.Use them to send data out of AWS, they tack on an additional per-gigabyte fee for getting the data out. You're training as a lawyer, you went to the same law school that my wife did, the University of Chicago, which, oh, interesting stories down that path. But if we look at this, my argument is that the way to do an end-run around this is to sue Amazon for something, and then demand access to the data you have living in their environment during discovery. Make them give it to you for free, though, they'd probably find a way to charge it there, too. It's just a complete lack of vision and lack of awareness because it feels like they're milking a cash cow until it dies.Matthew: Yeah, they probably would charge for it and you'd also have to pay a lot of lawyers. So, I'm not sure that's the cost [crosstalk 00:21:44]—Corey: Its only works above certain volumes, I figure.Matthew: I do think that if your pricing strategy is designed to lock people in to prevent competition, then that does create other challenges. And there are certainly some University of Chicago law professors out there that have spent their careers arguing why antitrust laws don't make any sense, but I think that this is definitely one of those areas where you can see very clearly that customers are actually being harmed by the pricing strategy that's there. And the pricing strategy is not tied in any way to the underlying costs which are associated with that. And so I do think that, especially as you see other providers in the space—like Oracle—taking their bandwidth costs to effectively zero, that's the sort of thing that I think will have regulators start to scratch their heads. If tomorrow, AWS took egress costs to zero, and as a result, R2 was not as advantaged as it is today against them, you know, I think there are a lot of people who would say, “Oh, they showed Cloudflare.” I would do a happy dance because that's the best thing [thing they can do 00:22:52] for our customers.Corey: Our long-term goals, it sounds like, are relatively aligned. People think that I want to see AWS reign ascendant; people also say I want to see them burning and crashing into the sea, and neither one of those are true. What I want is, I want someone in a few years from now to be doing a startup and trying to figure out which cloud provider they should pick, and I want that to be a hard decision. Ideally, if you wind up reducing data transfer fees enough, it doesn't even have to be only one. There are stories that starts to turn into an actual realistic multi-cloud story that isn't, at its face, ridiculous. But right now, you have to pick a horse and ride it, for a variety of reasons. And I don't like that.Matthew: It's entirely egress-based. And again, I think that customers are better off if they are able to pick who is the best service at any time. And that is what encourages innovation. And over time, that's even what's good for the various cloud providers because it's what keeps them being valuable and keeps their customers thinking that they're building something which is magical and that they aren't trapped in the decision that they made, which is when we talk to a lot of the customers today, they feel that way. And it's I think part of why something like R2 and something like the Bandwidth Alliance has gotten so much attention because it really touches a nerve on what's frustrating customers today. And if tomorrow Amazon announced that they were eliminating egress fees and going head-to-head with R2, again, I think that's a wonderful outcome. And one that I think is unlikely, but I would celebrate it if it happened.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking databases, observability, management, and security.And - let me be clear here - it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build.With Always Free you can do things like run small scale applications, or do proof of concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free. No asterisk. Start now. Visit https://snark.cloud/oci-free that's https://snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: My favorite is people who don't do research on this stuff. They wind up saying, “Oh, yeah. Cloudflare is saying that bandwidth is a fixed cost. Of course not. They must be losing their shirt on this.”You are a publicly-traded company. Your gross margins are 76% or 77%, depending upon whether we're talking about GAAP or non-GAAP. Point being, you are clearly not selling this at a loss and hoping to make it up in volume. That's what a VC-backed company does. Is something that is real and as accurate.I want to, on some level, I guess, low-key apologize because I keep viewing Cloudflare through a lens that is increasingly inaccurate, which is as a CDN. But you've had Cloudflare Workers for a while, effectively Functions as a Service that run at the edge, which has this magic aura around it, that do various things, which is fascinating to me. You're launching R2; it feels like you are in some ways aiming at becoming a cloud provider, but instead of taking the traditional approach of building it from the region's outward, you're building it from the outward in. Is that a fair characterization?Matthew: I think that's right. I think fundamentally what Cloudflare is, is a network. And I remember early on in the pandemic, we did a series of fireside chats with people we thought we could learn from. And so was everyone from Andre Iguodala, the basketball player, to Mark Cuban, the entrepreneur, to we had a [unintelligible 00:25:56] governor and all kinds of things. And we these were just internal on off the record.And I got to do one with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. And I said, “You know, Eric, one of the things that we struggle with is describing what is Cloudflare.” And without hesitation, he said, “Oh, that's easy. You're the network I plug into and don't have to worry about anything else.” And I think that's better than I could say it, myself, and I think that's what it is that we fundamentally are: we're the network that fits together.Now, it turns out that in the process of being that network and enabling that network, we are going to build things like R2, which start to be an object store and starts to sort of step into some of the cloud provider space. And Workers is really just a way of programming that network in order to do that, but it turns out that there are a bunch of workloads that if you move them into the network itself, make sense—not going to be every workload, but a lot of workloads that makes sense there. And again, I think that you can actually be very bullish on all of the big public cloud providers and bullish on Cloudflare at the same time because what we want to do is enable the ability for people to mix and match, and change, and be the fabric that connects all of those things together. And so over time, if Amazon says, “We're going to drop egress fees,” it may be that R2 isn't a product that exists—I don't think they're going to do that, so I think it's something that is going to be successful for us and get a lot of new users to us—but fundamentally, I think that where the traditional public clouds think of themselves as the place you put data and you process data, I think we think of ourselves as the place you move data. And that's somewhat different.That then translates into it as we're building out the different pieces, where it does feel like we're building from the outside in. And it may be that over time, that put versus move distinction becomes narrower and narrower as we build more and more services like R2, and durable objects, and KV, and we're working on a database, and all those things. And it could be that we converge in a similar place.Corey: One thing I really appreciate about your vision because it is so atypical these days, is that you aren't trying to build the multifunction printer of companies. You are not trying to be all things to all people in every scenario. Which is impossible to do, but companies are still trying their level best to do it. You are staking out the bounds of where you were willing to start and where you're willing to stop, in a variety of different ways. I would be—how do I put it?—surprised if you at some point in the next five years come out with, “And this is our own database that we have built out that directly competes with the following open-source project that we basically have implemented their API and gone down that particular path.” It does not sound like it is in your core wheelhouse at that point. You don't need—to my understanding—to write your own database engine in order to do what you do.Matthew: Maybe. I mean, we actually are kind of working on a database because—Corey: Oh, no, here we go again.Matthew: [laugh]—and yeah—in a couple of different ways. So, the first way is, we want to make sure that if you're using Workers, you can connect to whatever database you want to use anywhere in the world. And that's something that's coming and we'll be there. At the same time, the challenge of distributed computing turns out not to be the computing, it turns out to be the data and figuring out how to—CAP theorem is real, right? Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance; you can pick any two out of the three, but you can't get all three.And so you there's always going to be some trade-off that's there. And so we don't see a lot of good examples. There's some really cool companies that are working on things in the space, but we don't see a lot of really good examples of who has built a database that can be run on a distributed workload system, like Cloudflare to it do well. And so our team internally needs that, and so we're trying to figure out how to build it for ourselves, and I would imagine that after we build it for ourselves—if it works the way we expect it will—that that will then be something that we open up.Our motivation and the way we think about products is we need to build the tools for our own team. Our team itself is customer zero, and then some of those things are very specific to us, but every once in a while, when there are functions that makes sense for others, then we'll build them as well. And that does maybe risk being the multifunction printer, but again, I think that because the customer for that starts with ourselves, that's how we think about it. And if there's someone else's making a great tool, we'll use that. But in this case, we don't see anyone that's built a multi-tenant, globally-distributed, ACID-compliant relational database.Corey: I can't let it pass on challenge. Sure they have, and you're running it yourself. DNS: the finest database in the world. You stuff whatever you want to text records, and now you have taken a finely crafted wrench and turned it into a barely acceptable hammer, which is what I love about doing that terrible approach. Yeah, relational is not going to quite work that way. But—Matthew: Yes. That's a fancy key-value store, right? So—and we've had that for a long time. As we're trying to build those things up, the good news is that, again, we've run data at scale for quite some time and proven that we can do it efficiently and reliably.Corey: There's a lot that can be said about building the things you need to deliver your product to customers. And maybe a database is a poor example here, but I don't see that your motivation in this space is to step into something completely outside your areas of expertise solely because there's money to be made over there. Well, yeah, fortune passes everywhere. The question is, which are you best positioned to wind up delivering an actual transformative solution to that space, and what parts of it are just rent-seeking where it's okay, we're going to go and wherever the money is, we're chasing that down.Matthew: Yeah, we're still a for-profit business, and we've been able to grow revenue well, but I think it is that what motivates us and what drives us comes back to our mission, which is how do you help build a better internet? And you can look at every single thing that we've done, and we try to be very long-term-oriented. So, for instance, when we in 2014 made encryption free, the number one reason at the time, when people upgraded for the free version of our service, the paid version of our service is they got encryption for that. And so it was super scary to say, “Hey, we're going to take the biggest feature and give it away for free,” but it was clearly the direction of history and we wanted to be on the right side of history. And we considered it a bug that the internet wasn't built in an encrypted way from the beginning.So, of course, that was going to head that direction. And so I think that we and then subsequently Let's Encrypt, and a bunch of others have said, it's absurd that you're charging for math. And again, I think that's a good example of how we think about products. And we want to continue to disrupt ourselves and take the things that once upon a time were reserved for our customers that spend $10 million-plus with us, and we want to keep pushing those things down because, over time, the real opportunity is if you do right by customers, there will be plenty of ways that you can earn some of their budget. And again, we think that is the long-term winning strategy.Corey: I would agree with this. You're not out there making sneakers and selling them because you see people spend a lot of money on that; you're delivering value for customers. I say this as one of your paying customers. I have zero problem paying you every month like clockwork, and it is the least cloud-like experience because I know exactly what the bill is going to be in advance, which is apparently not how things should be done in this industry, yadda, yadda, yadda. It is a refreshingly delightful experience every time.The few times I've had challenges with the service, it has almost always been a—I'll call it a documentation gap, where the way it was explained in the formal documentation was not how I conceptualize things, which, again, explaining what these complex things are to folks who are not steeped in certain areas of them is always going to be a challenge. But I cannot think back to a single customer service failure I've had with you folks. I can't look back at any point where you have failed me as a customer, which is a strange thing to say, given how incredibly efficient I am at stumbling over weird bugs.Matthew: Terrific to have you as a customer. We are hardly perfect and we make mistakes, but one of the things I think that we try to do and one of the core values of Cloudflare is transparency. If I think about, like, the original sins of tech, a lot of it is this bizarre secrecy which pervades the entire industry. When we make mistakes, we talk about them, and we explain them. When there's an error, we don't throw up a white page; we put up a page that has our logo on it because we want to own it.And that sometimes gets blowback because you're in front of it, but again, I think it's the right thing to do for customers. And it's and I think it's incredibly important. One of the things that's interesting is you mentioned that you know what your bill is going to be. If you go back and look at the history of hosting on the internet, in the early days of internet hosting, it looks a lot like AWS.Corey: Oh, 95th percentile transit billing; go for one five minutes segment over and boom, your bill explodes. Oh, I remember those days. Unkindly.Matthew: And it was super complicated. And then what happened is the hosting world switched from this incredibly complicated billing to much more simplified, predictable, unlimited bandwidth with maybe some asterisks, but largely that was in place. And then it's strange that Amazon came along and then has brought us back to the more complicated world that's out there. I would have predicted that that's a sine wave—Corey: It has to be. I mean—Matthew: —and it's going to go back and forth over time. But I would have predicted that we would be more in the direction of coming back toward simplify, everything included. And again, I think that's how we've priced our things from the beginning. I'm surprised that it has held on as long as it has, but I do think that there's going to be an opportunity for—and I don't think Amazon will be the leader here, but I think there will be an opportunity for one of the big clouds.And again, I think Oracle is probably doing this the best of any of them right now—to say, “How can we go away from that complexity? How can we make bills predictable? How can we not nickel and dime everything, but allow you to actually forecast and budget?” And it just seems like that's the natural arc of history, and we will head back toward that. And, again, I think we've done our part to push that along. And I'm excited that other cloud providers seem to be thinking about that now as well.Corey: Oh, yeah. What I do with fixing AWS bills is the same thing folks were doing in the 70s and 80s with long-distance bills for companies. We're definitely hitting that sine wave. I know that if I were at AWS in a leadership role, I would be actively embarrassed that the company that is delivering a better customer experience around financial things is Oracle of all companies, given their history of audits and surprising people and the rest. It is ridiculous to me.One last topic that I want to cover with you before we call it an episode is, back in college, you had a thesis that you have done an excellent job of effectively eliminating from the internet. And the theme of this, to my understanding, was that the internet is a fad. And I am so aligned with that because I'm someone who has said for years that emerging technologies are fads. I've said it about cloud, about virtualization, about containers. And I just skipped Kubernetes. And now I'm all-in on serverless, which means, of course it's going to fail because I'm always wrong on these things. But tell me about that.Matthew: When I was seven years old in 1980, my grandmother gave me an Apple ][+ computer for Christmas. And I took to it like a just absolute duck to water and did things that made me very popular in junior high school, like going to computer camp. And my mom used to sign up for continuing education classes at the local university in computer science, and basically sneak me in, and I'd do all the homework and all that. And I remember when I got to college, there was a small group of students that would come around and help other students set their computer up, and I had it all set up and was involved. And so, got pretty deeply involved in the computer science program at college.And then I remember there was a group of three other students—so they were four of us—and they wanted to start an online digital magazine. And at the time, this was pre-web, or right in the early days of the web; it was sort of nineteen… ninety-three. And we built it originally on old Apple technology called HyperCard. And we used to email out the old HyperCard stacks. And the HyperCard stacks kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and we'd send them out to the school so [laugh] that we—so we kept crashing the mail servers.But the college loved this, so they kept buying bigger and bigger mail servers. But they were—at some point, they said, “This won't scale. You got to switch technologies.” And they introduced us to two different groups. One was a printer company based out in San Francisco that had this technology called PDF. And I was a really big fan of PDF. I thought PDF was the future, it was definitely going to be how everything got published.And then the other was this group of dorky graduate students at the University of Illinois that had this thing called a browser, which was super flaky, and crashed all the time, and didn't work. And so of the four of us, I was the one who voted for PDF and the other three were like, “Actually, I think this HTML thing is going to be a hit.” And we built this. We won an award from Wired—which was only a print magazine at the time—that called us the first online-only weekly publication. And it was such a struggle to get anyone to write for it because browsers sucked and, you know, trying to get students on campus, but no one on campus cared.We would get these emails from the other side of the world, where I remember really clearly is this—in broken English—email from Japan saying, “I love the magazine. Please keep writing more for the magazine.” And I remember thinking at the time, “Why do I care if someone in Japan is reading this if the girl down the hall who I have a crush on isn't?” Which is obviously what motivates dorky college students like myself. And at that same time, you saw all of this internet explosion.I remember the moment when Netscape went public and just blew through all the expectations. And it was right around the time I was getting ready to graduate for college, and I was kind of just burned out on the entire thing. And I thought, “If I can't even get anyone to write for this dopey magazine and yet we're winning awards, like, this stuff has to all just be complete garbage.” And so wrote a thesis on—ehh, it was not a very good [laugh] thesis. It's—but one of the things I said was that largely the internet was a fad, and that if it wasn't, that it had some real risks because if you enabled everyone to connect with whatever their weird interests and hobbies were, that you would very quickly fall to the lowest common denominator. And predicted some things that haven't come true. I thought for sure that you would have both a liberal and conservative search engine. And it's a miracle to this day, I think that doesn't exist.Corey: Now, that you said it, of course, it's going to.Matthew: Well, I don't know I've… [sigh] we'll see. But it is pretty amazing that Google has been able to, again, thread that line and stay largely apolitical. I'm surprised there aren't more national search engines; the fact that it only Russia and China have national search engines and France and Germany don't is just strange to me. It seems like if you're controlling the source of truth and how people find it, that seems like something that governments would try and take over. There are some things that in retrospect, look pretty wise, but there were a lot more things that looked really, really stupid. And so I think at some level, I had to build Cloudflare to atone for that stupidity all those years ago.Corey: There's something to be said for looking back and saying, “Yeah, I had an opinion, and with the light of new information, I am changing my opinion.” For some reason, in some circles, it feels like that gets interpreted as a sign of weakness, but I couldn't disagree more, it's, “Well, I had an opinion based upon what I saw at the time. Turns out, I was wrong, and here we are.” I really wish more people were capable of doing that.Matthew: It's one of the things we test for in hiring. And I think the characteristic that describes people who can do that well is really empathy. The understanding that the experiences that you have lead you to have a unique set of insights, but they also create a unique set of blind spots. And it's rare that you find people that are able to do that. And whenever you do—whenever we do we hire them.Corey: To that end, as far as hiring and similar topics go, if people want to learn more about how you view things, and how you see the world, and what you're releasing—maybe even potentially work with you—where can they find you?Matthew: [laugh]. So, the joke, sometimes, internal at Cloudflare is that Cloudflare is a blogging company that runs this global network just to have something to write about. So, I think we're unlike most corporate blogs, which are—if our corporate blog were typical, we'd have articles on, like, “Here are the top six reasons you need a fast website,” which would just be, you know, shoot me. But instead, I think we write about the things that are going on online and our unique view into them. And we have a core value of transparency, so we talk about that. So, if you're interested in Cloudflare, I'd encourage you to—especially if you're of the sort of geekier variety—to check out blog.cloudflare.com, and I think that's a good place to learn about us. And I still write for that occasionally.Corey: You're one of the only non-AWS corporate blogs that I pay attention to, for that exact reason. It is not, “Oh, yay. More content marketing by folks who just feel the need to hit a quota as opposed to talking about something valuable and interesting.” So, it's appreciated.Matthew: The secret to it was we realized at some point that the purpose of the blog wasn't to attract customers, it was to attract potential employees. And it turns out, if you sort of change that focus, then you talk to people like their peers, and it turns out then that the content that you create is much more authentic. And that turns out to be a great way to attract customers as well.Corey: I want to thank you for taking so much time out of your day to speak with me. I really appreciate it.Matthew: Thanks for all you're doing. And we're very aligned, and keep fighting the good fight. And someday, again, we'll eliminate cloud egress fees, and we can share a beer when we do.Corey: I will absolutely be there for it. Matthew, Prince, CEO, and co-founder of Cloudflare. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with a rambling comment explaining that while data packets into a cloud provider are cheap and crappy, the ones being sent to the internet are beautiful, bespoke, unicorn snowflakes, so of course they cost money.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
Join Joyce & Ann Berry, Chief Investment Officer at Wheelhouse, for a casual conversation you can walk to. Find out how walking led Ann to be more creative, calm and curious, and gave her a sense of freedom and independence from early on in her life. Ann also shares tips for improving your financial literacy.About AnnAnn Berry is the Chief Investment Officer of media company Wheelhouse, overseeing direct equity investing in technology and consumer businesses that can be expanded through Wheelhouse's TV and digital content capabilities. Ann is also a Senior Advisor to Cornell Capital, the New York and Hong Kong based private equity fund, with over $6 billion of AUM. She was previously a Partner and Investment Committee member at Cornell Capital. A regular live TV commentator, Ann is often seen on Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, FBN and Yahoo Finance discussing innovation, consumer spending, private capital trends and macro market movements. Previously, Ann was a private equity investor with the Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division in New York and London. From 2019 to 2020, Ann served as CEO of PureStar. Ann received her MBA from Harvard Business School, graduating with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar, and holds her BA (First Class Hons) from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Trinity College Scholar.Connect with AnnWebsite: https://wheel-house.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annberry_nyc/Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnBerry_NYC
Jordan co-founded Medley with her mother, Edith, because throughout her life, she's felt the power that comes from being part of a team, and felt the void when it's missing. Prior to founding Medley, Jordan worked in media as Chief of Staff at Mic and was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. She received her AB from Harvard College and her MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar.To learn more about Medley visit withmedley.comFor all of your jewelry needs find us at theclearcut.co
My guest today is Chris Yeh, entrepreneur, investor, writer, and mentor with two Bachelor’s degrees with distinction from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Chris co-authored the New York Times best-seller The Alliance as well as the book Blitzscaling with Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn). Chris wrote Blitzscaling with Reid to explain how some of the largest companies in the world like Amazon, AirBNB, and Uber use a very specific set of offensive, competitive strategies that prioritize speed to achieve massive scale at incredible speed. In this episode, Chris is going to demystify what some of the world's most valuable companies did in order to reach their highest highs and then break down his concept of blitzscaling. He’ll even go over the principles and methodologies in his book and how they apply to any idea or business. We’ll break down the different principles and methodologies in the book and how they can apply to any idea or business. What You Will Learn How to compete and grow faster than the competition in a winner-take-all market The three key principles of blitzscaling and how they work Business model innovation Strategy innovation Management innovation How the world's most valuable companies use a framework for growth called blitzscaling The five stages of growth a blitzscaling company will go through Why tying your ego in with the company is extremely dangerous Ways to evolve that all-important culture as your company grows How the blitzscaling growth model has changed the world and created the most valuable companies What the network effect is and how it fits into a company’s flywheel Why you must define “what is better” compared to “what currently exists” How to intelligently calculate risks — and why risks are beneficial in innovation Why it’s “better to be a pirate than join the navy” and what that means Current thoughts on raising money and the truth about valuations Bio: Chris Yeh is a writer, investor, and entrepreneur who has had a ringside seat in the world of startups and scaleups since 1995. He has authored such books as The Alliance and Blitzscaling (co-authored with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn), the book that explains how to build world-changing companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Airbnb in record time. His books help founders, venture capitalists, corporate leaders, policymakers, and everyday people better understand how the internet has changed the way we work together to build amazing organizations. Quotes: 13:20 - “It really is the case that these feedback loops are getting stronger and stronger. [...] The feedback loop of talent and capital. We’ve seen this happen. Companies that breakout to an early lead find it much easier to attract great talent and the follow-on capital and that’s because people love a winner.” - Chris Yeh 13:53 - “Think of the number of millionaires that have been minted by the Facebooks and the Googles and the AirBnBs of the world.” - Chris Yeh 14:40 - “There’s a little bit of a controversy there because the term Blitzscaling is explicitly modeled on the term Blitzkrieg, which you may remember from your history lessons of WWII. It’s the concept of a lightning war, where your forces go out ahead of their supply line, and is moving faster than anyone is possibly anticipating. It’s a high risk, high reward s
My guest today is Chris Yeh, entrepreneur, investor, writer, and mentor with two Bachelor’s degrees with distinction from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Chris co-authored the New York Times best-seller The Alliance as well as the book Blitzscaling with Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn). Chris wrote Blitzscaling with Reid to explain how some of the largest companies in the world like Amazon, AirBNB, and Uber use a very specific set of offensive, competitive strategies that prioritize speed to achieve massive scale at incredible speed. In this episode, Chris is going to demystify what some of the world's most valuable companies did in order to reach their highest highs and then break down his concept of blitzscaling. He’ll even go over the principles and methodologies in his book and how they apply to any idea or business. We’ll break down the different principles and methodologies in the book and how they can apply to any idea or business. What You Will Learn How to compete and grow faster than the competition in a winner-take-all market The three key principles of blitzscaling and how they work Business model innovation Strategy innovation Management innovation How the world's most valuable companies use a framework for growth called blitzscaling The five stages of growth a blitzscaling company will go through Why tying your ego in with the company is extremely dangerous Ways to evolve that all-important culture as your company grows How the blitzscaling growth model has changed the world and created the most valuable companies What the network effect is and how it fits into a company’s flywheel Why you must define “what is better” compared to “what currently exists” How to intelligently calculate risks — and why risks are beneficial in innovation Why it’s “better to be a pirate than join the navy” and what that means Current thoughts on raising money and the truth about valuations Bio: Chris Yeh is a writer, investor, and entrepreneur who has had a ringside seat in the world of startups and scaleups since 1995. He has authored such books as The Alliance and Blitzscaling (co-authored with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn), the book that explains how to build world-changing companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Airbnb in record time. His books help founders, venture capitalists, corporate leaders, policymakers, and everyday people better understand how the internet has changed the way we work together to build amazing organizations. Quotes: 13:20 - “It really is the case that these feedback loops are getting stronger and stronger. [...] The feedback loop of talent and capital. We’ve seen this happen. Companies that breakout to an early lead find it much easier to attract great talent and the follow-on capital and that’s because people love a winner.” - Chris Yeh 13:53 - “Think of the number of millionaires that have been minted by the Facebooks and the Googles and the AirBnBs of the world.” - Chris Yeh 14:40 - “There’s a little bit of a controversy there because the term Blitzscaling is explicitly modeled on the term Blitzkrieg, which you may remember from your history lessons of WWII. It’s the concept of a lightning war, where your forces go out ahead of their supply line, and is moving faster than anyone is possibly anticipating. It’s a high risk, high reward s
Miguel Armaza sits down with Alex Taussig, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, a global multi-stage VC with over $10B in AUM, focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. They've backed some amazing companies, including Snap, Affirm, and GrubHub. Alex focuses on online marketplaces and co-leads Lightspeed's investment efforts in Latin America. He is also the author of the popular weekly newsletter, DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE, in which he writes about recent trends in commerce, media, tech, climate, science, and popular culture. In this episode, we discuss - Alex's story and why he decided to stop pursuing a Phd and left academia to join the tech investing world - The intersection of marketplaces and fintech and why the payment technology is the motor oil that makes transactions flow smoothly for marketplaces - Why in Venture Capital it's very important to ask the best possible questions and pay close attention to the answers that reveal an underlying truth - Early investing mistakes and the importance of focus - Lessons from several years of writing a successful newsletter… and a lot more! Alex Taussig Alex joined Lightspeed in 2016 as a partner on the consumer investment team and has spent 12+ years in venture capital. He is passionate about partnering with founders who are reimagining major categories of commerce using technology. At Lightspeed, Alex has led investments in startups disrupting massive industries like food (Daily Harvest, Frubana), retail (Faire), education (Outschool), and weddings (Zola). He also co-leads Lightspeed's investment efforts in Latin America. Prior to joining Lightspeed, Alex was a partner at Highland Capital Partners, where he led investments in and supported over a dozen companies, including thredUP (IPO TDUP, 2021), Carbon Black (IPO CBLK, 2018), 2U (IPO 2014, TWOU), and RentJuice (acquired by Zillow, 2012). Alex is a trained research scientist and breaks down business problems with deductive logic and analytical rigor. He originally studied physics at Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to receive a Master's degree in materials engineering from MIT, where he was part of a research group building the first fully optical computer chip. Alex also received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, an honor given to the top 5% of the graduating class. Alex publishes a popular weekly(ish) newsletter called DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE, in which he writes about recent trends in commerce, media, tech, climate, science, and popular culture. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children and enjoys baking, anime, and heavy metal music. About Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 400 companies globally, including Snap, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, OYO, Guardant, Affirm, and GrubHub. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage $10.5B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Shaan Gandhi is a Director @ Northpond Ventures and leads the firm's work in biotechnologies. Shaan is a board director at Aro Biotherapeutics; CAMP4 Therapeutics; Candel Therapeutics; DiCE Molecules; StrideBio, Inc.; Triumvira Immunologics, Inc.; and Vigil Neuroscience. Previously, Shaan was a Principal at the Longwood Fund, where he created and invested in life sciences companies, including Pyxis Oncology, a cancer immunotherapy company focused on novel modulators of the tumor microenvironment, which he co-founded and served as President. Prior to Longwood, he was an attending hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he also did his residency in internal medicine. He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School; an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar; a D.Phil. in medical oncology from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a B.S. with honors in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University. Shaan is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Suffolk District Medical Society, the professional medical society of Boston, and a Trustee of the Boston Medical Library.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)
Jarrid Tingle is Managing Partner of Harlem Capital where he focuses on deal sourcing, organizational strategy, and due diligence efforts. Jarrid was featured on the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list, 2019 Inc. 30 under 30 list, and the 2018 Ebony Power 100 list. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2019 where he was a Baker Scholar (top 5% of class). During HBS, Jarrid was a fellow in the Robert Toigo Foundation and Management Leadership for Tomorrow MBA Programs. Previously, Jarrid was a Private Equity Investment Professional at ICV Partners. Prior to ICV, Jarrid was an Investment Banker in the Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group at Barclays. Jarrid graduated cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Concentration in Finance. Jarrid was an active member of Friars Senior Society, Onyx Senior Honor Society, and The Lantern Senior Society. Upon graduation, Jarrid received the Wharton Undergraduate Dean's Award for Excellence (Wharton's highest honor). Jarrid's favorite activities include reading, weight training, traveling, and attending concerts. Sign up for The Grind, for actionable insights and stories from successful entrepreneurs delivered to your inbox once per week: https://www.justgogrind.com/newsletter/ Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com/podcast/ Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212 Follow Justin Gordon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justingordon8/
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jarrid Tingle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Harlem Capital, an early-stage, diversity-focused venture capital firm that was founded in 2015 with the specific mission to fundamentally change the face of entrepreneurship. Jarrid and team now manage a $174 million portfolio comprised of 61% Black or Latino led companies and 43% female-only led companies. Harlem Capital aims to invest in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 30 years. Jarrid is also a proud alum of our amazing Wharton School! In this episode, we discuss: - Jarrid's background and how he and his co-founders raised Harlem Capital's initial capital while in business school - The story behind Harlem Capital's very own Harvard Business School case - Importance of backing founders that fundamentally can sell and are analytical - Their fintech outlook and why Jarrid is excited about the power of fintech to help supercharge eCommerce - Debunking the myth of the pipeline problem and why it's really just about giving people access and opportunities - Why he's hopeful but not satisfied with the progress of the VC and Tech industry as it relates to diversity - Biggest lesson he's learned as an investor - And a lot more! Jarrid Tingle Jarrid Tingle is Managing Partner of Harlem Capital where he focuses on deal sourcing, organizational strategy, and due diligence efforts. Jarrid was featured on the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list, 2019 Inc. 30 under 30 list, and the 2018 Ebony Power 100 list. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2019 where he was a Baker Scholar (top 5% of class). During HBS, Jarrid was a fellow in the Robert Toigo Foundation and Management Leadership for Tomorrow MBA Programs. Previously, Jarrid was a Private Equity Investment Professional at ICV Partners. Prior to ICV, Jarrid was an Investment Banker in the Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group at Barclays. Jarrid graduated cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Concentration in Finance. Jarrid was an active member of Friars Senior Society, Onyx Senior Honor Society, and The Lantern Senior Society. Upon graduation, Jarrid received the Wharton Undergraduate Dean's Award for Excellence (Wharton's highest honor). Jarrid's favorite activities include reading, weight training, traveling, and attending concerts. About Harlem Capital: Harlem Capital (HCP) is an early-stage, diversity-focused venture capital firm. HCP makes initial investments of $750k to $1.5mm in U.S. Seed rounds for 10%+ ownership. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Foreseeing The Crash with Harry S. Dent, Jr. Harry S. Dent, Jr. isn't just the face of Dent Research, he is also a bestselling author and one of the most outspoken financial editors in America who has developed a unique method for studying the global economies and providing insights to what to expect in the future. After years of studying economics in college, Harry quickly became disillusioned and grew to find the profession itself vague and inconclusive. So he shifted his focus to the burgeoning new science of finance, where he could identify and study demographic, technological, consumer and many other trends that empowered him to begin forecasting economic changes. Harry went on to receive his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. He then joined Bain & Company as a Fortune 100 business consultant and now heads the independent research firm Dent Research. Since then, he's spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world about demographics and the power of identifying different trends. Harry has appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN, Fox News and is a regular guest on Fox Business. He has also been featured in Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Harry has written numerous bestselling books over the last few decades, including The Great Boom Ahead in 1992, The Demographic Cliff in 2015, The Sale of a Lifetime in 2016 and Zero Hour in 2017. In 2019 Harry published his latest book Spending Waves, where he shares decades of extensive research covering over 200 businesses across 14 different industries to give readers a usable tool to find the most lucrative opportunities over the next 20 years. Today, Harry uses the same research he developed from years of hands-on business experience to offer Dent Research subscribers a positive, easy-to-understand view of the economic future in his flagship newsletter, Boom & Bust. Website Link:
Dan is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar healthcare improvement company, but what sticks out about him is that he's one of the best examples you can find anywhere of a person who is able to love a fellow human being. Dan shares how he was able to come to know the timeless principles that guide his life, and how his understanding of the immeasurable value of every person on the planet influences his daily interactions. Dan Burton serves as CEO of Health Catalyst, a healthcare data warehousing and analytics company. He became involved with Health Catalyst when it was a three-person startup. Mr. Burton is also the co-founder of HB Ventures, the first outside equity holder in Health Catalyst. Prior to Health Catalyst and HB Ventures, Mr. Burton led the Corporate Strategy Group at Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU). He also spent eight years with Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) in strategy and marketing management roles. Before joining HP he was an associate consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, where he advised healthcare systems and technology companies. Mr. Burton holds an MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was elected a George F. Baker Scholar, and a BS in economics, magna cum laude, from BYU. In the episode, Dan mentions twelve habits he tries to achieve daily to help "keep his cup full": Sleep – at least 7 hours Prayer Plan the day – specific tasks to accomplish that day Prepare for and anticipate any particularly challenging elements of the day Journal One hour of gospel study One hour visiting time with Sarah Kindness – in every interaction, starting with immediate family Service – pay attention to promptings and then act -- serve others multiple times each day Exercise Record Calories Stay within Calorie budget (at or below calories burned) You can hear more of Dan's story on Measuring Success Right. To learn more about Health Catalyst, visit healthcatalyst.com. Music for this episode included the following: Acid Trumpet by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3340-acid-trumpet License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Roll The Intro by Alexander Nakarada Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4793-roll-the-intro License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Loopster by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4991-loopster License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Total Happy Up And Sunny by Sascha Ende® Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/555-total-happy-up-and-sunny License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Summer by Liron Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6907-summer License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Find out more about Hear It Share It by stopping by www.hearitshareit.com. While you are there, you can leave a voicemail or make a donation to the podcast. Share your feedback or your story at hearitshareit@gmail.com or drop by https://www.facebook.com/HearItShareIt to join in on the conversation. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hearitshareit/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hearitshareit/support
About the lecture: As head of three Asian countries' flagship firms, Mr. McCarthy learned the secrets to being successful in other cultures. Often, he was the only American working with 3,000 local employees, giving him a peek into the Zeitgeist of the local business and government leaders that most Americans never see. He learned how to succeed in turnarounds where many others had failed and how to first think like a local then gain their trust. He developed a set of skills and tactics that allowed him to build strong high-performing local teams. In this lecture, he will explain his use of “Sunau or Ting Hua” and other recommendations for how to succeed overseas that will surprise many Americans. About the speaker: Mr. Timothy F. McCarthy's career has been evenly divided between the U.S. and overseas. During the '90s, he was President of Fidelity Investment Advisor Group prior to becoming President of Charles Schwab and Co. In 2000, Mr. McCarthy became Chairman of Good Morning Securities Group in South Korea then Chairman and CEO of Nikko Asset Management in Japan. These were the first times each country's government approved a foreigner to lead one of their flagship financial services companies. Also, notably, during this tenure at Nikko, he co-founded the Rongtong JV in China. His firms attracted over 8 million Asians to invest $300 billion in fund assets. He is now active in venture capital high-tech investing. Mr. McCarthy is fluent in 6 languages. He has published two books – one a best seller in Japanese. Mr. McCarthy's academic history includes an MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business as a Baker Scholar in 1978 and a BA in Economics and International Relations from the University of California, Davis, with honors in 1973.
works at the intersection of profit and purpose. She is a thought leader and veteran in harnessing the power of capitalism to solve the world's most pressing problems. Elizabeth serves as the Senior General Partner at Dev Equity, a venture capital fund investing in B-Corps in low-income housing, urban revitalization, and sustainable agriculture in Latin America (Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru). Elizabeth started her career in rapidly growing, innovative technology companies. She served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word when Windows was first launched and participated in forming the original Microsoft Office product. After graduating as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, she joined Yahoo! as one of the earliest employees-- quickly rising through the ranks to lead the business side of several divisions including Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Greetings and other properties. Most importantly, she was a founder of Yahoo! Shopping and became a leader in developing and shaping Yahoo's e-commerce strategy. Under her leadership, Yahoo's e-commerce initiatives grew to become over 2/3 of the company's revenue. After Yahoo! Elizabeth was appointed President and CEO of CML Global Capital, a publicly traded investment conglomerate based in Canada. As CEO she oversaw several major transactions including executing a takeover of another publicly traded real estate company, a normal course Issuer bid, and eventually a privatization of the corporation. She sold several of the firm's corporate assets and eventually sold the remaining portfolio company to its management. Since that time, Elizabeth has dedicated her career to impact investing and corporate social responsibility-- demonstrating that strong financial performance and positive social change are inherently connected. Her first impact investment fund, the Dignity Fund, provided growth debt to 14 Microfinance institutions in 12 countries, enabling loans to over 35,000 poor entrepreneurs per year. The Dignity Fund was one of the very first for-profit investment vehicles in the Microfinance industry, paving the way for the massive influx of capital into that field. Elizabeth became an avid evangelist for impact investing and has served on many boards of impact funds and social enterprises. Her board positions include Unitus (chair) a microfinance accelerator; Deutsche Bank's Microfinance Consortium, FINCA Microfinance fund, Align Impact's fund-of-funds, MicroPlace (chair) an online investment company she helped sell to EBay, Root Capital (farm expansion capital), and Ujjivan (Microfinance bank that has since gone public) among others. Elizabeth is an active member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO) where she served on the international board and founded the YPO Social Enterprise Network; Toniic, an association of impact investors, and many other communities. Elizabeth is a thought leader and frequent speaker on impact investing and corporate social/environmental responsibility. For more information on Dignity Fund go to https://dignitycapital.com/
works at the intersection of profit and purpose. She is a thought leader and veteran in harnessing the power of capitalism to solve the world's most pressing problems. Elizabeth serves as the Senior General Partner at Dev Equity, a venture capital fund investing in B-Corps in low-income housing, urban revitalization, and sustainable agriculture in Latin America (Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru). Elizabeth started her career in rapidly growing, innovative technology companies. She served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word when Windows was first launched and participated in forming the original Microsoft Office product. After graduating as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, she joined Yahoo! as one of the earliest employees-- quickly rising through the ranks to lead the business side of several divisions including Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Greetings and other properties. Most importantly, she was a founder of Yahoo! Shopping and became a leader in developing and shaping Yahoo's e-commerce strategy. Under her leadership, Yahoo's e-commerce initiatives grew to become over 2/3 of the company's revenue. After Yahoo! Elizabeth was appointed President and CEO of CML Global Capital, a publicly traded investment conglomerate based in Canada. As CEO she oversaw several major transactions including executing a takeover of another publicly traded real estate company, a normal course Issuer bid, and eventually a privatization of the corporation. She sold several of the firm's corporate assets and eventually sold the remaining portfolio company to its management. Since that time, Elizabeth has dedicated her career to impact investing and corporate social responsibility-- demonstrating that strong financial performance and positive social change are inherently connected. Her first impact investment fund, the Dignity Fund, provided growth debt to 14 Microfinance institutions in 12 countries, enabling loans to over 35,000 poor entrepreneurs per year. The Dignity Fund was one of the very first for-profit investment vehicles in the Microfinance industry, paving the way for the massive influx of capital into that field. Elizabeth became an avid evangelist for impact investing and has served on many boards of impact funds and social enterprises. Her board positions include Unitus (chair) a microfinance accelerator; Deutsche Bank's Microfinance Consortium, FINCA Microfinance fund, Align Impact's fund-of-funds, MicroPlace (chair) an online investment company she helped sell to EBay, Root Capital (farm expansion capital), and Ujjivan (Microfinance bank that has since gone public) among others. Elizabeth is an active member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO) where she served on the international board and founded the YPO Social Enterprise Network; Toniic, an association of impact investors, and many other communities. Elizabeth is a thought leader and frequent speaker on impact investing and corporate social/environmental responsibility. For more information on Dignity Fund go to https://dignitycapital.com/
Bill Fotsch has a 20-year track record of improving company sales and profits in an array of industries. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. He has co-authored several published articles and serves on the board of several companies that practice Open-Book Management. You can learn more about his company at https://openbookcoaching.com, or email Bill at Bill.Fotsch@openbookcoaching.com or reach out on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/billfotsch. Key points include: 05:07: Where to start with open-book management 08:57: Examples of companies switching to open-book management 17:04: Big changes in operations 28:03: How Bill launched his writing career Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at: www.umbrex.com
About SanjaySanjay Poonen is the former COO of VMware, where he was responsible for worldwide sales, services, support, marketing and alliances. He was also responsible for the Security strategy and business at VMware. Prior to SAP, Poonen held executive roles at SAP, Symantec, VERITAS and Informatica, and he began his career as a software engineer at Microsoft, followed by Apple. Poonen holds two patents as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated a Baker Scholar; a master's degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University; and a bachelor's degree in computer science, math and engineering from Dartmouth College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.Links: VMware: https://www.vmware.com/ leadership values: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxkysDMBM0Q Twitter: https://twitter.com/spoonen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjaypoonen/ spoonen@vmware.com: mailto:spoonen@vmware.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Thinkst. This is going to take a minute to explain, so bear with me. I linked against an early version of their tool, canarytokens.org in the very early days of my newsletter, and what it does is relatively simple and straightforward. It winds up embedding credentials, files, that sort of thing in various parts of your environment, wherever you want to; it gives you fake AWS API credentials, for example. And the only thing that these things do is alert you whenever someone attempts to use those things. It’s an awesome approach. I’ve used something similar for years. Check them out. But wait, there’s more. They also have an enterprise option that you should be very much aware of canary.tools. You can take a look at this, but what it does is it provides an enterprise approach to drive these things throughout your entire environment. You can get a physical device that hangs out on your network and impersonates whatever you want to. When it gets Nmap scanned, or someone attempts to log into it, or access files on it, you get instant alerts. It’s awesome. If you don’t do something like this, you’re likely to find out that you’ve gotten breached, the hard way. Take a look at this. It’s one of those few things that I look at and say, “Wow, that is an amazing idea. I love it.” That’s canarytokens.org and canary.tools. The first one is free. The second one is enterprise-y. Take a look. I’m a big fan of this. More from them in the coming weeks.Corey: Let’s be honest—the past year has been a nightmare for cloud financial management. The pandemic forced us to move workloads to the cloud sooner than anticipated, and we all know what that means—surprises on the cloud bill and headaches for anyone trying to figure out what caused them. The CloudLIVE 2021 virtual conference is your chance to connect with FinOps and cloud financial management practitioners and get a behind-the-scenes look into proven strategies that have helped organizations like yours adapt to the realities of the past year. Hosted by CloudHealth by VMware on May 20th, the CloudLIVE 2021 conference will be 100% virtual and 100% free to attend, so you have no excuses for missing out on this opportunity to connect with the cloud management community. Visit cloudlive.com/coreyto learn more and save your virtual seat today. That’s cloud-l-i-v-e.com/corey to register.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I’m Corey Quinn. I talk a lot about cloud in a variety of different contexts; this show is about the business of cloud. But, fundamentally, where cloud comes from was this novel concept, once upon a time, of virtualization. And that gave rise to a whole bunch of other things that later became, then containers, now it becomes Kubernetes, and if you want to go down the serverless path, you can.But it’s hard to think of a company that has had more impact on virtualization and that narrative than VMware. My guest today is Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer of VMware. Thank you for joining me.Sanjay: Thanks, Corey Quinn, it’s great to be with you and with your audience on this show.Corey: So, let’s start with the fun slash difficult questions. It’s easy to look at VMware as a way of virtualizing existing bare-metal workloads and moving those VMs around, but in many respects, that is perceived by some—ehem, ehem—to be something of a legacy model of cloud interaction where it solves the problem of on-premises, which is I’m really bad at running data centers so I’m just going to treat the cloud like a data center. And for some companies and some workloads, where, great, that’s fine. But isn’t that, I guess, a V1 vision of cloud, and if it is, why is VMware relevant to that?Sanjay: Great question, Corey. And I think it’s great to be straight up on a topic [unintelligible 00:02:01]. Yeah, I think you’re right. Listen, the ‘V’ in VMware is virtualization. The ‘VM’ is virtual machines.A lot of what is the underpinning of what made the private cloud, as we call it today, but the data center of the past successful was this virtualization technology. In the old days, people would send us electricity bills, before and after VMware, and how much they’re saving. So, this energy-saving concept of virtualization has been profound in the modernization of the data center and the advent of what’s called the private cloud. But as you looked at the public cloud innovate, whether it was AWS or even the SaaS applications—I mean, listen, the most popular capability initially on AWS was EC2 and S3, and the core of EC2 is virtualization. I think what we had to do, as this happened, was the foundation was certainly those services like EC2 and S3, but very quickly, the building phenomenon that attracted hundreds of thousands and I think now probably a few million customers to AWS was the large number of services, probably now 150, 200-odd services, that were built on top of that for everything from data, to AI, to a variety of other things that every year Andy Jassy and the team would build up.So, we had to make sure that over the course of the last, I’d say, certainly the last five to maybe eight years, we were becoming relevant to our customers that were a mix. There were customers who were large—I mean, we have about half a million customers—and in many cases, they have about 80, 90% of their workloads running on-prem and they want to move those workloads to the cloud, but they can’t just refactor and re-platform all of those apps that are running in the on-premise world. When they will try to do it by the end of the year—they may have 1000 applications—they got 10 done.Corey: Oh, and it’s not realistic and it’s unfair. I mean, there’s the idea of, “Oh, that’s legacy,” which is condescending engineering speak for it actually makes money because it’s been around for longer than six months. And sure you can have Twitter For Pets roll stuff out every day that you want; when you’re a bank, you have different constraints forced upon you. And I’m very sympathetic to folks who are in scenarios where they aren’t, for whatever reason, able to technically, culturally, or for regulatory reasons, be able to do continuous deployment of everything. I want to be very clear that I’ve in no way passing judgment on an entire sector of enterprise.Sanjay: But while that sector is important, there was also another sector starting to emerge: the Airbnbs, the Pinterests, the modern companies who may not need VMware at all as they’re building native, but may need some of our container in a new open-source capabilities. SaltStack was one of them; we will talk about that, I’m sure. So, we needed to be relevant to both customer communities because the Airbnbs of today, will be the Marriotts of tomorrow. So, we had to really rethink what is the future of VMware, what’s our existence in a public cloud phenomenon? That’s really what led to a complete watershed moment.I called publicly in the past sort of a Berlin Wall moment where Amazon and VMware were positioned pretty much as competitors for a long period of time when AWS was first started. Not that Andy was going around talking negatively about VMware, but I think people view these as two separate doors, and never the twain would meet. But when we decided to partner with them—I then quite frankly, the precursor to that was us divesting our public cloud strategy. We’d tried to build a competitive public cloud called vCloud Air between the period of 2012 and 2015, 2016—we had to reach an end of that movement, and catharsis of that, divest that asset, and it opened the door for a strategic partnership. But now we can go back to those customers and help them move their applications in a way that’s highly efficient, almost like a house on wheels, and then once it’s in that location in AWS—or one of the other public clouds—you can modernize it, too.So, then you get to both get the best of both worlds: get it into the public cloud, maybe retire some of your data centers if that’s what you want to do, and then modernize it with all the beautiful services. And that’s the best of both worlds. Now, if you have 1000 applications, you’re moving hundreds of them into the public cloud, and then using all of the powerful developer services on that VMware stack that’s built on the bare metal of AWS. So, we started out with AWS, but very quickly then, all the other public clouds, maybe the five or six that are named in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, came to us and said, “Well, if you’re doing that with AWS, would you consider doing that with us, too?”Corey: There’s definitely been an evolution of VMware. I mean, it’s in the name; you have the term VM sitting there. It’s easy to, at least from where I sit, think of, “Oh, VMware, back when running virtual machines was novel.” And there was a lot of skepticism around the idea. I’m going to level with you; I was a skeptic around virtualization. Then around cloud. Then around containers.And now I’m trying—all right I’m going to be in favor of serverless, which is almost certain to doom it because everything else that I’ve been skeptical of in this sense beyond any reasonable measure. So, there is this idea that VMs are this sort of old-school thinking. And that’s great if you have an existing workload that needs to be migrated, but there are a finite number of those in the world. As we turn towards net-new and greenfield build-outs, a lot of things are a lot more cloud-native than just hosting a bunch of—if you take the AWS example—EC2 instances hanging out in the network talking to other EC2 instances. Taking advantage of native offerings definitely seems to be on the rise. And there have been acquisitions that VMware has made. You talk about SaltStack, which was a great example, given that I wrote part of that very early on, and I don’t think the internet’s ever forgiven me for it. But also Bitnami—or BittenAMI, as I insist on pronouncing it—and you also acquired Wavefront. There’s a lot of interesting stuff that feels almost like a setting up a dichotomy of new VMware versus old VMware. What are the points of commonality there? What is the vision for the next 15 years of the company?Sanjay: Yeah, I think when we think about it, it’s very important that, first off, we acknowledge that our roots are what gives us sustenance because we have a large customer base that uses us. We have 80 million workloads running on that VMware infrastructure, formerly ESX, now vSphere. And that’s our heritage, and those customers are happy. In fact, they’re not, like, fleeing like birds into there, so we want to care for those customers.But we have to have a north star, like a magnet that pulls us into the modern world. And that’s been—you know, I talked about phase one was this really charting of the future of VMware for the cloud. Just as important has been focused on cloud-native and containers the last three, four years. So, we acquired Heptio. As you know, Heptio was founded by some of the inventors of Kubernetes who left Google, Joe Beda, and Craig McLuckie.And with that came a strong I would say relevancy, and trust to the Kubernetes, we’ve become one of the leading contributors to open-source Kubernetes. And that brain trust now, some of whom are at VMWare and many are in the community think of us very differently. And then we’ve supplemented that with many other moves that are much more cloud-native. You mentioned two or three of them: Bitnami, for that sort of marketplace; and then SaltStack for what we have been able to do in configuration management and infrastructure automation; Wavefront for container-based workloads. And we’re not done, and we think, listen, there will be many, many more things that the first 10, 15 years of VMware was very much about optimizing the private cloud, the next 10, 15 years could be optimizing for that app modernization cloud-native world.And we think that customers will want something that can work in a multi-cloud fashion. Now, multi-cloud for us is certainly private cloud and edge cloud, which may have very little to do with hardware that’s in the public cloud, but also AWS, Azure, and two or three other clouds. And if you think of each of these public clouds as mini skyscrapers—so AWS has 50 billion in revenue; I’m going to guess Azure is, like, 30, and then Google is I don’t know 12, 13; and then everyone else, and they’re all skyscrapers are different—it’s like, if we can be that company that fills the crevices between them with cement that’s valuable so that people can then build their houses on top of that, you’re probably not going to be best served with a container Stack that’s trapped to just one cloud. And then over time, you don’t have reasonable amount of flexibility if you choose to change that direction. Now, some people might say, “Listen, multi-cloud is—who cares about that?”But I think increasingly, we’re hearing from customers a desire to have more than just one cloud for a variety of reasons. They want to have options, portability, flexibility, negotiating price, in addition to their private cloud. So, it’s a two plus one, sometimes it might be a two plus two, meaning it’s a private cloud and the edge cloud. And I think VMware is a tremendous proposition to be that Switzerland-type company that’s relevant in a private cloud, one or two public clouds, and an edge cloud environment, Corey.Corey: Are you seeing folks having individual workloads that they want to flow from one cloud to another in a seamless way, or is it more aligned along an approach of having workload A lives in this cloud and workload B lives in this cloud? And you’re in a terrific position to opine on that more than most, given who you are.Sanjay: Yeah. We’re not yet as yet seeing these floating workloads that start here and move around, that’s—usually you build an application with purpose. Like, it sits here in this cloud and of course. But we’re seeing, increasingly, interest at customers’ not tethering it to proprietary services only. I mean, certainly, if you’re going to optimize it for AWS, you’re going to take advantage of EC2, S3, and then many of the, kind of, very capable [unintelligible 00:11:24], Aurora, there are others that might be there.But over time, especially the open-source movement that brings out open-source data services, open-source tooling, containers, all of that stuff, give ultimately customers the hope that certainly they should add economic value and developer productivity value, but they should also create some potential portability so that if in the future you wanted to make a change, you’re not bound to that cloud platform. And a particular cloud may not like us saying this, but that’s just the fact of how CIOs today are starting to think much more so as they build these up and as many of the other public clouds start to climb in functionality. Now, there are other use cases where particular SaaS applications of SaaS services are optimized for a particular [unintelligible 00:12:07], for example, Office 365, someone’s using a collaboration app, typically, there’s choices of one or two, you’re either using a G Suite and then it’s tied to Google, or it’s Office 365. But even there, we’re starting to see some nibbling around the edges. Just the phenomenon of Zoom; that wasn’t a capability that Microsoft brought very—and the services from Google, or Amazon, or Microsoft was just not as good as Zoom.And Zoom just took off and has become the leading video collaboration platform because they’re just simple, easy to use, and delightful. It doesn’t matter what infrastructure they run on, whether it’s AWS, I mean, now they’re running some of their workloads on Oracle. Who cares? It’s a SaaS service. So, I think increasingly, I think there will be a propensity towards SaaS applications over custom building. If I can buy it why would I want to build a video collaboration app myself internally, if I can buy it as a SaaS service from Zoom, or whoever have you?Corey: Oh, building it yourself would be ludicrous unless that was one of your core competencies.Sanjay: Exactly.Corey: And Zoom seems to have that on lock.Sanjay: Right. And so similarly, to the extent that I think IT folks can buy applications that are more SaaS than custom-built, or even on-prem, I mean, Salesforce—the success of Salesforce, and Workday, and Adobe, and then, of course, the smaller ones like Zoom, and Slack, and so on. So, it’s clear evidence that the world is going to move towards SaaS applications. But where you have to custom build an application because it’s very unique to your business or to something you need to very snap quickly together, I think there’s going to be increasingly a propensity towards using open-source types of tooling, or open-source platforms—Kubernetes being the best example of that—that then have some multi-cloud characteristics.Corey: In a similar note, I know that the term is apparently, at least this week on Twitter, being argued against, but what about cloud repatriation? A lot of noise has been made about people moving workloads from public cloud back to private cloud. And the example they always give is Dropbox moving its centralized storage service into an on-prem environment, and the second example is basically a pile of tumbleweeds because people don’t really have anything concrete to point at. Does that align with your experience? Is there a, I guess, a hidden wave of people doing a reverse cloud migration that just doesn’t get discussed?Sanjay: I think there’s a couple of phenomenons, Corey, that we watch here. Now, clearly a company of the scale of Dropbox has economics on data and storage, and I’ve talked to Drew and a variety of the folks there, as well as Box, on how they think about this because at that scale, they probably could get some advantages that I’m sure they’ve thought through in both the engineering and the cost. I mean, there’s both engineering optimization and costs that I’m sure Drew and the folks there are thinking through. But there’s a couple of phenomena that we do—I mean, if you go back to, I think, maybe three or four quarters ago, Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, I think in 2019, mid to late 2019 made a statement in his earnings call, he was asked, “How do you think about cloud?” And he said, “Listen, I can run a private cloud cheaper and better than any of the public clouds, and I save 240%,” if I remember the data right.Now, his private cloud and Bank of America is a key customer [unintelligible 00:15:04] of us, we find that some of the bigger companies at scale are able to either get hardware at really good pricing, are able to engineer—because they have hundreds of thousands—they’re almost mini VMware, right, [unintelligible 00:15:18] themselves because they’ve got so many engineers. They can do certain things that a company that doesn’t want to hire those many—companies, Pinterest, Airbnb may not do. So, there are customers who are going to basically say, even prior to repatriation, that the best opportunity is a private cloud. And in that place, we have to work with our private cloud partners, whether it’s Dell or others, to make sure that stack of hardware from them plus the software VMware in the containers on top of that is as competitive and is best cost of ownership, best ROI. Now, when you get to your second—your question around repatriation, what we have found in certain regions outside the US because of sovereign data, sovereign clouds, sometimes some distrust of some of those countries of the US public cloud, are they worried about them getting too big, fear by monopoly, all those types of things, lead certain countries outside the US to think about something that they would need that’s sovereign to their country.And the idea of sovereign data and sovereign clouds does lead those to then investing in local cloud providers. I mean, for example in France, there is a provider called OVH that’s kind of trying to do some of that. In China, there’s a whole bunch of them, obviously, Alibaba being the biggest. And I think that’s going to continue to be a phenomenon where there’s a [federated said 00:16:32], we have a cloud provider program with this 4000 cloud providers, Corey, who built their stack on VMware; we’ve got to feed them. Now, while they are an individual revenue way smaller than the public clouds were, but collectively, they represent a significant mass of where those countries want to run in a local cloud provider.And from our perspective, we spent years and years enabling that group to be successful. We don’t see any decline. In fact, that business for us has been growing. I would have thought that business would just completely decline with the hyperscalers. If anything, they’ve grown.So, there’s a little bit of the rising tide is helping all boats rise, so to speak. And the hyperscaler’s growth has also relied on many of these, sort of, sovereign clouds. So, there’s repatriation happening; I think those sovereign clouds will benefit some, and it could also be in some cases where customers will invest appropriately in private cloud. But I don’t see that—I think if anything, it’s going to be the public cloud growing, the private cloud, and edge cloud growing. And then some of these, sort of, country-specific sovereign clouds also growing. I don’t see this being in a huge threat to the public cloud phenomena that we’re in.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Lumigo. If you've built anything from serverless, you know that if there's one thing that can be said universally about these applications, it's that it turns every outage into a murder mystery. Lumigo helps make sense of all of the various functions that wind up tying together to build applications. It offers one-click distributed tracing so you can effortlessly find and fix issues in your serverless and microservices environment. You've created more problems for yourself. Make one of them go away. To learn more, visit lumigo.io. Corey: I want to very clear, I think that there’s a common misconception that there’s this, somehow, ongoing fight between all the cloud providers, and all this cloud growth, and all this revenue is coming at the expense of other cloud providers. I think that it is simultaneously workloads that are being migrated from on-premises environments—yes—but a lot of it also feels like it’s net-new. It’s not just about increasingly capturing ever larger portions of the market but rather about the market itself expanding geometrically. For a long time, it felt like that was what tech was doing. Looking at the global IT spend numbers coming out of Gartner and other places, it seems like it’s certainly not slowing down. Does that align with your perception of it? Or are there clear winners and losers that are I guess, differentiating out?Sanjay: I think, Corey, you’re right. I think if you just use some of the data, the entire IT market, let’s just say it’s about $1 trillion, some estimates have it higher than that. Let’s break it down a little bit. Inside that 1 trillion market it is growing—I mean, obviously COVID, and GDP declined last year in calendar 2020 did affect overall IT, but I think let’s assume that we have some kind of U-shape or other kind of recovery, going into the second half of certainly into next year; technology should lead GDP in terms of its incline. But inside that trillion-dollar market, if you add up the SaaS market, it’s about $115 billion market.And these are companies like Salesforce, and Adobe, and Workday, and ServiceNow. You add them all up, and those are growing, I think the numbers were in the order of 15 or 20% in aggregate. But that SaaS market is [unintelligible 00:19:08]. And that’s growing, certainly faster than the on-prem applications market, just evidenced by the growth of those companies relative to on-premise investments in SAP or Oracle. And then if you look at the infrastructure market, it’s slightly bigger, it’s about $125 billion, growing slightly faster—20, 25%—and there you have the companies like AWS, Azure, and Google, and Alibaba, and whoever have you. And certainly, that growth is faster than some of the on-premise growth, but it’s not like the on-premise folks are declining. They’re growing at slower paces.Corey: It is harder to leave an on-premise environment running and rack up charges and blow out the bill that way, but it—not impossible, I suppose, but it’s harder to do than it is in public cloud. But I definitely agree that the growth rate surpasses what you would see if it were just people turning things on and forgetting to turn them off all the time.Sanjay: Yeah, and I think that phenomenon is a shift in spending where certainly last year we saw more spending in the cloud than on-premise. I think the on-premise vendors have a tremendous opportunity in front of them, which is to optimize every last dollar that is going to be spent in the data centers, private cloud. And between us and our partners like Dell and others, we’ve got to make sure we do that for our customer base that we’ve accumulated over last 10, 15 years. But there’s also a significant investment now moving to the edge. When I look at retailers, CPG companies—consumer packaged good companies—manufacturers, the conversation that I’m having with their C-level tech or business executives is all about putting compute in the stores.I mean, listen, what is the retailer concerned about? Fraud, and some of those other things, and empowering a quick self-service experience for a consumer who comes in and wants to check out of a Safeway or Walmart really quickly. These are just simple applications with local compute in the store, and the more that we can make that possible on top of almost like a nano data center or micro data center, running in the store with those applications resident there, talking—you know, you can’t just take all of that data, go back and forth to the cloud, but with resident services and capability right there, that’s a beautiful opportunity for the VMware and the Dells of the world. And that’s going to be a significant place where I think you’re going to see expansion of their focus. The Edge market today is I think, projected to be about $6 or $8 billion this year, and growing to $25 billion the next four or five years.So, much smaller than the previous numbers I shared—you know, $125, $115 billion for SaaS and IaaS—but I think the opportunity there, especially these industries that are federated: CPG, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, retail, and logistics, too—you know, FedEx made a big announcement with VMware and Dell a few months ago about how they’re thinking about putting compute and local infrastructure at their distribution sites. I think this phenomenon, Corey, is going to happen in a number of different [unintelligible 00:21:48], and is a tremendous opportunity. Certainly, the public cloud vendors are trying to do that with Outposts and Azure Stack, but I think it does favor the on-premise vendors also having a very strong proposition for the edge cloud.Corey: I assumed that the whole discussion with FedEx started by someone dramatically misunderstanding what it meant to ship code to production.Sanjay: [laugh]. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, all of these folks who are in traditional industries are trying to hire world-class developers—like software companies—because all of them are becoming software companies. And I think the open-source movement, and all of these ways in which you have a software supply chain that’s more modernized, it’s affecting every company. So, I think if you went into the engineering product teams of Rob Carter, who runs technology for FedEx, you’ll find them and they may not have all of the sophistication as a world-class software company, but they’re getting increasingly very much digital in their focus of next generation. And same thing with UPS.I was talking to the CEO of UPS, we had her come and speak at our kickoff. It’s amazing how much her lingo—she was the former CFO of Home Depot—I felt like I was talking to a software executive, and this is the CEO of UPS, a logistics company. So, I think increasingly, every company is becoming a software company at their core. And you don’t need to necessarily know all the details of containers and virtualization, but you need to understand how software and digital transformation, how technology can power your digital transformation.Corey: One thing that I’ve noticed the more I get to talk to people doing different things in different roles was, at first I was excited because I get to talk to the people where they’re really doing it right and everything’s awesome. And I’ve increasingly of the opinion that those sites don’t actually exist. Everyone talks about the great thing is that they’re doing and aspirationally in certain areas in the terms of conference-ware, but you get down into the weeds, and everyone views their environment as being a burning tire fire of sadness and regret. Everyone thinks other people are doing it way better than they are. And in some cases they’re embarrassed about it, in some cases they’re open about it, but I feel like we’re still in the early days where no one is doing things in the quote-unquote, “Right ways,” but everyone thinks everyone else is.Sanjay: Yeah, I think, Corey, that’s absolutely right. We are very much early days in all of this phenomenon. I mean, listen, even the public cloud, Andy himself would say it’s [laugh]—he wouldn’t say it’s quite day one, but he would say it’s very early [unintelligible 00:24:03], even though they’ve had 15 years of incredible success and a $50 billion business. I would agree. And when you look at the customers and their persona—when I ask a CIO what percentage of—of an established company, not one of the modern ones who are built all cloud-native—but what percentage of your workloads are in a public cloud versus private cloud, the vast majority is still in a data center or private cloud.But with the intent—if it’s 90/10, let’s say 90 private 10—for that to become 70/30, 50/50. But very rarely do I hear a one of these large companies say it’s going to be 10/90 the opposite way in three, five years. Now, listen, I think every company as it grows that is more modern. I mean the Zooms of the world, the Modernas, the Airbnbs, as they get bigger and bigger, they represent a completely new phenomenon of how they are building applications that are all cloud-native. And the beautiful thing for me is just as a former engineering and developer, I mean, I grew up writing code in C, and C++ and then came BEA WebLogic, and IBM WebSphere, and [JGUI 00:25:04].And I was so excited for these frameworks. I’m not writing code, thankfully, anymore because it would create lots of problems if I did. But when I watched the phenomena, I think to myself, “Man, if I was a 22 year old entering the workforce now, it’s one of the most exciting times to write code and be a developer because what’s available to you, both in the combination of these cloud frameworks and open-source frameworks, is immense.” To be able to innovate much, much faster than we did 25, 30 years ago when I was a developer.Corey: It’s amazing there’s the pace of innovation, if cloud has changed nothing else, from my perspective, it’s been the idea that you can provision things without these hefty waiting periods. But I want to shift gears slightly because we’ve been talking about cloud for a bit in the context of infrastructure, and containers, and the rest, but if we start moving up the stack a little bit, that’s also considered cloud, which just seems to have that naming problem of namespace collision, just to confuse folks. But VMware is also active in this space, too. You’ve got things like Workspace ONE, you’ve got a bunch of other endpoint options as well that are focused on the security space. Is that aligned?Is that just sort of a different business unit? How does that, I guess, resonate between the various things that you folks do? Because it turns out, you’re kind of a big company, and it’s difficult to keep it all straight from an external perspective.Sanjay: Well, I think—listen, we’re roughly a little less than $12 billion in revenue last year. You can think of us in two buckets: everything in the first bucket is all that we talked about. Think of that as modernization of applications and cloud infrastructure, or what people might think about PaaS and IaaS without the underlying hardware; we’re not trying to build servers and storage and networking at the hardware level, you know, and so and so. But the software layer is about, that’s the first conversation we had for the last 15, 20 minutes. The second part of our business is where we’re touching end-users and infrastructure, and securing it.And we think that’s an important part because that also is something through software, and the cloud could be optimized. And we’ve had a long-standing digital workspace. In fact, when I came to VMware, it was the first business I was running in terms of all the products and end-user computing. And our thesis was many of the current tools, whether it’s the virtual desktop technology that people have from existing vendors, or even today, the security tools that they use is just too cumbersome. It’s too heavy.In many cases, people complain about the number of agents they have on their laptops, or the way in which they secure firewalls is too expensive and too many. We felt we could radically—VMware gets involved in problems where we can radically simplify thing with some disruptive innovation. And the idea was, first in the digital workspace was to radically reduce cost with software that was built for the cloud. And Workspace ONE and all of those things radically reduce the need for disparate technologies for virtual desktops, identity management, and endpoint management. We’ve done very well in that.We’re a leader in that segment, if you look at any of the analysts ratings, whether it’s Gardner or others. But security has been a more recent phenomenon where we felt like it leads us very quickly into securing those laptops because on those same laptops, you have antivirus, you have a variety of tools, and on the average, the CSOs, the Chief Security Officers tell me they have way too many agents, way too many consoles, way too many alerts, and if we could reduce that and have a single agent on a laptop, or maybe even agentless technology that secure this, that’s the Nirvana. And if you look at some of the recent things that have happened with SolarWinds, or Petya, WannaCry in the past, security’s of top concern, Corey, to boards. And the more that we could do to clean that up, I think we can emerge—which we’re already starting to—as a cybersecurity layer. So, that’s a smaller part of our business, but, I mean, it’s multi-billion now, and we think it’s a tremendous opportunity for us to take what we’re doing in workspace and security and make that a growth vector.So, I think both of these core areas, the cloud infrastructure, and modern applications—topic number one—workspace and security—topic number two—I’m both tremendous opportunities for VMware in our journey to grow from a $12 billion company to one day, hopefully, a $20 billion company.Corey: Would that we all had such problems, on some level. It’s really interesting seeing the evolution of companies going from relatively small companies and humble beginnings to these giant—I guess, I want to use the term Colossus, but I’m not sure if that’s insulting or [laugh] not—it’s phenomenal just to see the different areas of business that VMware has expanded into. I mean, I’ve had other folks from your org talking about what a Tanzu is or might be, so we aren’t even going to go down that rabbit hole due to time constraints at this point, but one thing that I do want to get into, slightly, has been a recurring theme in the show, which is where does the next generation of leaders come from? Where do the next generation engineers come from? And you’ve been devoting a bit of time to this. I think I saw one of your YouTube videos somewhat recently about your leadership values. Talk to me a little bit about that.Sanjay: Yeah. Corey, listen, I’m glad that we’re closing out this on some of the soft topics because I love talking to you, or other talented analysts and thought leaders around technology. It’s my roots; I’m a technical person at heart. I love technology. But I think the soft stuff is often the hard stuff.And the hard stuff is often the soft stuff. And what I mean by that is, when all this peels away, what your lasting legacy to the company are the people you invest in, the character you build. And, I mean, as an immigrant who came to this country, when I was 18 years old, $50 in my pocket, I was very fortunate to have a scholarship to go to a really nice University, Dartmouth College, to study computer science. I mean, I grew up in India and if it wasn’t for the opportunity to come here on a scholarship, I wouldn’t have [been here 00:30:32]. So, everything I consider a blessing and a learning opportunity where I’m looking at the advent of life as a growth mindset: what can I learn? And we all need to cultivate more and more aspects of that growth mindset where we move from being know-it-alls to learn-it-alls.And one of the key things that I talk about—and all of your listeners on this, listening to this, I welcome to go to YouTube and search Sanjay Poonen and leadership, it’s a 10-minute video—I’ll pick one of them. Most often as we get higher and higher in an organization, leaders tend to view things as a pyramid, and they’re kind of like this chief bird sitting at the top of the pyramid, and all these birds that are looking—below them on branches are looking up and all they see is crap falling down. Literally. That’s what happens when you look at the bird up. And our job as leaders is to invert that pyramid.And to actually think about the person who is on the front lines. In a software company, it’s an engineer and a sales rep. They are the folks on the frontline: they’re writing code or selling code. They are the true people who are making things happen. And when we as leaders look at ourselves as the bottom of the pyramid—some people call that, “Servant leadership.”Whatever way you call it, the phrase isn’t the point—the point is, invert that pyramid and to take obstacles out of people from the frontline. You really become not interested as much around what your own personal wellbeing, it’s about ensuring that those people in the middle layers and certainly at the leaf levels of the organization are enormously successful. Their success becomes your joy, and it becomes almost like a parent, right? I mean, Corey, you have kids; I’ve got kids. Imagine if you were a parent and you were jealous of your kid’s success.I mean, I want my three children, my daughter, my two children to do better than me, running races or whatever it is that they do. And I think as a leader, the more that we celebrate the successes of our teams and people, and our lasting legacy is not our own success; it’s what we have left behind, other people. I’ve say often there’s no success without successors. So, that mindset takes a lot of work because the natural tendency of the human mind and the human behavior is to be selfish and think about ourselves. But yeah, it’s a natural phenomenon.We’re born that way, we live in act that way, but the more that we start to create that, then taking that not just to our team, but also to the community allows us to build a better society. And that’s something I’m deeply passionate about, try to do my small piece for it, and in fact, I’m sometimes more excited about these topics of leadership than even technology.Corey: It feels like it’s the stuff that lasts; it has staying power. I could record a video now about technology choices and how to work with those technologies and unless it’s about Git, it’s probably not going to be too relevant in 10 years. But leadership is one of those eternal things where it’s, once you’ve experienced a certain level of success, you can really see what people do with that the people that I like to surround myself with, generally make it a point to send the elevator back down, so to speak.Sanjay: I agree, Corey, it’s—glad that you do it. I’m always looking for people that I can learn from, and it doesn’t matter where they are in society. I mean, I think you often—I mean, this is classic Dale Carnegie; one of the books that my dad gave to me at a young age that I encourage everyone to read, How to Win Friends and Influence People, talked about how you can detect a person’s character based on the way they treat the receptionist, or their assistants, the people who might be lower down the totem pole from them. And most often you have people who kiss up and kick down. And I think when you build an organization that’s that typical.A lot of companies are built that way where they kiss up and kick down, you actually have an inverted sense of values. And I think you have to go back to some of those old-school ways that Dale Carnegie or Steven Covey talked about because you don’t have to build a culture that’s obnoxious; you can build a company that’s both nice and competitive. It doesn’t mean that anything we’ve talked about for the last few minutes means that I’m any less competitive and I don’t want to beat the competition and win a deal. What you can do it nicely. And even that’s something that I’ve had to grow in.So, I think when we all look at ourselves as sculptures, work in progress, and we’re perfecting our craft, so to speak, both on the technical front, and the product front and customer relationship, but then also on the leadership and the personal growth front, we actually become both better people and then we also build better companies.Corey: And sometimes that’s really all that we can ask for. If people want to learn more about what you have to say and get your opinion on these things, okay can they find you?Sanjay: Listen, I’m very approachable. You can follow me on Twitter, I’m on LinkedIn [unintelligible 00:34:54], or my email spoonen@vmware.com. I’m out there.I read voraciously, and probably not as responsive, sometimes, but I try—certainly, customers will hear from me within 24 hours because I try to be very responsive to our customers. But you can connect with me on social media. And I’m honored to be on your show, Corey. I’ve been reading your stuff since it first came out, and then, obviously, a fan of the way you’re thinking about things. Sometimes I feel I need to correct your opinion, and some of that we did today. [laugh]. But you’ve been very—Corey: Oh, I would agree. I come out of this conversation with a different view of VMware than I went into it with. I’m being fully transparent on that.Sanjay: And you’ve helped us. I mean, quite frankly, your blogs and your focus on this and, like, is the V in VMware, like, a bad word? Is it legacy? It’s forced us to think, so I think it’s iron sharpens iron. I’m very delighted that we connected, I don’t know if it was a year or two years ago.And I’ve been a fan; I watch the stuff that you do at re:Invent, so keep going with what you’re doing. I think all of what you write and what you talk about is hopefully making an impact on people who read and listen. And look forward to continuing this dialogue, not just with me, but I think you’re talking to other people in VMware in the future. I’m not the smartest person at VMware, but I’m very fortunate to be [laugh] surrounded by many of them. So hopefully, you get to talk to them, also, in the near future.Corey: [laugh]. I will, of course, will put links to all that in the [show notes 00:36:11]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.Sanjay: Thanks, Corey, and all the best of you and your organization.Corey: Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer of VMware, I’m Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you’ve hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a condescending comment telling me that in fact, it is a best practice to ship your code to production via FedEx.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
This is the second part of our interview with Harry Dent. Last week, Harry and Bruce talked about the threat to the economy, which is according to Harry's prediction- the financial asset bubble. Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the 1970s, receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. After Harvard he became a management consultant, helping businesses understand where they were, what obstacles they faced, and how to succeed. He did this by weaving together research on people, technology, and markets. Since then, he's spoken to executives, financial advisors, and investors around the world. He's appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC, and CNN/Fox News. He's been featured in Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics, and Omni. Harry has written numerous books over the years. In his book The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, he stood virtually alone in accurately forecasting the unanticipated boom of the U.S. economy in the 1990s, as well as the multi-decade decline of the Japanese economy. In 2016, Harry published, The Sale of a Lifetime, where he reveals the secret behind many of the largest (and fastest!) fortunes in history out of great crashes that can create a profit windfall that will last you generations. Today, he uses the tools he developed from decades of research and hands-on business experience to offer readers a positive, easy-to-understand view of the economic future.The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.Video LinkRadio Show
In this episode Kate meets Scott Anthony who is an expert on business innovation. Senior Partner at Innosight, Scott helps leaders design new growth strategies, build innovation capabilities, navigate disruptive innovation, and manage strategic transformation. Scott has written eight books, including most recently Eat, Sleep, Innovate (2020) and Dual Transformation (2017), which describe how forward-thinking organizations can navigate disruptive change and own the future. Scott is a prolific contributor to Harvard Business Publishing. He is the most published digital author on HBR.org and is Harvard Business Corporate Learning's most in-demand subject matter expert. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, where he served as a member of the Committee on the Future Economy and a Board member of MediaCorp from 2013-2019. In 2019 he was named one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and in 2017 he won the T50 Innovation Award. Scott is a featured speaker on topics of innovation and growth. He has delivered keynote addresses on six continents, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Channel News Asia, CNBC, and FOX Business. Scott served on the Board of Directors of Media General (NYSE: MEG) from 2009-2013 and of Mediacorp from 2013-2019, helping guide both companies through strategic transformations. From 2009 to 2015 Scott chaired the investment committee for IDEAS Ventures, a SGD 10 million fund Innosight ran in conjunction with the Singapore government that invested in 10 Singapore-based companies and generated a 16% internal rate of return. Prior to joining Innosight, Scott was a senior researcher with Clayton Christensen, managing a group that worked to further Christensen's research on innovation. Scott received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.
This week, renowned Economic Forecaster Harry Dent joins Bruce Norris on the TNG Real Estate Radio Show and Podcast. They discuss Harry's thoughts on the financial asset bubble and predictions for real estate.Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the 1970s, receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. After Harvard he became a management consultant, helping businesses understand where they were, what obstacles they faced, and how to succeed. He did this by weaving together research on people, technology, and markets. Since then, he's spoken to executives, financial advisors, and investors around the world. He's appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC, and CNN/Fox News. He's been featured in Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics, and Omni. Harry has written numerous books over the years. In his book The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, he stood virtually alone in accurately forecasting the unanticipated boom of the U.S. economy in the 1990s, as well as the multi-decade decline of the Japanese economy. In 2016, Harry published, The Sale of a Lifetime, where he reveals the secret behind many of the largest (and fastest!) fortunes in history out of great crashes that can create a profit windfall that will last you generations. The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.Video LinkRadio Show
Nigeria's Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has denied having a Christianisation agenda and only appointing Christians into sensitive positions.A widely circulated article written by “Dr Musbau Akinbode” titled “Osinbajo's Stealth Christianization Agenda” had accused Osinbajo of advancing a dangerous religious agenda by appointing mostly Christians into government.Osinbajo denied the allegations through his Senior special assistant to the president on legal, research and compliance matters, Balkisu Saidu.Balkisu Saidu describes the article by Dr. Akinbode as “mischievous”, according to reports.She listed the Muslims who are working closely with the vice-president and also disclosed that he supports them in their right to religious freedom without hindrance.FULL TEXT OF BALKISU SAIDU'S REJOINDERBefore the permeation of social media, I was one of those who believed in and re-echoed the popular saying that “the only way to win with a toxic person is not to play.” To this end, I found silence to be a very potent tool in dealing with some extremely wicked and deliberate acts of provocation exhibited through concoction and spread of falsehoods and apparently implausible stories.I have since realised that, in this day and age of fake news and cyber propaganda, it is important that lies and misinformation, no matter the motive of the initiator, are countered and records set straight. Amongst the recipients of the falsehood could be some innocent consumers who will benefit from having true facts presented. Allowing fake news to linger may create the impression that there could be some element of truth in what was propagated.It is for the foregoing reasons that when the write-up credited to one Dr Musbau Akinbode titled “Osinbajo's Stealth Christianization Agenda”, which has been circulating recently in social media, was brought to my attention, I opted to respond. Although no date was ascribed to the write-up, it appears to be a rehash of several baseless allegations made in the past against the Vice President, many of whom have been debunked with apologies issued by unsuspecting media houses misled into publishing some of the concocted stories.The new twist in Dr Akinbode's write-up is the allegation that the Vice President is implementing a “Christianization” agenda and in that wise none of the appointments made by the Vice President from persons of Yoruba extraction were given to Yoruba Muslims. This allegation reminded me of a similar baseless claim made in 2017 by one Dr. Ismaila Farouk, which Akinbode referred to, alleging that the selection of personal staff of the Vice President was skewed in favour of “his Yoruba ethnic group.” Those fuelling the orchestrated and surreptitious narrative immediately backtracked when confronted with facts and a long list of Northerners, from tribes other than Yoruba, working in the office at the time including, among others, Mrs. Maryam Uwais (Special Adviser on Social Investment, from Kano State); Ambassador Abdullahi Gwary (Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs, from Yobe State); my humble self (Senior Special Assistant on Legal, Research and Compliance Matters, from Sokoto State); Mr. Ismaeel Ahmed (Senior Special Assistant on Social Investment, from Kano State); Mr. Bege Bala (Special Assistant, BPE, from Kaduna State); Abdurahman Baffa Yola (Special Assistant on Political Matters); Mrs. Susan Chagwa (Special Assistant on Household and Social Events, from Adamawa State), etc.Certainly, some of the listed allegations made by Dr Akinbode are objectionably and glaringly malicious and even laughable, unlikely to be believed by any discerning follower of the rise and actions of the Vice President. For example, the Office of the Vice President is like a mini-Nigeria. The level of diversity accomplished in the office reflects all segments of the society – geo-political, ethnic, religious, gender, and youth representation.It is therefore inconceivable for anyone to suggest marginalisation or, as Dr Akinbode puts it, “Christianization” in appointments and religious bigotry. To the specific point of appointment of Yoruba Muslims, Dr Akinbode may wish to know that, even amongst his personal staff, no less than ten Yoruba Muslims were appointed to work for the Vice President including his next in command and the highest-ranking officer in the Vice President's office, the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Mr. AbdurRahman Adeola Ipaye. Other Yoruba Muslims who work, at various times, in the office include Distinguished Senator Babafemi Ojudu (Special Adviser on Political Matters); Dr Mariam Masha (Senior Special Assistant on Internally Displaced Persons); Ms Lanre Shasore (Senior Special Assistant on Planning and Coordination); Mrs. Olabisi Ogungbemi (Special Assistant on Political Matters); Yusuf Ali (Special Assistant on Power); Mr Mohammed Brimah (Special Assistant on Job Creation); Mr Mukhtar Tijani (Special Assistant on Power); Ms. Lolade Abiola; and Mr. Akanni Rahman.A leader known to suspend meetings to enable Muslim participants to perform prayers; known to rescue Muslim orphans and provide them with shelter and educational opportunities that safeguard and promote their religious practices; known to host Breaking of Ramadan Fast (Iftar) with Religious Leaders and Muslim communities from across the country; known to timeously intervene in the resolution of thorny inter-religious issues with potential for escalation can certainly not be said to be promoting any particular religion.Also, the allegation of “Christianization” in the appointment of some named individuals to various positions in Government is indicative of a complete lack of understanding of how Government appointments are made or a deliberate attempt to distort facts and mislead the unsuspecting public. Save for Mr. Kayode Pitan, who was appointed by the Vice President as the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry to take over from Mr. Waheed Olagunju, who was serving in an acting capacity, all the other persons named by Dr Akinbode were appointed by the President in the exercise of his constitutional powers.The calibre of the persons is not in question. In terms of accomplishments, these are pacesetters in their respective industries. For example, Mr. Ben Akabueze, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation served more than two terms as Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget in Lagos State and was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NAL Bank Plc. (now Sterling Bank Plc.). He has also served as Special Adviser to the President on National Planning.Mr Alex Okoh, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, an Alumnus of Harvard Business School and former Managing Partner, Ashford & McGuire Consulting Ltd.; is a quintessential Banker and Financial Advisor who as the Managing Director/CEO of NNB International Bank led the transformation of the bank from a comatose state into a leading commercial bank in Nigeria. He has worked with various banks within and outside Nigeria including Nigeria International Bank Limited (Citibank); United Bank for Africa Plc.; Citibank New York; Fidelity Bank London; Swiss Banking Corporation, Zurich; and Grindlays Bank, Zimbabwe. His first tenure recorded tremendous transformation of the Bureau leading to his reappointment by the President.Before the appointment by Mr. President of Mr Okey Enelamah as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment in 2015, the Harvard University graduate, Baker Scholar, and Loeb Fellow has had a tremendously successful career in investment banking and with Arthur Anderson (now KPMG Professional Services), New York and London offices of Goldman Sachs, Zephyr Management. He also founded and served as CEO of the African Capital Alliance (ACA).Clearly, even on the appointment of Mr Pitan, the author is not questioning the qualification of Mr Pitan, imaginably considering his robust academic training (including at American Graduate School of International Management, Arizona, USA; London Business School; and Haggai Institute, Singapore) as well as his decades of corporate and banking experience.These appointments were based purely on merit. The only problem with the appointments, according to the author, was their religion. Save Dr Akinbode is suggesting that persons being considered for appointments into Government positions must denounce their religions, it is unclear why the religious leanings of the appointees should be an issue. Recall that similar allegations were made against appointments of equally deserving and competent Muslims with claims of “Islamisation” being bandied around. Such divisive rhetoric and adverse language are dangerous to Nigeria's unified harmonious existence and should be resisted and rejected by all.The Osinbajo I know has been nothing but absolutely and uncompromisingly loyal to his principal, earning him several public and private commendations and additional responsibilities from the President, including the management of the Economic Sustainability Plan, credited with facilitating the “unexpected exit” of Nigeria from one of the worst recession cycles to hit several nations of the world. The man, Osinbajo, seeks no accolades. It is therefore not every action taken by him in support of persons facing challenges that will end up on the pages of newspapers. Just because Dr Akinbode is unaware of these interventions should not be a basis for dehumanising the Vice President.Additionally, it is evil and reprehensible to drag the person of Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo into whatever malicious campaign the author is mounting against the Vice President. This is a humble and compassionate woman, who has conducted her humanitarian and philanthropic activities in a well-guided and detached manner away from any Government activities. It is unacceptable to have persons of integrity be subjected to such ridiculous acts of scathing and baseless attacks. Clearly
Elizabeth serves as the Senior General Partner at Dev Equity, a venture capital fund investing in B-Corps in low income housing, urban revitalization, and sustainable agriculture in Latin America (Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru). She works closely with her portfolio companies to take their businesses to the next level while also making positive social changes in their countries. Elizabeth started her career in rapidly growing, innovative technology companies. She served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word when Windows was first launched and participated in forming the original Microsoft Office product. After graduating as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, she joined Yahoo! as one of the earliest employees-- quickly rising through the ranks to lead the business side of several divisions including Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Greetings and other properties. Most importantly, she was a founder of Yahoo! Shopping and became a leader in developing and shaping Yahoo’s e-commerce strategy. Since that time, Elizabeth has dedicated the past 15 years to impact investing and corporate social responsibility-- demonstrating that strong financial performance and positive social change are inherently connected. During the Covid-19 pandemic she created a new social enterprise, DignityMoves, with the purpose of creating innovative and scalable solutions for homelessness in California. Her first DignityMoves housing site has been funded by the State of California’s Project Homekey program and additional sites are in the works for Santa Barbara, San Francisco and elsewhere across California.
Life's Tough Media is pleased to announce the latest episode of our “Life's Tough: Explorers are TOUGHER!” podcast series. Hosted by Richard Wiese—explorer extraordinaire and President of The Explorers Club—this episode features Victor Vescovo, an American private equity investor, retired naval officer, avid adventurer, and renowned undersea explorer. Vescovo's storied career as an adventurer began when he was 23 years old and traveling solo to Nairobi to begin a safari in the Serengeti. He couldn't help but stare at Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, breaking through the clouds. Vescovo's guide saw him staring at this majestic peak and remarked: “You know you can climb that, right?” Since then, Vescovo's life has been a series of one extraordinary adventure after another. Eventually, Vescovo went on to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, as well as other iconic mountains. In 2017, he became the 12th American to complete the “Explorer's Grand Slam”—a challenge that consists of climbing the highest summit on each of the seven continents (the “Seven Summits”) and skiing at least 100 kilometers to the North and South Poles. Vescovo's pursuit of the “Seven Summits,” was not always smooth. The first time he attempted to climb Aconcagua, a mountain in Argentina that features the highest summit in the Western Hemisphere, he nearly lost his life. According to an account of the incident in a Dallas publication, D Magazine, published last year: “He (Vescovo) stepped on a boulder and it gave, sending him cartwheeling backward. Rocks hit his face, chipping his teeth. A 70-pounder struck his spine. He blacked out. When he came to a few seconds later, he couldn't speak. But he could understand what his climbing team was discussing: the possibility of leaving him and returning the next day with help, and whether the incoming cold would kill him. The three didn't think they had the strength to carry him back to camp.” As it turned out, a group of French climbers nearby came over and carried Vescovo to an emergency shelter. He spent a recovery period in Mendoza, Argentina, until he was able to travel back to the U.S. He returned to Aconcagua a few years later and made a successful ascent of the mountain. Deep dives Two years after wrapping up the “Slam,” Vescovo, at age 53, became the first person to have reached the deepest points in all five of the world's major oceans, when he took his submersible, called “Limiting Factor,” down 18,212 feet to the bottom of Molloy Deep in the Arctic Ocean on Aug. 24, 2019. Vescovo began the “Five Deeps Expedition” on Dec. 19, 2018, by visiting the Puerto Rico Trench in the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 27,480 feet. After that, the intrepid adventurer went to the South Sandwich Trench (24,390 feet) in the Antarctic Ocean on Feb. 3, 2019; the Java Trench (23,596 feet) in the Indian Ocean on April 5, 2019; the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (35,843 feet)—the deepest known place in the oceans, about 7 miles down—in the Pacific Ocean on April 28, 2019; and then his final destination in the Arctic. In September 2014, four years before Vescovo began the “Five Deeps Expedition,” he emailed the president of Triton Submarines in his quest to build a submersible that could explore the deepest parts of the oceans. Triton's president had already harbored an interest in developing such a vessel and Vescovo assured him that he had the resources to invest in the project. The two met in 2015, and eventually Triton came up with a plan for building a unique submersible, one that could withstand up to 16,000 pounds of air pressure per square inch. The standard pressure at sea level is 14.7 psi. The white titanium sphere, which Vescovo named for a spaceship in a sci-fi book series, was designed for repeated trips to the greatest ocean depths (a first). It has two seats, one for a pilot, one for a scientist, and a viewport by each seat. Vescovo, however, completed his five deep dives as the lone occupant aboard “Limiting Factor.” Vescovo is a managing partner and co-founder of Insight Equity, a private equity firm based in Texas. Earlier, he worked at Bain and Company, in merger integration, and at Lehman Brothers in mergers and acquisitions. He served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence offer, retiring in 2013 as a commander. The Dallas native has an MBA from Harvard Business School. His degree had a concentration in finance and operations, and he graduated as a Baker Scholar (in top 5 percent of class). He also earned a master's from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied defense analysis with an operations research focus. And, he received an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, majoring in economics and political science. Join Richard and Victor for a fascinating conversation on Victor's celebrated adventures and what motivates this ultimate explorer.
We're delighted to begin Season 4 of The Disruptive Voice with Anna Marie Wagner, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. Hosted by Derek van Bever, Anna Marie discusses the transformative potential of bioengineering and the work her company is doing to help facilitate it. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, Anna Marie worked as an investor with Bain Capital Private Equity for several years before diving into the world of biotechnology. In this rich discussion, she teaches Derek (and all of us!) about synthetic biology, and the barriers to more nimble forms of biotech development, as well as the platform solution that Gingko has devised to facilitate biological innovation.
Investors today seem to be enamored with growth in the US tech sector, regardless of valuations. By contrast, Soo Chuen and his team practice the increasingly rare art of contrarian value investing on a global scale. Soo Chuen Tan is President of Discerene Group LP, a Connecticut-based private investment partnership that invests in businesses protected by either structural barriers to entry (“moats”) or hard assets, when such businesses are out of favor, at prices offering significant margins of safety. In this episode, Soo Chuen discusses the psychological and philosophical underpinnings of value investing, including (1) being greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy, (2) viewing risk as the probability and potential magnitude of permanent capital impairment rather than volatility, (3) distinguishing price from value, and (4) requiring a margin of safety. Soo Chuen also discusses the importance of understanding the historical, social, and cultural context of a business enterprise. What are the unspoken norms that a management team operates by? What are the values of the country or culture that the business operates in? Values, after all, guide behavior, and behavior influences outcomes. Soo Chuen speaks of several investments he's been involved in around the world, and what he's learned from each. In particular, he shares his reflections on operating in "thick" versus "thin" cultures. Born in Malaysia to two physics teachers, Soo Chuen discovered his calling as a value investor in his mid-twenties while in business school. Soo Chuen holds a Bachelor/Master of Arts degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University, where he was awarded the Martin Wronker University Prize for Law. Soo Chuen also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar. Before founding Discerene, Soo Chuen worked at Deccan Value Advisors, the Baupost Group, Halcyon Asset Management, and McKinsey & Company.
E25: Woody Bradford is Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board at Conning, a global investment firm founded in 1912 with a long history of serving the insurance industry. Prior to joining Conning, Woody was an Operating Partner with Advent International, a global private equity firm. Previously, he spent 12 years at Putnam Investments where he held multiple roles, including Head of Corporate Development and Chief Operating Officer of Global Distribution. He is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and of the Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. He is a member of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (“WPI”) Board of Trustees and participates on The Greater Boston Food Bank Emeriti Board, where he has served as Chair of the Board. Woody Bradford's LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodybradford/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodybradford/ ) Conning https://www.conning.com/ (https://www.conning.com) WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: Woody's personal story of helping establish the first food bank in Maine when he was a teenager. The bet he took that ended up with him getting into Harvard Business School. The unique distinction of graduating as a Harvard Baker Scholar (top 5%) and the study skills he used to achieve it. The skill Woody developed to create his own luck. The surprising career strategy that helped him find his way to the Financial Services industry. Why humility is the one trait he'd like to instill in every employee. What important things Conning is doing to prepare for the workforce of the future. How individuals from under-represented groups have distinguished themselves as potential future leaders, including C-suite positions, and the encouragement they offer to others with similar aspirations. A helpful resource for having uncomfortable conversations. The one word you should keep in mind when presenting your idea to the C-Suite. A positive strategy to use with an employee who is feeling burned out. Books for inspiration. How to improve your mental and physical health. Woody's favorite Metallica album. HIGHLIGHTS: What characteristics should you look for in a mentor: Someone who can give you honest feedback. Someone who can point you in a direction that helps you think through your strengths and weaknesses and find opportunities in an organization. Advice for people in under-represented groups in the C-Suite: Do your job well. Try to be in an organization that understands and practices diversity and inclusion. Find a manager or a mentor who values you and who will give you opportunities. QUOTES: "Allow people to bring their whole selves to work." "I learned to be ruthless about time management. There's no way you can do everything. You must be able to decide what's important and what's not. RESOURCES: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, Emmanuel Acho,https://uncomfortableconvos.com/ ( https://uncomfortableconvos.com/) Pelotonhttps://www.onepeloton.com/ ( https://www.onepeloton.com/) Why We Sleep, Matthew Walkerhttps://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316 ( https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316) How Not to Die, Michael Gregerhttps://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically/dp/1250066115 ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically/dp/1250066115) Indianapolis, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladichttps://www.amazon.com/Indianapolis-Disaster-Fifty-Year-Exonerate-Innocent/dp/1501135945 ( https://www.amazon.com/Indianapolis-Disaster-Fifty-Year-Exonerate-Innocent/dp/1501135945) Jaws: The U.S.S. Indianapolis Speechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO60RohuARY ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO60RohuARY) Robert Ludlum bookshttps://www.amazon.com/robert-ludlum-books ( https://www.amazon.com/robert-ludlum-books) Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, Alfred...
Our latest episode is a fireside chat between Armando Mann, Chief Business Officer at Hopin, and Elad Gil, entrepreneur, investor, and author. Elad walks us through how he sees companies coming out of the pandemic, the offensive and defensive moves a startup can take to protect themselves from uncertainties that arise during a pandemic, how companies can leverage the pandemic to recruit the best talent, explore new opportunities in mergers and acquisitions and go after enterprise clients. The future of remote work, the urgent needs, and problems startups are not addressing, what new technology Elad is most excited about, and much more. Listen in.Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility. About the GuestElad Gil is an entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to private companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, Checkr, Gusto, Instacart, OpenDoor, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, and Wish. He is co-founder and chairman at Color Genomics and its former CEO. Previously, Gil was VP of corporate strategy at Twitter after it acquired his firm Mixer Labs, and he was Google's original product manager for Google Mobile Maps.About the HostArmando Mann is Chief Business Officer at Hopin, the leading platform for virtual events where you can host a 50 person meetup or a 50,000 person conference. He is also a global investor in SaaS startups such as Carta, Blend, and Freshworks. Armando launched and led go to market for Dropbox for Business. Before that, he built the sales teams for various Google emerging businesses, including Google Offers and AdWords Express. Armando holds an Industrial Engineering degree from ITBA and a Master in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.Sign up for regular updates from The Orbit Shift Podcast.The Orbit Shift Podcast is Powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. Host and Producer - Jayadevan PKAssistant Producer - Shashwath JAudio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian
From founding a hot dog start-up at Melbourne University, to graduating from Harvard Business School’s MBA as a Baker Scholar, Bill Lang’s experience has been formed over a 30-year career in working with business owners and leaders across multiple industries and countries, and from his own entrepreneurial journey. By the time Bill had graduated from Harvard Business School, he had co-founded businesses in Australia and Silicon Valley that culminated in a $120 million global alliance with AT&T and British Telecom. For the last 20 years, Bill has leveraged his experience in China to help western businesses develop skills, strategies and relationships to engage with Chinese consumers and business partners at home and abroad. IN THIS EPISODE: Would you like to pick the brain of a McKinsey consultant turned entrepreneur who has advised countless business owners in the US and globally? In this episode, host Denise Silber speaks to our first Australian guest, Bill Lang. A Harvard MBA and Baker Scholar, Bill helps business owners raise money and grow, expand to and from China, or simply survive the pandemic. A life-long learner, Bill is a coach, an educator, a government advisor, a passionate advocate for small business, and one efficient person!
If you've found yourself binging on the latest shows to break free from the stress and monotony of life in a pandemic, chances are you've come across The Morning Show, Little Fires Everywhere, and Big Little Lies. All productions of Hello Sunshine released on Apple TV, Hulu, and HBO respectively. Having bagged 18 Emmy nominations, Hello Sunshine is a welcome disruptor and new media company that puts women at the center of every story that it creates, celebrates, and discovers. Stories we love, big and small, funny and complex, across television, film, books and podcasts, shining a light on where women are now and helping them chart a new path forward. It's the brainchild of America’s sweetheart Reese Witherspoon, who...fun fact...began her acting career after first enrolling at Stanford. We've had the pleasure of watching her grow up on screen through her roles in Pleasantville, Cruel Intentions, the Legally Blonde series (which is soon to be a trilogy!) and her Academy Award winning performance in Walk the Line, to name a few. To top it off, she became a mom at the ripe age of 23 and made it her priority to be devoted to her three children, Ava, Deacon, and Tennessee. As accomplished as she is, she knew she didn’t want her career to be just about her. She decided to leave a legacy that's far more impactful and inclusive. Hello Sunshine. So who’s heading the company behind the scenes and is Reese’s own trusted right hand woman? It’s Sarah Harden. Sarah has been at the helm as CEO leading Hello Sunshine through its rapid growth as a premium content studio and direct-to-consumer media brand. Prior to this, Sarah was President of Otter Media, a privately held joint venture between AT&T and the Chernin Group, where she spearheaded Otter’s first investment - Hello Sunshine. As President, she acquired, invested and launched global OTT video services with a variety of media companies including Fullscreen, Roosterteeth, Crunchyroll, Ellation, and Sky. During her leadership, Otter generated $400 million in revenue and acquired and retained more that 1.5 million paying subscribers across its video subscription businesses. Earlier on, Sarah was Group Director at New Corp Asia and SVP of Business Development at Fox Networks. She began her career at Boston Consulting Group in Melbourne, Australia and went on to attend Harvard Business School with high distinction as a Baker Scholar. Sarah’s most important role, however, is being a mother. Sarah and her husband Dave have 3 kids -- Lulu, 16, Tommy, 14, and Fletcher, 10. And, another fun fact...she’s a twin! These days, she’s helping crack algebraic equations and reading her kids’ persuasive letters to bring home a pet hamster, while negotiating multi-million dollar deals with top global networks via Zoom. All in a day’s work. Meet My Guest: WEBSITE: Hello-Sunshine.com INSTAGRAM: @hellosunshine FACEBOOK: /HeloSunshineOfficial Press: FAST COMPANY: How Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Harden built Hello Sunshine into the media brand of the future VARIETY: Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Names Sarah Harden CEO Mom Haul: RITUAL: Essential vitamins for women EVOLUTION_18: Receive 20% off using promo code MOMSENSE18
Missy Narula is the Founder and CEO of Exhale Parent and Founder of the newly launched Diapertainment. Missy launched Exhale Parent during her third maternity leave to help others learn from her experiences and to create a place for all the legal and financial information new parents need. Missy recently launched Diapertainment October 2020 which makes diaper changing less painful. It is a clear phone holder that simply screws into the wall aside the changing table and will entertain your baby while keeping both of your hands free to safely get the job done. Prior to these ventures, Missy spent 8+ years at TPG Capital, initially serving as Chief of Staff to the Head of the Global Ops Group. Missy holds a B.A. from Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar. Missy joins Kristen Hall, COO of Mother Honestly, to discuss launching and sustaining these ventures while raising her family. Missy shares her own experience with understanding maternity leave and how she is focused on changing the policies around maternity leave. She also shares her path to product creation and encourages others to take that dive. Be sure to check out @exhale.parent, @diapertainment and visit https://diapertainment.com to learn more.
This week, I sat down with the talented Snigdha Sur. (@snigdhasur) Snigdha the founder & CEO of The Juggernaut, a Y Combinator and Precursor Ventures-backed media company telling smart South Asian stories and news. The Juggernaut prides itself in telling stories with "untold context." She worked at McKinsey New York, in Bollywood, in media-focused venture capital/PE, and in launch strategy for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine. She's also advised BuzzFeed, Quartz. Snigdha graduated from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar with an MBA and magna cum laude from Yale College in Economics and South Asian Studies. She's fluent in Hindi and Bengali and sometimes can slip into Mandarin. What Snigdha is creating is very exciting and I know her media company has a bright future. I loved talking to her and I know she will do big things with The Juggernaut.
Derek Zanutto is General Partner CapitalG where he focuses on investments in enterprise software. Derek has led a number of investments at CapitalG, including Armis, Collibra and Dataiku, and he serves on multiple boards of directors. Prior to joining CapitalG, Derek helped lead technology investments for 10 years at TPG, Hellman & Friedman and GIC, including investments in Uber, Airbnb, Lynda.com and CAA. Derek started his career at Morgan Stanley. Derek holds an AB from Harvard College and an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.
ACEC welcomes David Zipper onto the show to discuss the future of infrastructure funding in a post COVID economy and the future of Mobility as a Service (MOS). David Zipper is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. David’s perspective on urban development is rooted in his experience working within city hall as well as being a venture capitalist, policy researcher, and startup advocate. He has consulted with numerous startups and public officials about regulatory strategy. David’s articles about urban innovation have been published in The Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, and Car and Driver. His 2018 article in Fast Company was the first to apply the the “walled garden” framework to urban mobility. David has spoken at events including the Consumer Electronics Show, SXSW, and the FIA Conference. He focuses on topics including Mobility-as-a-Service, the uses of transportation data, the future of micromobility, and linkages between public transit, city regulations, and private shared vehicles.From 2013 to 2017 David was the Managing Director for Smart Cities and Mobility at 1776, a global entrepreneurial hub with over 1,300 member startups. At 1776 David connected hundreds of entrepreneurs to urban leaders eager to deploy their solutions, and he closed millions of dollars in partnerships with cities and corporations worldwide. He continues to be a Partner in the 1776 Seed Fund.David previously served as the Director of Business Development and Strategy under two mayors in Washington DC, where his responsibilities included attracting businesses to the city, promoting entrepreneurship, and overseeing economic development strategy. David led support to Washington’s first startup incubators and guided the city's response to the emergence of ride hail services. Before moving to Washington David served as Executive Director of NYC Business Solutions in New York City under Mayor Bloomberg. David holds an MBA with Highest Honors from Harvard Business School, an M.Phil in Land Economy (Urban Planning) from Cambridge University, and a BA with High Honors from Swarthmore College. He has been selected as a Truman Scholar, a Gates Scholar, and a Baker Scholar. Transcript: Host:Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. I am pleased today to welcome David zipper onto the program. David is a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. David's perspective on urban development is rooted in his experience working within city hall, as well as being a venture capitalist, a policy researcher, and a startup advocate. He has consulted with numerous startups and public officials about regulatory strategy. David is a published article appearing in Wired, The Atlantic, Slate, and Car and Driver. He's spoken to groups such as the consumer electronics show South by Southwest, and focuses on topics such as mobility as a service and micro mobility and the linkages between public transit city regulations and private shared vehicles. David was also one of the panelists on the ACEC Research Institute's most recent round table discussion on the future of engineering focused on the future of funding in a post COVID-19 environment. And David welcome onto the show. Really great to have you. David Zipper :Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you. Host:So that was an interesting panel. I listened to it a couple of times and I would imagine, I guess it's safe to say there was a universal agreement that the recovery is going to be gradual at best. After COVID-19 with your perspective from working in city hall and having that local political experience, how do you see this playing out where really the rubber meets the road? You know, you're talking about metropolitan transit agencies, you're talking about, you know, people get trying to get to and from work. How do you think COVID-19 is going to impact cities? David Zipper :That's a big question. And there's lots of different ways to answer it. And frankly, the answers are going to be different based on the, the nature of a transit agency versus a county government or a city government. But I can certainly maybe I can offer some, some overall thoughts up front and we can go into whatever detail that you like. But but yeah, in the short term you've seen transit agencies and local governments and state governments really just scrambling to keep the lights on as it were. Adjusting transit routes. Sometimes bringing up capital projects to do, to go faster because there's fewer people on the roads and there's fewer people flying at airports. So you can do airport expansions all faster. There's fewer trains running. So you might be able to more easily do capital projects. David Zipper:But that's really like a, a sort of a short term band-aid because the money's running out fast. We're already just, just today, actually, as we're recording this, there's been news about a $20 billion plus budget gap over the next couple of years in New York City's MTA, that's going to have to get closed. And the biggest transit agencies are feeling the pain first because they are really using their farebox revenue. The fairs that we all pay when we take transit they've used what they, that they collected yesterday to pay today's operating expenses. And in the big cities, that's a big chunk of their revenue, transit revenue. Transit ridership has fallen through the floor because people are uncomfortable on transit, even though it's the data suggests it's relatively safe, as long as people wear masks, but you've already seen, for example, in San Francisco, Muni, the transit service, there is consolidated routes really in a huge way, Caltrain in the Bay area, its future is up in the air there's discussion of whether to do a new tax to save it. David Zipper :And the transit agencies are going to feel the pain a little bit later because most of their revenue comes from state and federal governments that, you know, their budget is already allocated for this year, before the coronavirus hit. But there'll be a rolling impact there. And then for, for, for states and cities to, to you know, state the obvious they can't print money, they have to meet their, their - they have to make their budgets align so they can have a deficit. So what that means is that you're seeing some projects postponed, you're seeing layoffs and the Cares Act at the federal level. It gave a bit of a lifeline a few months ago when the coronavirus first hit there's discussion. Like again, as we're recording this there's discussions on Capitol Hill about a new federal investment program, it's unclear if that's going to have money for states, cities, deities, and for transit agencies, if it doesn't, I expect we're going to see pretty intense contractions and layoffs and pull back on capital projects and all of those levels. Host:It's been in my experience, you know, formerly on Capitol Hill and, and, and, and just watching this from time to time with all the surface bills that kind of come on, you always have that partisan divide when it comes down to the usual argument is that, you know, Republicans want to have the move towards devolution, but it was always that argument that, okay, we're going to Republicans would fight against Democrats who wanted to have bike trails or greenways or things of that nature, rails to trails, things like that. And then the Republicans were always going to fight against transit because they just wanted to make sure that that highway trust fund was kind of boxed in for roads. Host:Given the fact that we're in this new environment now, we're, it seems the federal government is more willing to provide aid, to deal with, to soften the blow for COVID-19. Do you think that any of those old entrenched arguments might shift, just because of the willingness to put money on the table to actually create assistance programs, do you think this might be an opportunity to break the paradigm and potentially have that money going to, you know, state and local transit agencies more freely? David Zipper :I wish I could say yes. I can't because there's a, I think unfortunately the you know, we used to say decades ago that transportation is a nonpartisan issue is simply not true anymore. The, the there's a professor at UC Santa Barbara named Clayton Nall. He wrote a book called the Road to Inequality. And in which he writes about how in the last 50 years transportation funding and particular transit funding has become remarkably partisan. David Zipper :Even to the point that if you live in a Democratic area, like say the Bay area or the New York area, even if you never take transit, you're more likely to vote in favor of referendums, referenda in favor of transit than, than any those who who'd be elsewhere, that doesn't apply in other parts of the country. So transit has become a democratic issue, which to me is unfortunate because frankly, the more people who are riding transit, the less congested roads are including those roads that are being used by some exerbs and suburbanites who are more likely to be Republican. So I would love to, to hear to, for your hypothesis to be held, to be the whole true. But from everything I've seen, like, for example, with the Cares Act you know, Schumer and the Senate and its allies had to hold out longer to be able to get a few billion dollars more for transit, it seems like it was done despite Republican opposition, as opposed to a sort of like heralding, a new breakthrough, which I wish it would on a nonpartisan bias. Host:That's something that was kind of brought up a little bit on the panel, but it wasn't really delve deep really more, more than just a couple of questions and just comments on it. But the push pull between of course, the large metropolitan areas in, on the coasts and your larger cities in the interior, but then you have those swaths of, let's say, you know, like I said, exurban or rural areas, how do you think the funding's going to be effected for projects in those smaller cities or, or areas between the two coasts? David Zipper :Well, a lot of it, right, it's going to depend on, on one, what happened to the budgets of state DOTs, and that's what, that's what those small cities and rural areas are really relying on. And this is a point that was made by Jeff Davis on the, on the panel. David Zipper :You know, even if there is stimulus money from the federal government is provided with a very generous match for highway projects for small towns. And for rural areas would say, I don't know, four to one federal match or whatever it is. There's still a one in five, 1 dollar of every five has to be put up by the local and state governments that at a time when income taxes are collapsing and tax revenue from hotels and restaurants, it's just drying up. It's not clear the extent to which States and local governments can even meet very modest matches. So if I were an official at a, in a small city or small town or a rural county, that's what I would really be worried about is to say, look, if I get a generous program with a low match, can I even meet that? I may just be grants. Yeah. Host:And that, that kind of goes into the segway to the idea of the integrated mobility or the mobility as a, and where the private sector might be able to in some way, step in. I mean, it's the few - Consumer Technology Association and CES. I've been out to a couple of their shows and seen kind of the idea of, you know, mobility as a service. The idea that you know, you might be able to have - deleverage maybe transit. And so in some way where you can actually then have vehicles, which are not so much owned, but private shared vehicles or some kind of autonomous systems, some, some cities are starting to try to get pilot programs on the road already for autonomous buses and things of that nature, which are private public partnerships. That's all nascent a little, you know, it's not fully developed. Where do you think the opportunity is for some of these technology companies that are, that are focused on mobility, and that's a big change. I mean, just the change between transportation to the concept of mobility is not so much what you own or what you have, but how do you get from point a to point B? Host:Do you think It's an opportunity for the private sector kind of enter and, and treat this as a, as a business opportunity? David Zipper :Maybe, maybe I wrote an article in Slate two months ago that noted how truly unusual this moment is, and that you know, ordinarily, there's a lot of research that shows it takes a lot to get you or me or anybody to change how they travel. We're creatures of habit when it comes to commuting, right? We have a given route we take to get to go to work or to the grocery store, to the gym or to the school. And if we're biking or if we're taking a bus, or if we're driving, we're probably going to stick to that. It takes a lot to get us to change. Just inviting you to change or me to change is probably not going to do much. David Zipper :It's really hard. What does get people to change and individual change is if you have a shock, like a like you have a new child born, and your habits have you have to move around, or let's change, maybe you change where you live, you move where you get a new job. That's an individual shock though, or a household shock. What we're undergoing now because of COVID is a society wide shock where everybody is rethinking how they travel, because they may not be going to work anymore at all. And they, if they took public transit, they may not be comfortable doing that. Now they may not be comfortable at being in ride hail the way they used to. There's lots of trips, millions of trips up for grabs in terms of how, what the new mode might be. And frankly, this is sort of a rationale for the cities to quickly put up bike lanes and, and new infrastructure that it can, can encourage people to not default to driving, which can feel like the safest route. David Zipper :It's just not sustainable at scale for cities. So the question becomes to get to your point of like, what's the role of the private sector in this? I would say that there is potentially a role for private sector actors, whether it's operators like scooter companies to step in and be able to provide, for example, a lower priced options for the short term, or maybe monthly rentals, which companies like Spin and I believe Lime have moved toward providing now as sort of a product that fits the market right now to encourage people who are not going to be, who might otherwise default to driving, to take another mode. That's more environmentally friendly, it takes up less space. And then you get into mobility as a service, which for those who aren't familiar, I would assume that everyone knows about MOS. Maybe I should define it really quick, because I don't know if all of our listeners are engaged in that. I Know some of the larger players in the engineering space are, but... David Zipper :Yeah, it's still a new field. It's a lot of people are excited about it and transportation planning and policy and technology, but it's still in its early days. The idea behind mobility as a service is to say that if we can sort of take all of these various options to get around a city for those who don't drive and knit all those options together. So you've got transit in there and scooters and ride hail and car share and bike share, and whatever else, put them all on one platform that MOS platform, it lets people choose how to get from point a to point B on all of those collective options and purchase their ticket, or a ticket that's a combination of modes on that platform. You can actually take away some of the friction, the annoyance factor of having to jump between apps and figure out which is the best service to get you from point A to point B. David Zipper :This is a need, MOS advocates claim, that really didn't exist 20 years ago when we had a very sort of fixed number for decades, really of a number of ways to get around town. You walk, bike, taxi, drive transit, but now we've got these other new modes and MOS can make a little bit simpler to navigate. So, and there's a bunch of companies that provide this now, like City Mapper and transit and so forth. And so on Google Maps, you could argue as a MOS provider in some ways. So the, the role of MOS in this particular moment that we're in is potentially a powerful one because lots of people are again, figuring out how to travel because they're breaking their old habits about how to get from point A to point B and MOS platforms can inform those decisions. David Zipper :And perhaps if the government gets involved, especially could nudge some of those decisions to be, to be resulting in a trip that's other than driving and potentially other than transit, cause people are just uneasy with it right now, for reasons that are in a lot of ways. Understandable. So is this a moment for MOS? Maybe? I would argue that these platforms are really reliant on the underlying quality and comfort of the services that they knit together. So you need to be able to provide comfortable biking and scooter lanes in a city to make people consider those options. You need to be able to provide reliable transit, to get people, to consider that which is, you know, sometimes a problem in American cities. But I do think this is a moment where MOS could be an interesting area of exploration Host:Or at least an area a time where federal policymakers can start looking at this and integrating it into, you know, long-term, you know, policy that, cause I know that, you know, Uber for example, was, was very active on the Hill talking about their fully integrated model where it's, you know, it was the combination when, you know, Uber taxi was kind of first coming out and they were talking about, we'll take an Uber to they're there, I guess, hanger or whatever they're going to consider, you know, get on an Uber taxi that will fly you to the next facility where you can go and take an Uber for your final destination. And you know, that kind of a kind of integrated, you know, closed loop system. David Zipper :Yeah, I mean, that's a little that's going to suit Uber's needs. I'm not sure cities are going to be that excited about everybody jumping into helicopters. Host:Exactly. David Zipper :I think that the high speed rail argument of saying, okay, you can take a high speed rail route to, let's say Washington DC to New York, but after you get off the train, then what? David Zipper :Correct. Host:It's how do you, how do you connect a route and how do you connect that high speed rail line termination to all the different options you can get to get to your final destination without having to get a car or, or, or reliant on one form of transportation over another. David Zipper :Yeah, I think the idea is if you're choosing between driving, flying or taking the train wouldn't it be nice if you could basically with one tap, be able to purchase your train ticket and know that there will be a, just for example, a Lyft car waiting for you because that, that car was summoned knowing that your train is running seven minutes late and it's pulling up just two minutes after the train gets into the station and you're, you've got a seamless sort of transfer from the train to ride hail onto your destination. That's the idea behind MOS, that's an inner city vision of MOS. Usually to be honest, MOS advocates are thinking more about travel within the city. So maybe the argument there would be, you know, I want to go to the place in Fairfax County, I'm in DC and to get to Fairfax County, Virginia, I need to do a combination of transit to ride hail or transit to scooter. David Zipper :And I can in one fell swoop purchase, determine my route, purchase the ticket and know that I'll have a seamless transfer when I get, when I pop out of the Metro station in Fairfax. Host:And then again, you know, a lot of this has been on the tech side because of developing the technology to allow that seamless integration of different mobility solutions. But on the engineering side, the people who are designing the infrastructure to actually enable this to happen. And that's really, you know, our core constituency from an engineer's perspective. What do you think the top, what do you think maybe a few of the, the main things that they should be looking at, or they should be paying attention to? If, they see opportunity to, you know, design the infrastructure to support systems like this. David Zipper :Yeah, I'll mention a couple of things. You know, one is the, again, the topic I wrote about a month ago I feel like there's a lot of people live in cities who suddenly have a new appreciation for their sidewalks, you know, as we're all stuck at home, trying to get exercise, to avoid going stir crazy. You realize that a lot of our urban neighborhoods have terrible sidewalks and some don't have any at all, especially in the South and the West. And I I think we've got, there's a good chance and I frankly, am hopeful that there is going to be a window of opportunity to consider sidewalk products - and sidewalk infrastructure is real infrastructure. It's less expensive than building a tunnel, but for those of your the engineers that are members of the organization that are trying to think of how can I really tap into what public leaders are thinking about now, if you can incorporate high quality wide, well lit, accessible sidewalks into your proposals for renovating a given district or into a new project. David Zipper :I think that this is a time when that's going to be thought of a little bit more directly and more constructively. I think that that also these new bike lanes and, and that are being developed, I don't see them going away. I frankly think that's also opened the door to considerations of some new technologies that will also have infrastructure needs. And I'll give one example that I'm really interested in, which is, which is parcel delivery. There's an argument that the coronavirus is a great catalyst or an accelerator of trends that are already underway. I think everybody knows that people are buying more stuff online than we used to. Now it's even more stuff than we did a few months ago. And there's been moments of sort of bullishness for sidewalk drones. I personally think that's going to take a while. David Zipper :Partly because our sidewalks think like we were talking about earlier, but the other option is is something I am actually kind of bullish on, which is e-cargo bikes, or electric cargo bikes, which for those of the audience who've been to Europe, they're widespread in Germany and other European countries. And they could be, they can utilize the existing infrastructure in cities. And most of it, at least the city of Boston is, but not an RFI today. July 21st, I think is today's date to basically invite suggestions from the private sector about what sort of infrastructure upgrades might be necessary in terms of depots to collect parcels and various neighborhoods as distribution nodes, things like that. And I, this is an area where I'm bullish in cities for the next five years. I think cities are gonna recognize that they can reduce congestion, improve neighborhood quality of life and, and utilization of existing infrastructure. David Zipper :If they shift some of these UPS, DHL, USPS trucks that they take up space and double park and can be pollutants instead utilize E cargo bikes, Europeans can do it. And I think we can too. And a lot of our cities. Host:Those are really two good points. He and I, and I, it's always kind of sad when I see a drone and Fairfax or one of the, you know, robot parcel delivery or package delivery drones get caught up on a stump or something on the, on the sidewalk and Fairfax city. It's kind of sad. David Zipper :But it happened. There was a viral video and Friendship Heights, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Washington over the weekend where you see the sidewalk drone got stuck because the sidewalk got too narrow. And I myself tweeted about him saying, because the guy who saw I was like, Oh, this I helped a little guy. David Zipper:It's kind of cute. I'm like this, isn't cute. If it's a person in a wheelchair, like we've really blown it with our urban sidewalks. And this should be a moment when we should be really investing in them. That's a very good point. Host:Well, David, I do appreciate you coming on the show. There's a lot to talk about here. I'd love to have you back on the show so we can talk about really these mobility issues when it comes to, you know, the interconnection of technology and mobility, how it all kind of ties together. You know, it's something that we'd like to explore a little bit more. Because I think our members are always looking for what, you know, what is the next thing what's going to be the next area that we might be able to invest in. And I think that, that these issues are going to be top of mind. Host:And yeah, and I do appreciate your time. And you mentioned that article. I mean, what else do you have coming out? Where should people be looking for the the article that you're writing now? David Zipper :Yeah, I'm actually, I've got a couple articles coming out in the next week or two. I write a lot about new forms of urban mobility and new technologies, and also about sort of the interplay between local policy, especially around transportation and automobiles and transit. So, so those who are in, if you're interested, you can always reach me on Twitter. I post all my articles there people can send me DMs. If they've got a question it's easy, it's a zipper, just my name at David Zipper. And then for my articles I actually have a website where I put them together. Cause I do write across a number of platforms and that's just as easy again www.davidzipper.com and you can find all the articles there. And I even have a little newsletter. I put out once a month with the stuff I've been writing and thinking about in these topics, because especially in the current environment, so much is changing so quickly. So I appreciate the opportunity to come join you and talk about some of these changes. Host:It was great to have you on and again, follow David and David's zipper and look out for his upcoming pieces. And we'd love to have you back on. So David have a great rest of the week stay as cool as possible when this heat wave and stay healthy. David Zipper:I'll go for a socially distance bike ride. Host:There you go. There you go. David Zipper :Thanks a lot. It's great to be here. Host:And you've been listening to Engineering Influence brought to you by ACEC.
Chip Hazard, Partner Flybridge Capital Chip's investment interests and experience broadly cover companies and technologies in the information technology sector. He is also an investment partner in XFactor Ventures, a Flybridge community fund focused on investing in female founders. Before co-founding the firm in 2002, Chip was a General Partner with Greylock Partners, a leading venture capital firm he joined in 1994. While at Greylock, Chip led or participated in numerous successful investments in the enterprise information technology field. Prior to Greylock, he was with Company Assistance Limited, an investment and consulting firm in Warsaw Poland; and Bain and Company, an international management consulting firm. Chip received a BA with honors from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.
Steve Macadam was, for 12 years, the President and CEO of EnPro, a $1.4 billion publicly traded company. He received a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Kentucky, an MS in finance from Boston College, and an MBA from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar. He currently serves as an independent director on the boards of Louisiana-Pacific Corporation and Valvoline Inc. In this week's podcast, Tami and Steve discuss what it means for a company to have "dual bottom lines," and the aspiration to create a business with the formal purpose of enabling the full release of human possibility. (1 hour, 13 minutes)
The world is changing faster and faster and the only way to thrive is to accept the inevitability of change. Blitzscaling is all about rapidly growing and scaling a business or product in the face of uncertainty. Listen to Chris Yeh discuss the techniques that digital companies like Google, Linkedin and Facebook use to scale and double in size in a short period of time. An active angel investor, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author, Chris is a well-known technology expert in Silicon Valley. He has been building Internet businesses since 1995 and has a proven record of helping startups develop their strategy around emerging technologies, business scaling, growth initiatives, and digital disruption. He is the General Partner at Wasabi Venture, a global venture fund, startup incubator, and consulting firm, former interim CEO of Ustream.TV, a platform service business for online videos, and VP of Marketing for PBWorks, which provides vertical collaboration solutions for companies. He has also helped grow numerous other companies, including Symphoniq Corporation, TargetFirst, and Juno Online Services and FarSight Financial Services (divisions of D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P.). Chris is the founder and Chairman of the Harvard Business School Technology Alumni Association. He earned two Bachelor’s degrees with distinction from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.
The Desi VC: Indian Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startups | VC
Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner at Omnivore, a venture capital firm which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Mark co-founded Omnivore in 2010 with Jinesh Shah, ex-CFO at Nexus Venture Partners. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, and also had stints at Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (Honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.You can follow Mark Kahn (@agri_technology) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.…Glossary of terms:1. Upstream investments – Upstream investments refer to infusion of capital into businesses that utilize material inputs needed for production e.g. seed, fertilizers, machinery etc.2. Downstream investments – Downstream investments refers to the infusion of capital into businesses where products get produced and distributed. e.g. e-commerce, grocery stores, logistics etc.…In this episode, we will cover:1. Mark's venture into agri-business2. The broad definition of agri-tech and what it encompasses3. Evolution of agri-tech as sector4. Omnivore's thesis for India5. Upstream vs downstream investments in agri-tech6. Sectors and geographies within agri-tech in India7. Metrics Omnivore pays close attention to while evaluating for investment8. Concepts of sustainability and how it correlates to success of the Indian agri-industry9. Challenges within agri-tech and for agri-tech startups10. The global opportunity for Indian agri-tech startups
This week, James is joined by Bertrand Bodson, who has been Chief Digital Officer of Novartis since 2018 and is a member of the Executive Committee. From 2013 to 2017, Bertrand served as chief digital and marketing officer of Sainsbury's Argos, where he led Argos' successful transformation from a traditional catalogue business to the third-largest online retailer in the United Kingdom. Prior to that, he was executive vice president of the global digital business at EMI Music from 2010 to 2013. He co-founded Bragster.com, a social networking and content sharing website, and served as CEO from 2006 to 2010. Additionally, he was senior group product manager at Amazon Inc. from 2003 to 2006. Bertrand earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in the United States, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a master's degree in commercial engineering from the Solvay Business School (Belgium)/McGill University (Canada). He is a member of the board of directors of Electrocomponents PLC and a member of the supervisory board of Wolters Kluwer NV. www.twitter.com/bbod | www.linkedin.com/in/bodson/ | www.novartis.com/our-science/novartis-biome For more information and content, check out: www.hs.ventures Twitter @HSVenture Instagram @hs.ventures, Linkedin HS. email us at info@hs.live You can get our host, Dr. James Somauroo, at: www.jamessomauroo.com Twitter @jamessomauroo Instagram @j_soms Linkedin james-somauroo
Tom Schmitt took on the role of President, CEO and Director at Tennessee-based Forward Air Corporation in September of 2018. He was elected Chairman of the Board in May 2019. Forward Air is a market leader in expedited pallet and truckload transportation across the U.S. It is Nasdaq-listed and has a strong track record of profitable growth. Prior to joining Forward Air, Tom served as a Management Board member for Schenker, a Freight Forwarding, Transportation, and Logistics company, operating in 140 countries with $20 billion in global revenues. He headed up a team of 22,000 in the Global Contract Logistics business, where his strong emphasis on continued and accelerated profitable growth paid off for the company. In his first two years, the division reached record revenue and profit levels and was awarded the “best Logistics brand in Germany,” as well as the prestigious parent company’s DB Award for Customer and Quality. In addition, as Chief Commercial Officer, Tom led Schenker AG’s global sales and marketing activities. In his first full year in this role, the company grew by more than 1 bn € – as much as in Schenker’s previous 10 years combined. Before joining Schenker, Tom led Aqua Terra, reporting directly to the Board as one of the company’s owners. Aqua Terra is Canada’s leading provider of natural spring water and Tom’s leadership transformed the company into a Canada-wide Nourishment company with an export business of its premium water. Tom served as CEO and director on the Board for Purolator, Canada’s top parcel and freight transportation company, and under his leadership, the company saw growth in the same year for both market share and profitability for the first time in more than 10 years. During Tom’s tenure, Purolator doubled its presence in the U.S. market and enhanced its penetration in small and medium business- es and retail segments with double-digit revenue growth. He also transformed the company into an industry leader in environmental stewardship with more hybrid vehicles than any other transportation company in the world. Purolator is a $1.6 billion company with 12,000 employees. Tom came to Canada with a proven track record in place after 12 years at FedEx in Memphis, where he served as CEO of FedEx Supply Chain, a FedEx operating company. He also led FedEx Solutions, a FedEx Services division that developed and executed specific and integrated turnkey supply chain customer solutions. Tom built the organization from a team of fewer than 50 employees in the late 1990s to more than 800 people in 2008. Tom holds an MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School; as well as a Bachelor of Arts in European Business Administra- tion, First Class Honours, from Middlesex University. He was named one of the 100 most Influential Tennesseans by the BusinessTN Power 100. He is also the co-author of Simple Solutions, a successful management and leadership book that lays out simple and pragmatic tools to draw on both the analytical more creative sides. Now in its second printing, it was published by Wiley & Sons, the premier business publisher.
Seizing Opportunity In Chaos Harry S. Dent, Jr. isn’t just the face of Dent Research, he is also a bestselling author and one of the most outspoken financial editors in America who has developed a unique method for studying the global economies and providing insights to what to expect in the future. After years of studying economics in college, Harry quickly became disillusioned and grew to find the profession itself vague and inconclusive. So he shifted his focus to the burgeoning new science of finance, where he could identify and study demographic, technological, consumer and many other trends that empowered him to begin forecasting economic changes. Harry went on to receive his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. He then joined Bain & Company as a Fortune 100 business consultant and now heads the independent research firm Dent Research. Since then, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world about demographics and the power of identifying different trends. Harry has appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN, Fox News and is a regular guest on Fox Business. He has also been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Harry has written numerous bestselling books over the last few decades, including The Great Boom Ahead in 1992, The Demographic Cliff in 2015, The Sale of a Lifetime in 2016 and Zero Hour in 2017. In 2019 Harry published his latest book Spending Waves, where he shares decades of extensive research covering over 200 businesses across 14 different industries to give readers a usable tool to find the most lucrative opportunities over the next 20 years. Today, Harry uses the same research he developed from years of hands-on business experience to offer Dent Research subscribers a positive, easy-to-understand view of the economic future in his flagship newsletter, Boom & Bust. Website Link: https://harrydent.com
Today I’m joined by Amanda Eilian. Amanda is a co-founder of Able partners. In today’s episode, we talked about Amanda’s experience as an investor in the positive living space, her take on the future of the wellness industry—including mental health and psychedelics, and her advice for founders looking to break into the space. I had a great time chatting with Amanda and hope you enjoy listening. More from Amanda Eilian & Able Partners >> Amanda Eilian is the co-founder of __able Partners, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage companies in the positive living space. With over 40 companies in the portfolio, investments include Goop, The Wing, Daily Harvest, and Bulletproof. Amanda was also the Co-Founder and President of Videolicious, an enterprise video creation platform backed by Amazon and acquired by a strategic buyer in 2019. Amanda was instrumental in the launch and growth of Videolicious to over 5,000,000 users in 103 countries, including Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Walmart, SAP, Verizon and GE. Prior to forming Videolicious, Amanda was a founding partner of Capitol Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC) that completed a $265 million initial public offering and closed a merger that led to the formation of Two Harbors Investment Corp., a $3 billion NYSE listed REIT (TWO) and Silver Bay Realty Trust (SBY). Amanda previously worked in private equity and mergers and acquisitions. Amanda is a Truman Scholar and received her MBA from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service with Honors in Economics. Amanda serves on the Board of Directors of Juice Beauty, the largest organic skincare brand in North America, and on the Board of Directors of the Melanoma Research Alliance, the largest private funder of melanoma research with more than $100 million in grants awarded to date. She is also a member of the Tech:NYC Leadership Council. Amanda resides in New York City with her husband and four children. Get in touch >> https://ablepartners.nyc/ More from Fitt Insider >> Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness. From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry. Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, lululemon, Peloton, Beyond Meat, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing at http://insider.fitt.co
Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the ’70s, but found it vague and inconclusive. He became so disillusioned by the state of his chosen profession that he turned his back on it. Instead, he threw himself into the burgeoning new science of finance where identifying and studying demographic, technological, consumer and many, many other trends empowered him to forecast economic changes.Since then, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/Fox News. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is a regular guest on Fox Business’s “America’s Nightly Scorecard.”Harry has written numerous books over the years. In his book The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, he stood virtually alone in accurately forecasting the unanticipated boom of the 1990s. In The Demographic Cliff, he shows why we’re facing a “great deflation” after several years of stimulus — and what to do about it now. In 2016 Harry published, The Sale of a Lifetime, where he reveals the secret behind many of the largest (and fastest!) fortunes in history out of great crashes that can create a profits windfall that will last you generations. In his latest book, Zero Hour: Turn the Greatest Political and Financial Upheaval in Modern History to Your Advantage, Harry Dent reveals why the greatest social, economic, and political upheaval since the American Revolution is on our doorstep. Discover how its combined effects could cause stocks to crash as much as 80% beginning just weeks from now…crippling your wealth now and for the rest of your life. Harry arms you with the tools you need to financially prepare and survive as the world we know is turned upside down!Today, he uses the research he developed from years of hands-on business experience to offer readers a positive, easy-to-understand view of the economic future by heading up Dent Research.Harry received his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence.For more information visit:http://www.harrydent.com/https://twitter.com/economymarketshttps://www.facebook.com/EconomyMarkets/https://www.linkedin.com/company/dent-research/about/
Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the ’70s, but found it vague and inconclusive. He became so disillusioned by the state of his chosen profession that he turned his back on it. Instead, he threw himself into the burgeoning new science of finance where identifying and studying demographic, technological, consumer and many, many other trends empowered him to forecast economic changes.Since then, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/Fox News. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is a regular guest on Fox Business’s “America’s Nightly Scorecard.”Harry has written numerous books over the years. In his book The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, he stood virtually alone in accurately forecasting the unanticipated boom of the 1990s. In The Demographic Cliff, he shows why we’re facing a “great deflation” after several years of stimulus — and what to do about it now. In 2016 Harry published, The Sale of a Lifetime, where he reveals the secret behind many of the largest (and fastest!) fortunes in history out of great crashes that can create a profits windfall that will last you generations. In his latest book, Zero Hour: Turn the Greatest Political and Financial Upheaval in Modern History to Your Advantage, Harry Dent reveals why the greatest social, economic, and political upheaval since the American Revolution is on our doorstep. Discover how its combined effects could cause stocks to crash as much as 80% beginning just weeks from now…crippling your wealth now and for the rest of your life. Harry arms you with the tools you need to financially prepare and survive as the world we know is turned upside down!Today, he uses the research he developed from years of hands-on business experience to offer readers a positive, easy-to-understand view of the economic future by heading up Dent Research.Harry received his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence.For more information visit:http://www.harrydent.com/https://twitter.com/economymarketshttps://www.facebook.com/EconomyMarkets/https://www.linkedin.com/company/dent-research/about/
In this episode, Founder and CEO of top rated review site TrustRadius- Vinay Bhagat discusses his entrepreneurial journey while also breaking down the future of the SaaS marketplace. About Vinay and TrustRadius Vinay is a serial entrepreneur who conceived TrustRadius after experiencing challenges when buying enterprise solutions at his last company. Prior to founding TrustRadius and his earlier company – Convio, Vinay served as a Director at Trilogy Software and a Consultant at Bain & Company in London, Hong Kong and Kiev. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, an MS Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University, and a MA Engineering Information Sciences from Cambridge University with First Class Honors. When he’s not working, Vinay loves spending time with his kids, swimming and the occasional squash game. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “The epiphany for TrustRadius came when we were procuring technology to run our own business. In one case, we rolled out a tool that wasn’t the right fit for our team. Without doing sufficient diligence to see how the product would work in our case led to a great degree of buyer’s remorse!” “3 Trillion Dollars are spent on enterprise technology purchase every year. Businesses need trusted buyer reviews to make the right technology choice.” “One of the rules we always follow – Put the Buyer First.” “The SaaS marketplace is proliferating. Software will become more pervasive. And with time, the idea of owning a software will eventually be replaced by subscription-only models.” “The democratization of IT purchasing boosts the demand for trusted buyer review sites like ours.” “When it comes to customer reviews, people come to read them because they are looking for the other side of the coin – they want to understand what the cons are for a particular tech product.” “No longer are people choosing technologies purely on the basis of a brand name anymore.” “We’ve seen a tremendous growth across the board in martech. There are certain categories like Customer Data Platforms that are gaining popularity.” “Having a more systematic way to gather customer feedback will be more and more critical.” “The combination of a very focused advertising campaign teamed with a strong conversion page can be a compelling strategy for any Account-based Marketing strategy.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.
Supply Chain Now Radio, Episode 105 “Live from the eft Media Zone: Tom Schmitt with Forward Air” Broadcast from eft’s 3PL & Supply Chain Summit Featuring: Thomas Schmitt is the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining Forward Air, Mr. Schmitt served as Management Board Member and Chief Commercial Officer for DB Schenker, a $20 Billion Global Logistics Company since 2015. From 2013 until 2015, Mr. Schmitt was President, CEO and Director of Aqua Terra, Canada’s leading provider of natural spring water. From 2010 until 2012, Mr. Schmitt served as President, CEO and Director of Purolator, Canada’s top parcel and freight transportation company. Prior to joining Purolator, Mr. Schmitt spent 12 years at FedEx in Memphis, TN where he served as CEO of FedEx Supply Chain and SVP of FedEx Solutions. Prior to his time with FedEx, Mr. Schmitt held senior roles at McKinsey & Company. Mr. Schmitt has been a member of the Xynteo Leadership Board since 2018 and a Non-Executive Director of the Freguson plc board since 2019. Mr. Schmitt also served on the Board of Directors of private and public companies such as Dicom Transportation Group, Zooplus AG, Univar, Inc. and Cyberport GmbH. His support of non-profit organizations such as Ballet Memphis and Shelby Farms Park is equally as important to Mr. Schmitt. Mr. Schmitt holds an MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School and received his Bachelor of Arts in European Business Administration from Middlesex University. Together with Arnold Perl, Mr. Schmitt wrote “Simple Solutions,” a leadership book published by Wiley & Sons. Learn more about Forward Air Corporation here: https://www.forwardair.com/ This episode was hosted by Scott Luton, Will Haraway, and Lance Roberts of Becker Logistics.
Victor is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Insight Equity. The firm has over $1B of equity capital under management and his current, primary responsibility is overseeing four of Insight's current portfolio firms as their Chairman as well as leading Insight's transaction efforts in aerospace, defense, machining, and technology. Before co-founding Insight Equity, Victor led product development at Military Advantage, a venture-backed Internet company sold to Monster Worldwide in 2004. Prior to that, he was a senior manager at Bain & Company where he focused on merger integration and operational improvement cases. In the early nineties, Victor worked in the mergers & acquisitions department of Lehman Brothers where he was responsible for company due diligence and transaction execution, as well as working overseas in the Middle East advising the Saudi government on business investments. Victor received his MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top 5% of his class. He has also received a Master's Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a double major BA in economics and political science from Stanford University. Victor currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Micross Components, MB Precision Investment Holdings, Dustex Holdings, and VirTex Investment Holdings. He also serves on the Board of the general partner of Emerge Energy Services LP, Versatile Processing Group Holdings, Plasman Group, Panolam, and Riverbend Foods. Additionally, Victor served 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve, retiring in 2014 as a Commander (O-5). In 2017, Victor became the 12th American to complete the "Explorer's Grand Slam" which requires climbing the highest peak on all seven of the world's continents including Mt. Everest, and skiing at least 100 kilometers to both the North and South Poles. He is also an instrument-rated, multi-engine jet and helicopter pilot. 00000326 00000323 0001C55E 0001C55E 000F3305 000F3305 0000853D 00008531 0005D4C1 0005D4C1
Latticework New York 2018, September 6, 2018, The Yale Club of New York City Ed Wachenheim is Vice Chairman of the Board of Central National-Gottesman Inc., and sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art, where he is Chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the Executive and Investment Committees, and the New York Public Library, where he was former Chair of the Executive Committee and former Chair of the Investment Committee (of which he is still a member). Ed is Trustee Emeritus of both Skidmore College, where he served as Vice Chair, and Rye Country Day School, where he was also Board President. Previously, Ed was a Trustee of UJA-Federation, New York Foundation, and Arthur Ross Foundation. He was also on the Board of Directors of Interstate Brands and several other smaller publicly owned corporations. Ed joined the WNET board in 2016. He is a graduate of Williams College. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a first-year Baker Scholar.
The Empire Club of Canada Presents: Productivity and Competitiveness: Solutions for Sustained Prosperity with Victor Dodig, President and CEO CIBC Victor Dodig was named President and CEO of the CIBC group of companies, one of North America's leading financial services institutions, in September 2014. During his tenure, Victor has helped usher in a new era for the bank, positioning CIBC as a relationship-oriented bank for a modern world. In 2016, he led the acquisition of The PrivateBank, establishing a strong North American platform for CIBC to serve clients and deliver future growth. Victor brings nearly 25 years of extensive business and banking experience, having led CIBC's Wealth Management, Asset Management, and Retail Banking businesses. He also led several businesses with UBS and Merrill Lynch in Canada and internationally, and was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. A member of CIBC's Board of Directors, Victor also serves on the board of the C.D. Howe Institute and Royal Ontario Museum Board of Governors. He is a vocal advocate for gender diversity in the workplace, as Chair of the 30% Club Canada, Chair of the Catalyst Canada Advisory Board, and a member of the global Catalyst Board of Directors. Victor is the recipient of the 2017 Catalyst Canada Honours (Company Leader) Champion award. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA and was recognized as a Baker Scholar. Victor holds a Diploma from the Institut d'études politiques in Paris, and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto (St. Michael's College) in Commerce. Victor resides in Toronto with his wife Maureen and their four teenage children. He is an active community member, currently serving as Co-Chair of the St. Joseph's Health Centre Foundation's Promise Campaign. Speaker: Victor Dodig, President and CEO, CIBC *The content presented is free of charge but please note that the Empire Club of Canada retains copyright. Neither the speeches themselves nor any part of their content may be used for any purpose other than personal interest or research without the explicit permission of the Empire Club of Canada.* *Views and Opinions Expressed Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the speakers or panelists are those of the speakers or panelists and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official views and opinions, policy or position held by The Empire Club of Canada.*
An aeronautical engineer by training, Etienne Deffarges immigrated to the United States thirty-three years ago, and has enjoyed a rewarding professional career as a management consultant, business executive, and entrepreneur. Today he holds a variety of board positions with companies in aerospace, automotive, construction, energy, food, and healthcare. Previously he was part of the founding team, EVP and Vice Chairman at Accretive Health (now R1 RCM); a global managing partner at Accenture; a senior partner with Booz Allen Hamilton; and a general field engineer with Schlumberger. He holds BS and MS degrees from the French Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace (ISAE – Sup'Aero); an MS from the University of California at Berkeley; and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, with high distinction (Baker Scholar). He has lived in seven countries, speaks five languages, and is a private pilot and enthusiastic traveler.
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Prior to joining Talend as CEO, Mike was the CEO of Rapid7, a security software startup that provides one of the leading security assessment platforms. Mike joined Rapid7 in 2008 and grew the company by 10x in the next 4.5 years. Rapid7 was consistently one of the fastest growing companies in Boston, and was recognized as the Best Place to Work by the Boston Business Journal. Prior to Rapid7, Mike was General Manager of Microsoft's SQL Server Marketing team. During Mike's tenure the SQL business grew from $1.5B to $2.5B, and was the fastest growing of Microsoft’s largest businesses. Prior to re-joining Microsoft in September 2003, Mike was General Manager of Polycom's Austin division, a $190mm videoconferencing equipment business. Prior to Polycom, Mike co-founded and was Chief Operating Officer of Paramark, a marketing analytics startup. Prior to co-founding Paramark, Mike spent six years at Microsoft in an expanding range of roles including product marketing, product strategy, and product management. Mike joined Microsoft as a member of the MSN team, and became an early evangelist of the internet and MSN's first internet marketing manager. He spent the last two years as Group Program Manager of Exchange Server, driving Microsoft's email strategy, product definition, and product execution for this $700mm business. During Mike's tenure, Microsoft category market share grew from 40% to over 60%. Mike began his career at Sun Microsystems, working as an engineer on Sun's SPARC workstations. He led the design of an integrated I/O chip, one of two chips that were used across Sun's low-end and midrange systems. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Brown University (magna cum laude), a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.
Welcome to episode #607 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast. Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast - Episode #607 - Host: Mitch Joel. How do real people succeed in the real world of work? That's the question bestselling author Joanna Barsh set out to answer in her latest book, Grow Wherever You Work. How did she find the answer? Not by asking motivational types or the well-established CEOs, but by diving into the trenches with today's boldest, brightest, up-and-coming leaders (some were... millennials!!... gasp!). Distilling the stories of important work challenges from more than 200 rising leaders in 120 companies, her new book can help anyone grow and learn through the challenges that we all face--not despite them. Why Joanna? Prior to retiring, she joined McKinsey & Company in 1981 and was a senior partner. Along with her consulting work, she lead the McKinsey Centered Leadership Project, whose goal was to help develop women leaders. Joanna is a New York City Commissioner of Women's Issues and received the Girl Scouts Council Woman of Distinction Award and the National Council of Research on Women Award. Joanna is also a trustee of Sesame Workshop. She was a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School and is also the author of Centered Leadership and How Remarkable Women Lead. Enjoy the conversation... Running time: 1:01:53. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on twitter. Six Pixels of Separation the book is now available. CTRL ALT Delete is now available too! Here is my conversation with Joanna Barsh. Grow Wherever You Work. How Remarkable Women Lead. Centered Leadership. Follow Joanna on Twitter. This week's music: David Usher 'St. Lawrence River'. Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast - Episode #607 - Host: Mitch Joel. Tags: advertising advertising agency advertising podcast brand business blog business book business conversation business podcast centered leadership digital marketing digital marketing agency digital marketing blog digital marketing podcast disruption girl scouts grow wherever you work harvard business school how remarkable women lead innovation j walter thompson joanna barsh jwt leadership leadership book leadership podcast management podcast marketing marketing agency marketing blog marketing podcast mckinsey mckinsey cantered leadership project millennials mirum mirum agency mirum agency blog mirum blog mirum canada mirum in canada mitch joel mitchjoel non fiction book podcast sesame workshop six pixels of separation wpp
iTunes Podcast Page for Review & Subscribing If you want to get rich and to pass money to your kids, listen closely to Howard Stevenson. Here’s condensed wisdom from the heart of the investing world delivered with dry humor and charm. Professor Stevenson was a co-founder of storied Baupost Group and helped hire its legendary manager Seth Klarman. He began the study of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and eventually became HBS’ biggest fundraiser. His book “Wealth & Families” gives invaluable advice on how to make money and keep enough of it to hand down to the generations. My personal favorite is illustrated by this quote from the interview: “Whereas, some of my colleagues were going off consulting ... They were making a lot of money every day, and they go their XKE (Jaguar XKE, a coveted sports car of the era) quite quickly. I went off to places like Lima, Ohio, and I was paid $300 a day, but I got 1% of the company.” Howard Stevenson was forgoing high current income, and consumption, for the ability to own promising assets that would build his wealth in the long term. This approach contributed to Professor Stevenson becoming rich enough to need a family office to manage his money. Podcast Page on iTunes Where You Can Review & Subscribe This dynamic conversation includes: Howard Stevenson Bio How Howard Stevenson Started His Career Fear of the “Velvet Rut” Causes Howard Stevenson to Leave a Tenured Position at Harvard Business School Howard Stevenson: “A lot of people are fairly miserable in their job, but they fear change more than they look for the optionality that comes in change.” After a Sojourn in Entrepreneurship & Real Estate, Howard Stevenson Was Lured back to HBS Sal Daher: “There are not a lot of people that would turn down tenured positions at The Harvard Business School…” Howard Stevenson replies: “That's sad. I'm a trustee at Olin College, and they have no tenure. It's amazing what that does, because people are there voluntarily.” Howard Stevenson on Building Wealth: “I've always been experimental, because I don't believe I understand and can predict the future. By the way, when you look that the facts, very few people can.” Howard Stevenson’s 400x Investment in a Company with a “Stupid Business Plan” Howard Stevenson’s Four Criteria for Investing Howard Stevenson’s Portfolio Returns; Warren Buffett-Like Howard Stevenson on whether Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught Howard Stevenson’s Definition of Entrepreneurship The Best Due Diligence Is Time How Baupost Got Started and How Investing Wizard Seth Klarman Was Hired How Howard Stevenson Shops for Cars Howard Stevenson’s Advice for How Young People Can Build Wealth Mitt Romney & a Young Colleague on Spending Why You Should Review this Podcast on iTunes – It Really Helps Us iTunes Podcast Page Where You May Review & Subscribe "Most of the wealthy people I know, are better at making money than managing it." Howard Stevenson’s Journey in Investing Began by Reading Graham, Dodd & Cottle in 1961 "I was smart that I recognized the quality of the people. But, whether it was coming out at 2X or 400X, wasn't in my control." Talking to Your Kids About Money Transcript: Sal Daher: Welcome to Angel Invest Boston. Conversations with Boston's most interesting angel investors and founders. I'm Sal Daher, and my goal for this Podcast, is to learn more about building successful new companies. The best way I can think of doing this is by talking to people who have done it. People such as entrepreneur, angel investor, and scholar of entrepreneurship, Howard Stevenson. Professor Stevenson, Howard, I'm elated for the opportunity to interview you on this the 29th episode of our podcast. Thanks for hosting us at your offices. In this recording session outside our usual studio. This is what's normally called a remote. H. Stevenson: Well it's not so remote, it's right in Harvard Square. Sal Daher: That's right. Not too far away. Howard Stevenson Bio Howard Stevenson founded the storied Baupost Group, and is the father of entrepreneurial management, at the Harvard Business School. Howard has served on many boards, and his advice is prized by so many wealthy people. He has written extensively on business and social ventures. He has been generous with his time and treasure, towards philanthropic causes in which he believes. It is said that he has raised more money for Harvard Business School than anyone else. There is now a chair professorship named after him at HBS, in recognition of his outsized achievements. Starting out as a math major, Howard has had a methodical approach to wealth during his entire career. While he measured assiduously the growth of his net worth, he also paid close attention to choosing work that was satisfying to him, and valuable to others. Informed by fear of the “Velvet Rut” that can trap tenured academics. Howard found his own career trail in several industries. By taking astute long-term bets, he has become wealthy enough to need his own family office, though he does not like the term. In preparing for this interview, I read his latest book, Wealth and Families: Lessons from My Life Journey. Written with his longtime collaborator Shirley Spence. The book is a remarkable document, in that it grew out of another book. A book that he had written for his family, titled: Howard's Journey: Lessons from the Game of Life. This other book was written to impart his hard-earned lessons to his family. The family book was shared with a few close friends, who urged creation of a public version, which became Wealth and Families. Which, is the book we'll refer to in this conversation. In concluding my introduction, I'd like to read a beautiful blurb of the book by Howard's colleague, Kenneth A. Fruit of Harvard Business School. "It is hard to fathom, even once you've read it. The compactness of the wisdom and insight Howard Stevenson provides in this short book. His perspective is practical, yet enormously synthetic. Don't be confused by the direct "Oh shucks" tone. The simple folksy-sounding analysis of the complex problem of intergenerational wealth, belies Howard's incorporation, and absorption of much more of the magic of mathematically rigorous laws of compounding and diversification. Sprinkling in a foundational knowledge of the tax code and the law. It's that he has in his own mental frame incorporated a sense of people's humanity, their strengths and weaknesses, their goals and actual accomplishments. Based on successfully watching and doing for all these years. The wisest teachers have all along been life's best and most observant students. Howard and this integrative little book that you and your progeny should share, are just that." That's really beautifully written. H. Stevenson: Yes, and I didn't even pay him. Sal Daher: I know. I know those things are tremendous. How Howard Stevenson Started His Career As a service to our younger listeners Howard, I'd like to ask a question about how my massively successful guests got started in their careers. Tell us about the choice that confronted you when you completed your undergraduate in mathematics at Stanford, and what you chose. H. Stevenson: Well it was fairly easy. I discovered when I was at Stanford, there were people who were smarter than I am, love math more, and worked harder. I decided I didn't want to compete with them. I had looked at both law school, and business school, and in my great wisdom I discovered law school was three years long. Business school was two, and I chose business school. Sal Daher: A math major, you could count. H. Stevenson: I could count. Even on one hand. And, then I discovered that in fact Harvard gave me a bigger scholarship than Stanford for my continuation. End of story on the career that got me into Harvard Business School. Staying on to teach was another decision, which I think is, I've always loved learning, and what better way to learn than to teach. So, I did that for a couple of years, and then played investment banker with a friend on doing deals for small companies. Then I came back to the business school to do ... Well I came back to tell them I wasn't coming back, and they said, "What are you going to do?" And, I said, "Well I'm going to be a VP of Finance of a real estate company." That meant that they thought that I knew something about real estate. I'd never read a book on the subject. I never had done anything in the field, and they said, "Do you want to teach the course?" And thought, "What better way to learn?" So, I came back to the business school, started a real estate course, or took over one that was sort of moribund. And, did that for five years. I came up for tenure, and I got tenure, and the Dean told me to do something important. So, I left again. Fear of the “Velvet Rut” Causes Howard Stevenson to Leave a Tenured Position at Harvard Business School But, part of the motivation of leaving was that I saw a lot of people in this “Velvet-lined Rut’. That it's very easy when you're successful, to keep doing what you're already doing. But, in fact the only way you can get from doing the wrong thing to the right thing, is probably doing the right thing poorly. And, so you have to learn, and I watch people who run the top of little hill, who didn't want to go down in the valley to try something new. Sal Daher: This is very interesting. Very, very interesting. I wanted to elucidate a little bit, what was meant by the Velvet Rut. You think that academics tend to perhaps specialize a great deal? Become the most knowledgeable in a field, but are afraid to venture out, where they're not as knowledgeable? H. Stevenson: Or where there're people who won't think they're as knowledgeable. But, I don't think that's restricted to academics. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Howard Stevenson: “A lot of people are fairly miserable in their job, but they fear change more than they look for the optionality that comes in change.” H. Stevenson: A lot of people are fairly miserable in their job, but they fear change more than they look for the optionality that comes in change. Sal Daher: Ah, yes. The optionality that comes in change. H. Stevenson: And, we can never predict the results of change. Sal Daher: No. No. H. Stevenson: So, for me I said, "Look, I can always get a job." I think the dean, at that point was not interested in what I was doing, which was entrepreneurship and real estate. And I said, "Why do I want to work at some place where they don't value what I'm doing?" Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) After a Sojourn in Entrepreneurship & Real Estate, Howard Stevenson Was Lured back to HBS H. Stevenson: That led me to work with a private company. Became VP of Finance of a private company. Helped them raise money. Got some control systems in place. A whole bunch of things. So, I had a lot of learning, but after five years the learning went away and I ... The dean had heard that I was dissatisfied, and came and said, "You want to do something in entrepreneurship?" And this was a new dean, and he was a person I knew and trusted, and so I said, "Yes". Sal Daher: It's a new direction and a new discipline that challenged you at the time. So, you felt that that did not have the risks of constraining you within this rut. H. Stevenson: Absolutely not, and beyond that I knew that I could leave again. Sal Daher: There are not a lot of people that would turn down tenured positions at The Harvard Business School. No, that is impressive. Sal Daher: “There are not a lot of people that would turn down tenured positions at The Harvard Business School…” Howard Stevenson replies: “That's sad. I'm a trustee at Olin College, and they have no tenure. It's amazing what that does, because people are there voluntarily.” H. Stevenson: That's sad. I'm a trustee at Olin College, and they have no tenure. It's amazing what that does, because people are there voluntarily. Sal Daher: Yes, yes. That is a remarkable organization. We're going to talk a little bit now about building wealth. What type of early stage investments have you made, and how have they turned out over time? Howard Stevenson on Building Wealth: “I've always been experimental, because I don't believe I understand and can predict the future. By the way, when you look that the facts, very few people can.” H. Stevenson: I've always been experimental, because I don't believe I understand and can predict the future. By the way, when you look that the facts, very few people can. Sal Daher: That's right. H. Stevenson: We've always tried to invest in places where, in the early stage, I prefer to invest when people have some revenue. Because, it points to the fact that there is somebody that's willing to have a cash-ectomy performed on their wallet. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: We like to be broadly diversified. I'm not trying to guess what's going to be in the next public market. Sal Daher: You prefer companies that are post-revenue? That are ... H. Stevenson: Post revenue. Sal Daher: Earning, okay. H. Stevenson: And ... Sal Daher: In a growth stage? H. Stevenson: In a growth stage, where they need the money to ... If it's in biotech, I prefer something where the scientific risk is out. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: But the market risk is still there. The best investment I ever made was in a company that had a really stupid business plan. But, the people were fantastic. Sal Daher: Yes. Howard Stevenson’s 400x Investment in a Company with a “Stupid Business Plan” H. Stevenson: They were in an industry that I thought was very interesting. I thought that what they were doing in that industry made no sense. Over a couple of years, they morphed, and that's probably returned 400 to 1. Sal Daher: Oh, the 400 to 1 return that everybody's looking for, to pay for the rest of the portfolio. H. Stevenson: Yes. But ... Sal Daher: Which company was that? H. Stevenson: It's a company called Asurion. Sal Daher: Asurion. H. Stevenson: And, they are very quiet, I'm still invested. Sal Daher: Yes. H. Stevenson: They're doing very well. One of my friends, who's a noted venture capitalist, turned them down because the business plan was too stupid. That's been one of the worst decisions he ever made. Whereas, one of the other venture capitalists that put a little money in, it's the best decision he's made in his life. Sal Daher: I know, those kinds of investments are few and far between, and when you turn one of those down, it's hard to live it down. H. Stevenson: You have to live life forward, you can't live with regrets. Sal Daher: True, true, true, but I think there is some room for learning. Howard Stevenson’s Four Criteria for Investing H. Stevenson: I think the thing that I've learned is. I have four criteria for investing in companies I know and love. Is the person honest? Because, if they're not honest they'll screw you some way. Sal Daher: Oh yeah, that goes without saying. H. Stevenson: Now how do you figure out if they're honest? Well, there're two ways: 1. You know them. Or, 2. One of my favorite questions is, "Tell me about the sharpest deal you ever did?" And, it's amazing what people will tell you. One guy told me how he cheated the IRS. And you say, "Well if they can send you to jail, and I can't, and you're still willing to do it, I think I know something about your value system." Sal Daher: That is remarkable, that is remarkable. H. Stevenson: The second criteria, that I like to use in investing is: Are they nice? By that I mean, are they looking out for somebody other than themselves? Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: I've had experience in start-up or early stage investments, where the entrepreneur takes care of themselves really well, and the early stage investors not so much. Sal Daher: Left hold the proverbial bag. H. Stevenson: Well, or holding nothing. We have one that just went public, and I think compared to my investments, I'll make 10 cents on the dollar, even though the company was successful. And, I went through three or four rounds, and I discovered what the person was. But, trying to figure out are they nice, that means talking to people that know them. Looking at past decisions. I've had investors ... Or, I've had companies where we lost all the money, and they gave me stock in the next venture they did. Which is a good sign that they are nice people. Sal Daher: Yeah, that is a nice sign, yeah. H. Stevenson: The third element is: Are they curious? Because if you believe that the future is impossible to predict, then anybody who thinks they know the future absolutely, is not looking around the corner. I go back to my example of the best one we ever did. They had a bad plan, but they were curious, and they said, "Where can we serve this group of customers, with a very profitable notion?" And, they found it. Howard Stevenson’s Portfolio Returns; Warren Buffett-Like And the last is: Are they smart? Because, this is a very complicated field. Now you ask how we've done. We've been doing it for about 25 years, since I sold down some of my position at Baupost, and left active management. I was the president for the first eight years. We probably return 17% or 18%. Probably 12% without the real big winner. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, a little bit ahead of what Baupost has done in the same time? H. Stevenson: Yes. I guess I look at it, and I say, when I've done the analysis ... Sal Daher: Probably a lot higher beta. H. Stevenson: Yeah. It's actually interesting, I've divided things into five categories. Stuff happened, I don't use the word stuff when I'm talking about this. Sal Daher: Yes. I understand. H. Stevenson: That was a ... The guy got a pancreatic cancer soon after we invested. The Tanzanian government it over, because it was too profitable, and they wanted their cousin to own it. And, you can go through some, but there weren't a lot of those. There was the wrong on the bet category. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: It was a good bet, but it didn't work. And, I think in a lot of what we're doing, you've got to differentiate between, is it a good bet, and did it work? Sal Daher: Yes. H. Stevenson: Because, on a high variance bet, it's not going to work out all the time. But, one of the things we always try to do is say, "What are we betting on? What are the three or four conditions we're betting on?" And, then sometimes they're not going to work. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: Then there is, we made it safely through. Then there was a few good things happened. If you take the bottom three categories, I think we got about 7% out of that total pool because ... Sal Daher: Wow! Well that's not bad, yeah. H. Stevenson: When you're post revenue, in some ways you don't ... You're not going to lost everything. Sal Daher: No, no. H. Stevenson: But one of the interesting ... Sal Daher: I've had at least one post revenue company that lost everything, because they were so highly leveraged. That's the thing, if they have revenue, there's a temptation to borrow. H. Stevenson: Yeah, but I think that one of the things about it is, that if you're working with the right people, they are ready to say, "It's not working". Then they turn their task to getting something for the company. Instead of, as some people are, they'll just throw the dice, until they run out of money. Somebody who's nice and curious, is probably going to spend some time saying, "It really isn't working, is there some way we can salvage something for us, and the investors?" Sal Daher: Yeah, that really is remarkable wisdom. H. Stevenson: Then some good things happened. Largely that was when somebody else wanted it worse than we did. Then there's the wows, and there are probably five wows. The one I told you about is by far the biggest one, but there were quite a few that returned 30 to 1. Sal Daher: Wow. H. Stevenson: And you say, "What field were you in?" They were all over the lot. Sal Daher: Wow, so no specialization? H. Stevenson: No specialization. Sal Daher: Interesting. I was having a conversation with a young venture capitalist yesterday, who is a part of MIT angels. He says, "I'm very specialized in biotech. Everyone, of these deals I can see all the problems with them, and solve them and so on." And he said, "I don't understand how you can make money, without that level of specialization." The answer for me at least, is that I'm investing much earlier than he is. So, my judgment isn't really based on knowing exactly what the industry is, and so forth. It's much more based on character, and so forth. The sort of thing that you're talking about. That is what makes it possible for you to be investing. If, you're investing early enough. The remarkable thing is that you're investing in post revenue, and you're still making those judgment calls based on character, and making money. Which is tremendous. H. Stevenson: I think that part of it is that nobody knows the future, no matter how many PhDs you have. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: In the biology field, I've had people present things to me. They say, "This is absolutely unique." And, I walk back to my office, and I get a business plan, that if I just crossed out the names, it would be the same. Sal Daher: It would be the same, yes. H. Stevenson: So, my belief that you have a unique upside. Just think, even Uber. How many examples are there of Uber? Sal Daher: That's right. The ones that failed, there were many of them, and Lyft, which is still extant. But the reality is that, ideas are a dime a dozen, and execution is very, very hard. H. Stevenson: One of my favorite stories about this is, in 1993 and the personal computer is coming out. We said, "There's got to be a role for this in home accounting." Sal Daher: Ah. H. Stevenson: We found a guy from Procter and Gamble, because we knew you'd need marketing. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) H. Stevenson: They'd written a software. It was good software. It worked fine on the apple. Unfortunately, not on the PC. And, it started literally within a week of Quicken. Sal Daher: Ah! H. Stevenson: So, you look and you say if I took two business plans, look at the resumes of the people, I couldn't tell the difference. Sal Daher: No. H. Stevenson: One is wallpaper, and the other is a fortune. Sal Daher: Quicken, they managed to establish a process for developing a product. Which was really, tremendously impressive. H. Stevenson: That, but I think they may have gotten into Staples slightly before we did. Sal Daher: That's all part of the product development process. H. Stevenson: Yep. Sal Daher: The product is developed enough, that Staples can distribute it. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to think of who it is that I interviewed recently who has the founder of Quicken as his ... H. Stevenson: Scott Cook? Sal Daher: Scott Cook, yes is his idol. H. Stevenson: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Sal Daher: I think it came out in the podcast. H. Stevenson: Yeah, a P&G guy. He's not a technology guru. Sal Daher: Well, he's another P&G guy, because you guys were backing a P&G guy as well. H. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: Well I'm in the process of writing ... H. Stevenson: HBS guy too. Sal Daher: HBS guy. Well I'm in the process of writing a check right now to P&G, J&J, HBS guy. So, I hope it's going to work out. H. Stevenson: I can guarantee you won't know until it does. Sal Daher: I know. That is absolutely true. That is absolutely true. Howard Stevenson on whether Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught You've done a lot of research, and given all your business experience. This is a tough question. Do you believe there are certain personality types that are more conducive to entrepreneurship, or can it just be taught to anyone? Bill Aulet, thinks it can be taught. H. Stevenson: Can I answer no, to both questions? Sal Daher: Absolutely. H. Stevenson: Well, in the old days before I started to work in entrepreneurship, there were people who said, "Well, they've studied it carefully and you need ... Being a first born helps, because 44% of the entrepreneurs are first born." Failing to notice that 44% of the population is first born. There were other deep studies of locusts of control, and other things. It turns out to be nonsense. I don't think that there's a personality type. Because, if you're going to run a cable television company, you could be the wallflower at the accounting convention. Sal Daher: Right, right. H. Stevenson: If you're going to run a promotion based ... Look at Steve Jobs’ personality. I mean ... Sal Daher: Absolutely. H. Stevenson: I can go through Ken Olsen. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Howard Stevenson’s Definition of Entrepreneurship H. Stevenson: You look at the great entrepreneurs, and if you can find a single personality type, I think you've got a flawed test. So, I would reject that. On the other hand, I don't think that you can teach entrepreneurship to anybody. What I always thought we're doing when we're trying to teach entrepreneurship. Is if you take the students who come to Harvard Business School, they're opportunity driven. And, as you may know, I tried to define entrepreneurship as the opportunity beyond the resources you currently control. Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: Almost any kid, who walks into Harvard Business School, Sloan School. They didn't get there because they were shy, retiring ... Sal Daher: No. Stevenson: Just hoping to make it to the first level of the company, and then they'll stop. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: What we tried to do is, to show them that somebody like them could accomplish it. So, you had the cases on women, you had cases on African Americans, you had cases on people who started late, people who started immediately. Although, I tried to discourage people from starting early. Because there's a lot of research that shows, you got to know something about your customer in your market place. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: You ought to be known. Because you're going to go out to raise resources, and the more that other people know you and trust you, the better off you are. But, I think what you have to do is have the self-knowledge to say ... Probably politically incorrect say, "I know there's a lot of money to be made in China, but it won't be made by people that look like me." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) No, really the problem of information, and the fact that it's broadly disseminated, and people who have local information have an advantage, over someone coming from the outside. That is broadly recognized. I see the point that you're making, that you think that what the academic experience can do, is inspire people with models. Stevenson: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Sal Daher: That have, through cases and so forth. They can get people thinking, "I can do that." Which is a little bit of what I hope to do through this program, with angel investing. Is, to get people saying, "I don't have to be Mark Zuckerberg, to invest as an angel. I can be a guy who has built a business, who's got some experience and so forth. And, I can probably help some young person who's building a business." Stevenson: Well, what I said about ... There were two things that I was trying to do, accomplish. One was planting time bombs in people's mind, that exploded when they stepped on the opportunity. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: The second thing that I think you try and do, is keep them from doing really stupid things. Sal Daher: Ah, okay. Stevenson: I have a sign in my office at home that says, "It's great to learn from other people's mistakes, and you've been a real blessing to me." Sal Daher: Yeah. The ability to learn from other people's experience. It's a lot cheaper than learning from your own experience. Stevenson: That's what you try and do as a teacher is ... But, you also have to say there is no one right way. The business plan, no I've never had a business plan that worked out the way it was written. Sal Daher: My first interview with Michael Mark, who's founded several companies as a technology founder. And, he said he had invested in more than 200 startups, and he could think of one business plan that went according to plan, Progress Software. All the other ones necessitated pivots. Stevenson: The first thing I would say is, the fact that writing a business plan can be helpful, because you have to express the bets that you're making. So, you actually know what you're shooting at. Sal Daher: Absolutely. Stevenson: But, if you think that the business plan has foreseen all possible combinations ... Even just timing is at best, a random event in some ways. Sal Daher: That's right. In your book I think you quote Eisenhower saying, "Planning is everything. Plans are nothing." Stevenson: That was my doctoral dissertation. Had a lot to the defining strengths and weaknesses. Didn't matter what you wrote down at the end. It was, you were asking the question, "How do we compare to the other people trying to accomplish the same thing we are?" Sal Daher: So, going through the process of planning, you develop understanding. Even though things don't work out as you expect, at least you know a little bit about the lay of the land. So that when things change, you can regroup and do an informed approach. Stevenson: I would also say that one of the things that I look for in a business plan, is have they looked honestly at the competition. Sal Daher: Ah. Stevenson: I can't tell you how many business plans and software I've read that says, "We've done this for $300,000, and it would take everyone else 2 million." Sal Daher: I've seen a lot of those, yeah. Stevenson: There's a lot of competition out there, and you need to have some humility on the part of the entrepreneur and the investor to say, "We're going to be out there in a tough market. How are we going to win? Where do we have a competitive advantage?" Sal Daher: In those situations, one trick that I've learned from some of my colleagues in Walnut Ventures is, give them a little time. If they're at the beginning of the race, don't tell them that you're going to invest with them. Give them three months, and then see where they are, in those three months. See how much progress they've made during that time. They've told you everything about where they are now. If, in three months they're still telling you the same things, and they have competition, so that they're not very good at implementation. So, they're not going to get anywhere. The Best Due Diligence Is Time Stevenson: We always say the best due diligence is time. In fact, I was talking to one of the famous venture capitalists, who was a former student, and a good friend. And I said, "Isn't due diligence highly overrated?" And he says, "Yeah, I need to make five calls." He said, "I just need to know, which five people I talk to." I think that's true in most of this area for us as investors is, do you know somebody that knows the field? Do you know somebody that knows the person? Do you know somebody that knows the state of the financial markets for that particular fashion element? There's a lot of stuff ... Sal Daher: Absolutely. Stevenson: That, you don't need to talk to everybody in the world. And, getting a 2000-page report from Bain and Company, or McKinsey, is not going to help you understand where the world is going. Sal Daher: No, no it's not. It's not. How Baupost Got Started and How Investing Wizard Seth Klarman Was Hired Howard, I'm very curious to hear the story of the founding of Baupost. Hiring of Seth Klarman. For those listeners who do not know of Seth Klarman, think Warren Buffett a quarter century younger. Stevenson: I'll start with a recent search that I was working on for a not for profit. The people said, "We need to hire somebody like, X." And I said, "No you're going to be hiring someone like X was 30 years ago." Sal Daher: Yeah. Stevenson: That was true of Seth. Here you had an extremely bright young man, who loved two things. He liked stocks. He liked betting. Baupost was founded because, Bill Poorvu had sold WCVB, or was selling CVB, and I had worked with him quite a bit. And, Jordan Baruch ... Sal Daher: Bill Poorvu, fellow professor at the Harvard Business School. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: Who had been owner of the television station, WCVB channel 5, here in Boston. Stevenson: A part of it, yes. Sal Daher: A part of it, yeah. Stevenson: And, Jordan Baruch was a professor at MIT. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Who, was one of the early ... I think he was employee number four, Bolt, Beranek & Newman. Sal Daher: Okay, okay. Stevenson: And Isaac Auerbach was one of the early employees of UNIVAC. Sal Daher: Okay. Stevenson: And, he was a good friend of Jordan's. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, as Bill was about to receive some money he said, "Help me how to figure out how we get the money managed." So, the first hire was an administrator. Deloitte's going to come in, you better make sure you can account for it. Sal Daher: You can put it in somewhere. Stevenson: Well, make sure you can account for it first. Sal Daher: At least cash the checks. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Then Seth was a student of Bill's, and he said, "This is an unusual guy. What are we going to do with him?" And I said, "Who knows?" We started out looking at, how do we select money managers? Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: This was 1982. After you talk to a number of money managers, you say, "We can do better than that." Sal Daher: The industry was not highly developed at that time. Stevenson: The industry, it was ... White shoe, everybody was into recreational vehicles. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: It was a screwy industry, and always has been. Sal Daher: Right, right. Stevenson: We hired Seth. We looked at ... Sal Daher: But what is it that you saw in Seth, that set him apart? Stevenson: The same things that I talked about earlier. He was honest. He'd worked for honest people. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: I wouldn't hire somebody from, you can name the firm. Sal Daher: Absolutely, yeah. Stevenson: He doesn't even need to work there, I don't want to work for me. He certainly understood the charitable notions that I think the other founders had. I think they were all deeply committed to other people, and that was attractive to him. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: It wasn't, they were trying to make the most money, and so you saw the niceness come through there. Clearly curious, you don't work the pink sheets, if you're not curious. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Because, nobody else was covering them. Sal Daher: No, no. Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: That was one of the things I liked about him is, he was willing to do original research. Rather than call up Goldman and say, "What's hot today?" Sal Daher: Yeah. Stevenson: And their answer is, "Whatever I got a lot to sell off." Sal Daher: Exactly, exactly. Stevenson: And, he's clearly smart. He's a Baker Scholar. So, we saw that and ... Sal Daher: But the idea of patient investing, of buying things that are deeply underpriced, and holding them until they are, not fully valued, I know you always sold early. But, until other people begin to have an interest in them, that is something that's attracted me to him. Because, it's a lot similar to what my partner and I did in emerging markets. We were always early, buying stuff at incredibly cheap, and selling into the market as it began. People made a lot of money buying stuff off of us. And, the same thing with Seth Klarman. So, how did you detect that? That quality in him. Stevenson: I like to think I even taught him some of that. The expression we gave was, "Feed the birdies, when they're hungry." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: And, he transitioned into being the president after about six years. Because, people don't want to give a 26-year-old all of their money. And, we had all of the money, of all of the clients. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, there was concern. This is a different approach. I think one of the things that also Seth has been brilliant at, and I like to think I had something to do with it. Is, not ... Because we had all the money, you didn't get stuck on we're buying big cap stocks. It was ... Sal Daher: Ah, okay. Stevenson: So, a lot of the success was, you moved from sector to sector. So, you bought real estate, when real estate was dead cheap. You bought busted bonds. I can go through the history and ... Sal Daher: And, given the composition of the investors, the original investors. They were a small number of people, who had a long-term outlook. They had a much healthier attitude towards the market, than a lot of people have today. Because if you're a young, rising fund manager, you live or die by your last results. In your ... Stevenson: No. And, frankly as we're building the business, we turned down a lot of those people. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: We didn't think the acquisition of assets was important as the acquisition of good clients. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Also, we were interested in who the family was. Not, do they have a name. Sal Daher: Right, right. Stevenson: But, how they dealt with each other. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Because, you were trying to create something, and I think Baupost still has that feeling that it's everybody's in it together. So, it was, everybody participated in the performance fee, down to the secretary. Everybody ate from the same pizza box. Sal Daher: That is wonderful. That's something Warren Buffett complains says his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: In this case, even the secretary is paying a high tax rate. Stevenson: Yep. Sal Daher: A low tax rate, I should say. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: Because, she is benefiting on the ... Or he, in the ... Stevenson: Right. That was certainly the case then, and they tried to spread through. Sal Daher: That's really laudable. I have great admiration for the firm that you helped put together, and its outcome is really impressive. Stevenson: Well it's Baruch, Auerbach, Poorvu and Stevenson, is where the name came from. Sal Daher: So it's Baruch. Stevenson: Baruch, Auerbach. Sal Daher: Auerbach. Stevenson: A U B A Sal Daher: B A Stevenson: A U Sal Daher: A U Stevenson: P O and S T Sal Daher: And, S T of Stevenson. Stevenson: Yes. I think it happened with a piña colada somewhere on the Caribbean. How Howard Stevenson Shops for Cars Sal Daher: Howard, I find the way you shop for cars, particularly instructive. Please elaborate. Stevenson: I don't shop for cars. When my oldest child turned 16, I handed him a signed check and said, "Go buy me a car." And, people look at me like I'm crazy. But, in fact what I was trying to say to him is, "I trust you. I believe you'll do good research, and I respect your judgment." Because part of the process of educating kids is not saying, "I'm smarter, better, faster than you are." It's saying, "I am asking for your help in important things." I look at buying a car ... First, I hate dealing with car dealers, so I look at it as a pain. I was reasonably sure my sons, who love cars ... Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Would spend more time harassing car dealers. Which, made me feel like I was getting even with these guys. But, in fact they really do the research thing. So, they come back with a great knowledge of the packages that are available. What you want, what you don't want, and what was my risk? A couple thousand dollars, at worst? Sal Daher: Yeah, you might overpay a little bit for a car, but your kid will learn. Stevenson: But, I don't think I ever overpaid. I am absolutely sure that they got better deals than I would. Because, I'd walk in and say, "Oh, I like that car. How much it cost?" Because, I want to get out as fast as I can. Sal Daher: That's interesting, my father-in-law used to do that with his children. He used to give them, when they went to college, the money for the whole year. Give them one check and say, "Here, you've got to pay tuition, your cost of living, everything." Of course, he was overseas in Argentina, and they all came here, and it all worked out. But, sometimes it goes wrong. My dad had a cousin, who when he was away at a university, his family sent him money for the year, and he took the money, and he gambled. Stevenson: Yeah. Sal Daher: So, he didn't have any money for tuition, or anything like that, and then he was afraid to go back home, when everybody else graduated, because he still hadn't studied. Stevenson: Well, but again a car is a different thing. Sal Daher: Absolutely. Stevenson: I would know whether they bought the car or not. Sal Daher: There are guardrails, yeah. Stevenson: And, they probably do have fraud and collusion among the dealers. There's lots of reasons why that's, trust but verify in some ways. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: But it leads to a lot of trust in the judgment. But, it's also a sign of respect for their work, and their ability to think, and their ability to plan. And, I think they figured out that they would get the used car. So, they bought cars they wanted on the next round. Sal Daher: Yeah, so they're highly incented to do that. And, it's consonant also with your idea of having the children be brought in early on wealth, brought in early on responsibility for money, and so forth. Which unfortunately nowadays, children really don't have much of a sense of that, of responsibility with money, and so forth. They don't work, they don't make their own money. At least in my experience, children in America work a lot less, than they used to 20, 30 years ago. Stevenson: The rules are harder to comply with, if you're a company. Sal Daher: Yes, absolutely. Stevenson: We have a friend who owns a car dealership and he got an OSHA citation because he had his 15-year-old son sweeping the floor. So, to me the question of how do you teach responsibility? Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: How do you teach trust? Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: How do you live by example? Are the critical things in Wealth and Families. Sal Daher: That is really beautifully said. Now what advice would you give a young person about building his or her own wealth? Howard Stevenson’s Advice for How Young People Can Build Wealth Stevenson: I think the most important thing you can start at is, assets are more important than income. At least for me I can speak only in the things I tried to teach the kids. But, if you have a high income, you usually have high expenditures. Whereas, some of my colleagues were going off consulting their ... Consulting was a euphemism for teaching in outside courses at GE. They were making a lot of money every day, and they go their XKE (Jaguar XKE, a coveted sports car of the era) quite quickly. I went off to places like Lima, Ohio, and I was paid $300 a day, but I got 1% of the company. Sal Daher: Ah. Stevenson: I always tried to look at the assets side, because I couldn't spend it. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Which meant, if I was right, I was saving it. Sal Daher: So, you looked towards building assets? Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: Instead of building income, necessarily? Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: And in time these assets will generate income, but you weren't looking about income today. Stevenson: I wasn't looking for income today, and I was always trying to say, "How do I use my current income to pay the taxes?" So, I could compound after tax, rather than pre-tax. Sal Daher: Yes. And, another thing that is mentioned in your book. You emphasize very clearly that a house, is not an asset. Stevenson: No, and a mortgage is ... I think of a mortgage as a funny beast. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Because when I didn't have any money, as I said, "I was a scholarship student." Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Then a mortgage was a functional equivalent of rent. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: I still have mortgages, even though I don't need one. But I think of it as the cheapest way to lever my investment portfolio. Sal Daher: Well yes, if you have been reliably producing 16%, 17% returns every year, it makes sense to borrow at 3% or 4%. That is remarkable. So, I really like that advice. Concentrate on building assets, and think about high income leads to high expenditures. That reminds me of a story of Mitt Romney. Stevenson: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Mitt Romney & a Young Colleague on Spending Sal Daher: This is after he had had his initial success. He was with Bain Capital already. A young associate got his first bonus check and he went out and he bought a fancy sports car, and he gave Mitt a ride. Mitt was famous for beat up station wagons. Are you familiar with this story? Stevenson: No, no. I know Mitt well, he was a student of mine. Same class as George Bush, by the way. Sal Daher: I'm not going to ask, who got the higher grade. Stevenson: You don't need to. Sal Daher: I know, no. But, anyway ... So, the young partner said ... Is driving Mitt around, and Mitt was very impressed, he says "Geez, I wish I could afford a car like this." And the young associate said, "Well, Mitt you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. You can afford this." And the kid didn't get the sense that Mitt didn't think he could afford the fancy sports car. This young kid with his first bonus check goes out and blows it on a fancy car. Stevenson: Well, I think the other thing Mitt would probably say if you got him under sodium pentothal. He doesn't drink so ... Sal Daher: Yeah, I know. That's the darned thing with Mormons, you can't get them drunk. Stevenson: I was raised in Holladay Utah, so I understand it. But I think it's also what behavior you're modeling for your kids. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Because, as my grandmother would say, "Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear a word you say." Sal Daher: That is very wise, very wise. Why You Should Review this Podcast on iTunes – It Really Helps Us iTunes Page for the Podcast Where You Can Review and Subscribe Coming up next, we will be shifting to managing your wealth. A matter about which Professor Stevenson has deep experience. However, before we do that, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank listener, SewNow, who left this review on iTunes. "Definitely worth a listen. The series is full of very useful information. It is clear to me that Sal has put a lot of effort into it." SewNow, you have done your part to support the podcast. We bring stellar guests like Professor Howard Stevenson. We come to you free, with no schlocky ads, and professional sound, and you can help by following the example of SewNow, and leaving a review on iTunes. The listenership is growing with every episode, breaking records. It's something like 10% or 15% every month, that they're growing now. That growth combined with more reviews, will eventually cause the iTunes algorithm to start featuring the show. Thus, your review is critical to us. Thanks "Most of the wealthy people I know, are better at making money than managing it." Howard, in your book Wealth and Families you state, "Most of the wealthy people I know, are better at making money than managing it." Please take this opportunity to elaborate on taking on the responsibility of managing your wealth. Stevenson: Well I believe firmly that, you're accountable for your own actions. And, not everybody takes that to the management of their wealth. They think they can outsource it, and the results are often what you'd expect. But, I think it's also, you have to know your own objectives. Why am I interested in wealth? Is there an amount beyond that, it's for charity, or for my kids? I think that thinking through clearly, what your objectives are, and when I use the word your, I mean your spouse, and you probably. Because, if you start early enough, the kids don't have major voice. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: But it's also a subject that's quite un-discussable. I don't know how wealthy many of my friends are, because we never discuss the subject. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: It seems to me that at least within the family, you've got to say, "Here's where we are. Here's where we're going. Here's how we're going to get there." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: That involves a lot of decisions that are complicated. That's before you get to what you do with it, when you have it. Sal Daher: Right, right. Howard Stevenson’s Journey in Investing Began by Reading Graham, Dodd & Cottle in 1961 Stevenson: I guess for me, the question is ... Most people would rather talk to their kids about sex than money. So, you don't learn it at home, in most cases. So, you have to in fact reach out to say, "what do I need to know, to be successful?" So, I started by reading Graham, Dodd, and Cottle in 1961. Sal Daher: Not a bad start. Stevenson: It's probably as good a start as you can have if you want to be a value investor. Sal Daher: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Stevenson: That probably is one of the things that made Seth appeal to me. But, all along I felt like, I had to take ownership of my own results. That didn't mean you didn't use brokers. That didn't mean you didn't hire a financial planner occasionally, but you had to take responsibility for your own results. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: But that's humbling. Sal Daher: It is, it is. Stevenson: Because, you'll never know all you need to know. Sal Daher: And, taxing because you will inevitably have reverses. Stevenson: Yes. Sal Daher: And people have the attitude that if they ever lose any money, they've failed. But the goal is not to never lose money. The goal is to grow over time. Stevenson: Well, and anytime you lose money ... Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: It helps to say, "Why?" Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: And you go back to my five categories. Stuff happened, there's nothing you can do. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: I was wrong on the bet. I knew the bet, but something happened that was different than I was betting on. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Also, the humility on the other side to say, "I wasn't a genius because I invested in X." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) "I was smart that I recognized the quality of the people. But, whether it was coming out at 2X or 400X, wasn't in my control." Stevenson: "I was smart that I recognized the quality of the people. But, whether it was coming out at 2X or 400X, wasn't in my control." Sal Daher: Right, right. Stevenson: Whereas, I can assure you, if you listen to many of the professional investors they will say, "I knew it all along." Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: And, in fact many of the 100% losses I had were done when I was investing side by side with professional venture capitalists. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Because, their motive is to shoot for the moon. Sal Daher: Right, right. That is pretty deep. Very good. I guess we talked about this a little bit, but could you go a little bit more into hiring the professional help you need, beyond the financial planner and CPA. When someone starts to accumulate significant wealth. Give us some hints. This is well explained in your book, but maybe give some teasers, that will lead people to look in your book for a really well-developed approach to it. Stevenson: Again, like most things, I'm somewhat humble about giving the absolute rules. But, there are people you know and trust. The first thing is, I don't require a lot of due diligence if Bill Poorvu calls and says, "I want to do this." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: You say, "How much can I come in for?" Sal Daher: Right, right, right. Stevenson: After working with him for 43 years, I have a great deal of faith in his judgment. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: And, they're not all going to win, but when you know and trust people you can get by with little due diligence, and you can ... Also, it's going to be low cost. I don't pay him a fee. Sal Daher: Right, right. In contrast to the process that you went through when you're setting up your family foundation. The Stevenson Family ... Stevenson: Charitable Trust. Sal Daher: Charitable ... No, no, not the trust but the one for managing the funds of the family and ... Stevenson: That we just did ourselves. Sal Daher: Right, right, but you had quotes from ... Stevenson: We had quotes from ... Sal Daher: From various people, and they were just absurdly high. So, you brought your son into it, and then you hire people to do particular chores, and so on and so forth. So, you don't have a lot of high overhead of a normal family office. Stevenson: Well you can see looking around, we don't have a lot of high overhead. Sal Daher: No, no, there's not a lot of overhead. Stevenson: The mahogany furniture from IKEA is ... Shows through. Sal Daher: It's extremely functional, very functional. Stevenson: But, then when you start to say, "The next level is things that come with recommendation." But, even with recommendation you have to actually go out and talk to people. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: It depends on who recommends them. Because, there are people that are chasing the last hot deal, and I don't want to be in with them. So, I have to know not only if it's recommended, but who's recommending it. Sal Daher: Who's recommending, that's right. Stevenson: And, why it is. Then if you're trying to go out to the rest of the world, it requires a lot of due diligence. It's probably going to be expensive. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, for me, I've tried to stay in those first two rings, of people I know and trust, and people that come recommended by people that I know and believe in. There you're going to pay more fees, but that's okay. Sal Daher: Still you're probably much more involved in the management of your wealth, than most people who are comparably wealthy. Perhaps also, because you know so much more. I think that, that is certainly a great lesson here. Stevenson: Think about how hard it is to earn a million dollars. Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: I'm not saying how much I have, but if you have a hundred million dollars, it's easy to lose a million dollars. Sal Daher: It is. Stevenson: Or, to make it. Sal Daher: That's right. Stevenson: What I say is, "the first million dollars is really hard, and the second million is a matter of time." Sal Daher: Exactly, exactly. Stevenson: So, having the long-term perspective, and I could go through some fancy math to show you that in fact, having long term perspective actually is highly beneficial. Because, most of the world is interested in the first two or three years of return. Warren Buffett is the classic example where I think, if you look at his results, it's largely because he bought long duration cash flows. Sal Daher: Ah. He's not buying the first three years, he's buying 15, 20 years out. Stevenson: He's buying the 3 to 15 year. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: And, he's not competing against the ... Sal Daher: Which most people are not interested ... Oh no, that's ... Stevenson: That's too uncertain. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, he spends a lot of time looking at how stable it is. He talks about building moats. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: All those kinds of things, and I think that's a ... Sal Daher: Right, right. Stevenson: I didn't learn it from Warren Buffett, but when I started to examine his way of dealing. I think that's what we've always tried to do is say, "Look, I can't outguess the professionals that have better information, quicker execution, all that in the first three years." Sal Daher: Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: But if I can find things, that have long duration cash flows. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: I'll probably do quite well over time, because even if you buy something at 10 times earnings, and it’s got 5% growth, you've got a 15% yield. Sal Daher: Right, right. Now that is a ... Stevenson: It's a pretty simple ... You don't need the higher math to ... Sal Daher: No, you don't. Stevenson: Make small amounts of growth, and good profitability ... Sal Daher: And, consistent growth over time. Stevenson: Consistent ... Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: It doesn't mean you don't have down years, because one of the things ... My experience is like in one of my other wow investments, was yeah ... But, they were willing to make the investments when it mattered. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So many of the people would have done really well. See, the first thing we do is serve our customers. The second thing we do is we do it at a profit. Sal Daher: Ha. Stevenson: But the first question is doing, are we serving our customers well? Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) because ... Stevenson: That goes back to what we talking about in terms of criteria. Sal Daher: Because serving your customer well is what assures continued growth, continued profitability over the long term, and not just the short bursts in the first few years. Stevenson: The profit is absolutely critical, because whether you're not for profit, or for profit, if you don't have profit, you're out of business. Sal Daher: Something's got to float the boat. Stevenson: Yes. Talking to Your Kids About Money Sal Daher: Yeah. I really like your approach to letting kids know about family wealth and bringing them up early, and so forth. As a matter of fact, I love that little exchange at the HBS that I attended. A gentleman of advanced years, after you explained that you have to let your children know early on said, during the question and answer session, "So how do you think I should tell my children?" And you looked at him and said, "Looking at you, I think it's a little too late." Stevenson: Well, I do get myself into trouble. Sal Daher: I know, it's just ... Stevenson: It seems to me, that many people underestimate, particularly in this internet age, how much the kids know. They know how much your house is worth. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: They can go on Zillow. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Or their friends will. Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: They can find salaries. They can find the size of your private foundation, if you have one. There's no limit to the data they can have. And, by the way, there's no limit to the data they can make up, or their friends can make up too. Sal Daher: The imagination. Stevenson: Imagination. Sal Daher: Gallops way ahead of reality, yes. Stevenson: they can look at the prices of your cars. But it seems to me, if you start talking to your kids at 10, 12 about, "Well aren't we fortunate. We've been very lucky. We have to work hard at making sure that it's there, and we're working with honest ..." You start talking about what the criteria are to work with people. You start denigrating the get rich quick schemes. Sal Daher: Yes, yes. Stevenson: you start to in fact have them start thinking about, their own financial planning. You also have to help them understand that if you want to be an investment banker, you'll have one life. And, if you want to be a social worker, you'll have another life. Sal Daher: Yes, yes. Stevenson: You're not telling them that one is good and the other is bad, because at least to me, I never wanted the kids to think that having money was the measure of success. Having money is a measure of the options you have for the future. But, if you want to do something that doesn't make you money, you're going to use up some of your capital, and that's fine with me. I'm not going to measure my life on whether you've made money. Sal Daher: So, your job is to explain the consequences of the choices they are making. So, that they make decisions in a way that makes sense. And, they can make the tradeoffs. There's nothing in life that's not a tradeoff. Stevenson: Yeah, well my sons said that I raised him by the case method. I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "if you really like something, you'd say if you'd thought it through, go do it." Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: If you've really hated something you'd say, "Have you thought it thorough carefully, because here are some things that you might want to think about." Sal Daher: It's a case study method. Now please explain your thinking behind tracking of your family's total wealth, rather than your own net worth. I found that quite valuable. Stevenson: Part of it is, when you start to think about giving away money. You probably start thinking when the kids are young with some charity. As the kids get older, when do I transfer wealth to them? As you have more money, you start to say, "Okay, my assistant needs help with the mortgage." Or something. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: Now if you only track only your net worth, you feel poorer every time you do that. Sal Daher: Yes, right, right. Stevenson: If you start to say, "Okay, I want to include the wealth of transfer to other people." And, even the taxes you can say, "I'll feel very good, even though my net worth, as reported on gap basis, may be 15% of the money I've made." But, I'm measuring my contribution to the economic wellbeing of people I care about, except for my Uncle Sam. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, I try to minimize that. Sal Daher: Yes. You care about your whole family, except your Uncle Sam. Stevenson: As I say, "I like my kids, or I love my kids. I can stand my grandkids. I hate my uncle." Sal Daher: Oh! Listeners, I forgot to tell you. Howard's book has cartoons. Here's one. Dogbert is sitting behind a desk talking to Pointy Hair Boss under the caption, "Dogbert Financial Advisor" Dogbert: You should invest all your money in diseased livestock. Dogbert continues: It would be unwise to invest in just one sick cow, but if you aggregate a bunch of them together, the risk goes away. Dogbert concludes: It's math. Pointy Hair Boss replies: Suddenly I feel all savvy. Kindly distinguish between a herd of diseased cows and real diversification. Stevenson: I think that one has to ask the question, "What are the drivers?" And obviously diseased cows are diseased mortgage backed securities, have a single driver. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: In spite of the fact that somebody from your alma mater might say these are diversified portfolios, because they are uncorrelated having real estate in Miami, Las Vegas. Sal Daher: Yes, yes. Stevenson: Phoenix. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: And Boston. Sal Daher: Right, right, right. All under written very poorly to a certain sector of the economy. Likely to lose their job and certainly ... Stevenson: All at once. Sal Daher: All at once. Stevenson: In our investing, as I said earlier, as somebody said, "What are your guidelines?" And the answer is, "We have no guidelines." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: You look at some things and you say, "I think this is a fairly stable way of investing. I don't like to put into funds that lock me up for 10 years. Not because I need the liquidity, but because I want to be able to change my mind." Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: I just looked at a fund today that had a 20-year time frame. Sal Daher: Oh, wow. Stevenson: Now that's fine for me. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: If I control when to sell. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: It's less fine for me, if they control when to sell. Sal Daher: Yes. Stevenson: I won't get into some statistics I've done on the leverage buyout groups. But, I think I could prove to you that their average holding period is under three years. Sal Daher: Oh, yeah. Stevenson: In spite of the fact that they try to tell you they've done a great job with managing, but lever it up. Sal Daher: Yeah ... Stevenson: Take a bit out, and get out of there. So true diversification to me is, look for the underlying drivers. And, if they look the same ... Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: That's not diversification. Let's take the example that everybody thinks Spider is diversified. Sal Daher: Right. Stevenson: Let's see, what percentage of the Spider is high technology unicorns? It's like 25%? Sal Daher: That's right. Stevenson: The top 10 stocks? Sal Daher: Yeah, yeah. They're swinging the index now. Stevenson: Yeah. And, is that diversification, just because you have 500 stocks, if it's all dependent on this one group of ... Sal Daher: At one point, I remember Apple was 3% of the market cap… Stevenson: Well it ... Sal Daher: Of the S&P. Stevenson: In 2001, I think ... I'm getting old and senile, but as I believe, technology represented well over 50% of the S&P in 2001. Sal Daher: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Stevenson: So, anybody who thought they were diversified, was smoking stuff that smelled funny. Sal Daher: So, that sets up our last question here. In your HBS talk, you mentioned starting your profess
Bio Karan Chopra (@karchopra) a is Executive Vice President and Co-Founder of Opportunity@Work, where he provides leadership on strategic direction and execution of Opportunity@Work's priorities and the TechHire initiative. He co-founded Opportunity@Work because he believes that meaningful work is not just a matter of economic wellbeing but of individual dignity. Karan's career has focused on building entrepreneurial ventures that increase upward mobility and provide opportunity for all. Prior to co-founding Opportunity@Work, Karan was the co-founder and director of GADCO (Global Agri-Development Company) -- a vertically-integrated agri-food business in sub-Saharan Africa. He led the company from business plan to building and operating the largest rice farm in Ghana, developing a processing center and launching a packaged food brand that contributed to domestic food security in Ghana and impacted the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Leading publications and institutions, including World Bank, UNDP, World Economic Forum, Financial Times and Guardian, have featured GADCO. Karan is also the co-founder of WAVE (West Africa Vocational Education), a social venture tackling youth unemployment in Nigeria. WAVE is empowering West African youth with industry relevant skills and access to jobs while improving outcomes for employers. Prior to this, Karan was at McKinsey & Company where he was awarded the social sector fellowship. Prior to this, Karan was a software developer with Siemens. Karan holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with highest honors from Georgia Tech and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School with high distinction graduating as a Baker Scholar. In 2014, Forbes named Karan in its 2014 list of Forbes 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine and selected as a New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Resources Opportunity@Work Opportunity@Work Learn to Earn Application (Deadline October 15th) Mindset: the New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck News Roundup Social media still in spotlight regarding Russia Social media companies turned over more evidence linking Russia to ads placed across their platforms. According to the Washington Post, Google reported tens of thousands of dollars worth of Russia-linked ads across YouTube, Gmail and search results. Facebook had reported 10 million views of Russia-linked ads on its platform. And Twitter suspended 201 accounts linked to Russia. Executives from Facebook, Google parent Alphabet, Twitter are scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on November 1st. The House Intelligence Committee has asked the executives to testify in connection with their own investigation the same day. Harper Neidig reports in the Hill. More federal agencies breached A new report came to light last week that Russia hacked an NSA contractor's home computer back in 2015. We're just finding out about it now, but officials discovered it in Spring 2016. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia stole sensitive information that lays out how the U.S. hacks into foreign governments' computer networks. The Russian hackers apparently got in via the Kaspersky antivirus software the contractor was running on his computer. A separate Fed Scoop report found that hackers breached the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corp. more than 50 times between 2015 and 2016. Hackers exposed the personal identifying information of hundreds of thousands of Americans in those breaches. Google crackdown on fake news draws protest from diverse media voices Google's crackdown on fake news is biased against smaller, independent content producers. That's a according to several smaller content producers that have noticed sharp declines in their web traffic. The declines have come since April. That's when Google announced its Project Owl initiative the company says it designed to boost more authoritative content. Daisuke Wakabayashi reports in the New York Times. FCC finally responds to Puerto Rico The FCC has finally developed a plan to help Puerto Rico's communications infrastructure get back up and running. On the advice of Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC has established a Hurricane Recovery Task Force, which will focus on all Hurricane-affected areas, including Puerto Rico. The FCC has also approved $77 million to help repair Puerto Rico's communications networks. The agency also gave Google an experimental license to deploy its ballon-based communications system dubbed "Project Loon". IRS under fire for signing a contract with Equifax The IRS came under fire last week for entering into a $7 million contract with Equifax. The deal was for Equifax to help the IRS prevent tax fraud. The IRS and Equifax signed the agreement just three weeks after the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal information of 145 million customers. The IRS's Deputy Commissioner Jeffrey Tribiano told the House Ways and Means Committee that the contract was a "bridge contract." The IRS had put the contract out for rebid and awarded the new contract to Experian. But Equifax protested that decision. As a result, Tribiano said, the IRS was under pressure to sign a bridge contract with Equifax since the existing one was set to expire on September 29th. Tribiano told members of Congress that if the IRS failed to sign the bridge contract, millions of Americans would be unable to get their credit transcripts. But the Government Accountability Office says the IRS could have moved forward with Experian. It said that the IRS could have moved forward with Experian if it considered doing so to be in the best interests of the United States. The GAO is expected to decide the outcome of Equifax's protest against the Experian award on October 16th. Backpage.com settles with 3 women Backpage.com settled with 3 women who allege they were victims of sex trafficking that the now-defunct site facilitated. The women were between the ages of 13 and 15 when the alleged sex trafficking happened. The court did not disclose the amount of the settlement. The parties settled in Pierce County, Washington Superior Court, which is in the Seattle area. In the meantime, IBM has announced that it is backing Senator Rob Portman's bill to make websites amore accountable for content posted by third parties. Can algorithms draw district maps? The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford last week. The key question in the case is whether courts can throw out voting district maps for being too partisan. This will be a landmark decision. The outcome of this case is likely to have huge implications for American democracy for generations to come. But a recent paper published by computer scientists at the University of Illinois proposes letting algorithms do the work of redistricting. Daniel Oberhaus reports in Motherboard. EU orders Amazon to pay $295 million in back taxes The European Union has ordered Amazon to pay $295 million in back taxes to Luxembourg. The EU's Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager says that Luxembourg did not tax almost three quarters of Amazon's profits. Robert-Jan Bartunek reports in Reuters. Marsha Blackburn running for Senate Marsha Blackburn announced last week in a YouTube video that she's running for Bob Corker's Senate seat in Tennessee. But Twitter took down Blackburn's campaign ad because in it, she talks about having fought against "the sale of baby body parts". Verizon announces that hackers compromised ALL 3 billion Yahoo! accounts Verizon announced last week that, back in 2013, hackers compromised ALL of Yahoo's 3 billion accounts. Before the acquisition, Yahoo! had said that the hacks affected just 1 billion accounts. Verizon acquired Amazon earlier this year for $4.5 billion. Nicole Perlroth reports in the New York Times.
Scott is a brilliant guy. He lives in Singapore but is originally from the US. One of the most remarkable things is his contribution to the Harvard Business Review on an ongoing basis. I met Scott at the Creative Innovation Conference in Melbourne. And based on his work, I had to ask him to be on the show. In our conversation, we are discussing Singapore, Innovation, Spirituality, the challenges of today's managers and more. And most importantly, Scott reveals aspects of his book on "Dual Transformation" (at the time of the interview still unpublished but now available - link see below). Enjoy! More About Scott Scott D. Anthony is the Managing Partner of Innosight. Based in the firm’s Singapore offices since 2010, he has led Innosight’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region as well as its venture capital activities (Innosight Ventures). In his decade with Innosight, Scott has advised senior leaders in companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Singtel, Kraft, General Electric, LG, the Ayala Group, and Cisco Systems on topics of growth and innovation. He has extensive experience in emerging markets, particularly in India, China, and the Philippines. Scott is one of Harvard Business Review’s most prolific contributors and is the coauthor of the forthcoming book Dual Transformation (Spring 2017). He was the co-author of the HBR article “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days” as well as dozens of digital articles for the magazine. Scott’s previous books are The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas Into the Market. Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (with Innosight co-founder and Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen); The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work; The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times; The Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do It; and Building a Growth Factory. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles on innovation and strategy for a variety of publications. He was a finalist for the 2015 Thinkers50 Innovation Award. His Twitter feed is @ScottDAnthony. Scott is a featured speaker on topics of innovation and growth. He has delivered keynote addresses on five continents, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Channel News Asia, CNBC, and FOX Business. Scott served on the Board of Directors of Media General (NYSE: MEG) from 2009-2013, helping guide that company through a strategic transformation. In 2013 he joined the Board of MediaCorp, Singapore’s leading diversified media company. Scott chairs the investment committee for IDEAS Ventures, a SGD 10 million fund Innosight runs in conjunction with the Singapore government that has invested in 10 Singapore-based companies and generated a 20%+ internal rate of return. Scott received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Connect with Scott here Website: https://www.innosight.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScottDAnthony Get The Book "Dual Transformation" on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2niu4Ke
Today we’re expanding beyond our usual Barefoot Innovation focus on consumer financial innovation, to explore the parallel issues arising for small businesses. We’ve touched on this before, but are so fortunate, today, to have a guest who deeply understands the whole range of these issues. She is Karen Mills, former head of the Small Business Administration and now senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, where she has just released a comprehensive paper on fintech and small business. We recorded today’s show in her office on the business school campus, which is just across the Charles River from my fellowship’s home base in the Harvard Kennedy School. She and I first met in Washington a few years back, when she issued a research paper on the state of small business lending. That was in conjunction with the group that issued the Small Business Borrowers’ Bill of Rights (which we covered in our episode with Brian Graham of BancAlliance. In 2016, much to my delight, Karen and her co-author Brayden McCarthy put out an update on her paper, and this time it’s mostly about fintech. Technology is changing small business lending in the same ways it’s transforming consumer finance, but with different twists. On the positive side, innovators are using technology to do better for SME’s -- small and medium-sized enterprises -- by adopting low-cost online platforms, becoming much smarter about getting and using data, speeding up service, and creating a vastly better user experience than was possible in the past. The data issue is crucial. Thanks to new technology (including Square), small businesses increasingly can give lenders solid, up to date information on their financial positions and cash flows. Innovative lenders can analyze this, determine with precision what the borrower can afford, and often can create a flexible repayment schedule that works with the rhythm of the business, including seasonal ones. These innovators are filling an enormous gap -- which Karen clearly demonstrates -- because banks just cannot profitably make the smaller loans that so many businesses need. There are downsides, though. One is that whereas local banks interact with their business customers face to face, these new relationships are online. For lenders, this creates higher risk of fraud. And for borrowers, there is rising danger that these entrepreneurs will be harmed by confusing terms and, sometimes, by downright predatory practices online. And here’s a little-known fact: small business borrowers have almost no regulatory protections, at least at the federal level. There is no federal regulator for small business lending, as there is for consumers, and even if there were, there are very few regulations that apply. Generally speaking, there are no requirements for standard disclosures to small business borrowers, and no rules against unfair and deceptive practices, beyond those that cover commerce in general. This is significant, because today’s small businesses are more similar to consumers than ever before. The “1099” or “gig” economy has led to more and more people starting small businesses as their main work, or to supplement tight household budgets, or to tide them over after losing a job. It’s a mistake to assume that, simply because they’re business people, they are therefore financially sophisticated. Listeners to Barefoot Innovation have probably figured out by now that I’m not a fan of the current regulatory apparatus for protecting financial consumers (even though I myself have been involved in developing some of it). Broadly speaking, disclosures are failing, and regulations are choking desirable innovation. The last thing I think we should do is to transplant our whole system of consumer protection laws into the fresh, green field of small business lending, and have it put down roots there -- like crabgrass. I think we should be deeply rethinking our consumer laws. In the process, though, we should also be thinking about whether and how to create protections and tools for small businesses to use, too. Karen does recommend extending some consumer-type protections to these firms, including APR’s (we had a good exchange on the pros and cons of that). She also has tremendous insights into the structure and nature of the market, and on what to do about what she calls the “spaghetti soup” of regulatory agencies and rules, which now make it so hard to move toward a smarter system. She focuses, too, on the critical need for clearer, updated regulatory guidance for banks that want to work with fintechs on small business lending. A wide spectrum of new models are emerging, partly because these two industries need each other -- they complement each other. Both sides will suffer, and so will business borrowers, if banks can’t navigate the third-party risk rules of their prudential regulators. (As I often say, the regulators have the hardest job in all this.) More information on Karen: Karen Gordon Mills served as the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration from 2009 until August 2013. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Business School and at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School focusing on U.S. competitiveness, entrepreneurship and innovation. As SBA Administrator and a Cabinet member, Mills served on the President’s National Economic Council and was a key member of the White House economic team. At the SBA, she led a team of more than 3,000 employees and managed a loan guarantee portfolio of over $100 billion. Mills is credited with turning around the agency during the financial crisis and with streamlining loan programs, shortening turnaround times, and reducing paperwork. In addition, Mills helped small businesses create regional economic clusters, gain access to early stage capital, hire skilled workers, boost exports, and tap into government and commercial supply chains. Prior to the SBA, Mills held leadership positions in the private sector, including as a partner in several private equity firms, and served on the boards of Scotts Miracle-Gro and Arrow Electronics. Most recently, she was president of MMP Group, which invested in businesses in consumer products, food, textiles, and industrial components. In 2007, Maine Governor John Baldacci appointed Mills to chair Maine’s Council on Competitiveness and the Economy, where she focused on regional development initiatives, including a regional economic cluster with Maine’s boatbuilding industry. Mills earned an AB in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. Additionally, she is a past vice chair of the Harvard Overseers, and is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Harvard Corporation. And listen, too, to our episode from last year with Sam Hodges of Funding Circle, a leading example of platform lending to small businesses. More for our listeners We have some amazing shows coming up, including one with Chase’s Colleen Briggs, several focused on global trends, at least one with a CEO of a community bank, and one that I will call a barn-burner with the former CEO of PayPal and Inuit, Bill Harris. Don’t miss them! Remember to write a review of Barefoot Innovation on ITunes, and please sign up at www.,jsbarefoot.com to get email notices when new podcasts come out, as well as my newsletter and blog posts. Go there too to send in your “buck a show” to keep Barefoot Innovation going. And remember to join my facebook fan page and follow me on twitter. Support the Podcast Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time! Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!
This week my guest is Steve Kraus, the general Partner who leads healthcare investing activities as Bessemer Venture Partners a storied century-old VC firm headquartered right here in Cambridge’s Kendall Square. Steve has been recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top healthcare investors in the industry, having led or actively participated in investments in Ovascience, Sirtis Pharmaceuticals, Affymax, Aveo, Transave, Verastem, Acceleron, Restore Medical and Flex Pharma… and those are just the ones who made it onto the NASDAQ. Today he serves on the boards of Welltok, Bright Health, Health Essentials, Docent Health, Allena Pharmaceuticals, Alcresta, and Docutap. Steve graduated summa cum laude from Yale was a Baker Scholar at the Harvard Business School. Before joining Bessemer he worked in private-equity and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He worked on a couple of big political campaigns throughout his career, and serves with me on the board of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA,) and on that of the Achievement Network, on the investment committees of BCBS Massachusetts and Rock Health, and as an innovation advisor to Boston Children’s Hospital. In today’s second segment we’ll talk about how healthcare is changing in the shadow of our new President-Elect, where it is and where it’s headed for us as Americans, New Englanders and plain old patients of a system in a pretty dramatic state of flux.
Henry Lawson has always been fascinated with cars and anything with an engine, really. He’s built 3 cars and restored countless others, including a 1902 MMC and a 1969 Dodge Charger. In this episode, we talk about how work can easily become all-consuming if we let it. Henry reminds us all that it is acually a marathon and not a sprint, so managers can’t expect everyone to run at sprinting speed all the time. There are times to get things done and there are times to back off an respect people’s space and freedom, especially when it comes to spending time with family. Therefore, a business should measure staff by outcomes instead of hours or face time. Henry Lawson is co-founder and CEO of autoGraph. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and then his MBA from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar.
The Empire Club of Canada Presents: Victor G. Dodig, President and Chief Executive Officer, CIBC With The Future of Banking: Importance of Innovation and Technology Victor Dodig is President and Chief Executive Officer of the CIBC group of companies, one of North America's largest financial services institutions. Mr. Dodig joined CIBC in 2005 as Executive Vice President, CIBC Wealth Management. In 2007, he became Executive Vice President, Retail Distribution, CIBC, where he led the bank's retail banking distribution and sales teams. He was appointed Group Head, Wealth Management in 2011, taking on responsibility for the bank's brokerage, private wealth, and asset management businesses in both Canada and the US. Mr. Dodig was named President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of CIBC's Board of Directors in September 2014. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the C.D. Howe Institute and is a member of the Catalyst Canada Advisory Board. Prior to joining CIBC, Mr. Dodig was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in Canada for UBS Global Asset Management. Earlier in his career, he spent five years as Managing Director in Canada, the US and the UK for Merrill Lynch and Company, where he gained international experience, following three years as a Management Consultant with McKinsey and Company. Mr. Dodig is a past recipient of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 award. He holds an MBA from Harvard University where he was a Baker Scholar, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto, St. Michael's College. He also holds a Diploma from the Instituts d'études politiques in Paris. Speaker: Victor G. Dodig, President and Chief Executive Officer, CIBC *The content presented is free of charge but please note that the Empire Club of Canada retains copyright. Neither the speeches themselves nor any part of their content may be used for any purpose other than personal interest or research without the explicit permission of the Empire Club of Canada.* *Views and Opinions Expressed Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the speakers or panelists are those of the speakers or panelists and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official views and opinions, policy or position held by The Empire Club of Canada.*
We had a chance to sit down with Jeff, author of Mastering the VC Game to get his insights on company development and what he looks for in a founder. Jeff is a former entrepreneur (Upromise, Open Market) who joined Flybridge in 2002 and focuses on the consumer, marketing services, e-commerce, software and mobile start-up markets. On the side, he serves as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School where he teaches a class on entrepreneurship and lean start-ups called Launching Technology Ventures and has co-authored ten HBS cases. Jeff also currently sits on the board of MITX, the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange and is a Founding Executive Committee Member of First Growth Venture Network, a network of venture and angel investors supporting entrepreneurs building companies in the New York area. Jeff holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.
This segment of GLOBAL IMPACT addresses the strategic link between innovation, technology, and global competitiveness. Our distinguished guest will be Dr. Amar Bhide, Visiting Scholar, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Dr. Bhide has served on the faculties of Harvard Business School, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. Dr. Bhide earned a DBA and an MBA with high distinction as a Baker Scholar from Harvard University. He also received a B.Tech from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. We will be discussing Dr. Bhide's most recent book, "The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World" and his critical perspectives on the strategic link between innovation, technology, and global competitiveness.