Podcast appearances and mentions of ken chenault

Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst discusses the firm's evolution from an artisanal business to an enduring venture platform, focusing on operational rigor, fund size, talent strategy, and investments in companies like Stripe and Snap, while emphasizing the importance of responsible innovation and long-term industry transformations. — 

The series, Fast Forward @ One Madison, brings together some of the world's most compelling innovators for intimate and provocative conversations on technology, culture, and leadership. In this episode, Stephanie Mehta, CEO and Chief Content Officer at Mansueto Ventures, parent of Inc. and Fast Company, talks to Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing Director of General Catalyst.

Guest: Josh Silverman, CEO of EtsyWhen Josh Silverman joined the board of Etsy, he had one condition: “Don't ask me to the be the CEO.” And technically, they didn't ask. One day, he got a phone call informing him the board had elected him as the new CEO, just days before an earnings miss. He knew the odds were against him — layoffs would be necessary, and “I was going to have to be the villain” — but decided to say yes out of a sense of duty to Etsy's users and workers. “If I can be helpful, I have a responsibility to do it,” Josh says.Chapters:(00:55) - Energy management (02:42) - Meetings (09:56) - Etsy's strategy (13:36) - Learning to delegate (17:10) - Setting an example (24:17) - Evite's rise and fall (27:46) - Self vs. company (30:22) - Legacy (34:21) - Control and agency (37:44) - Joining Etsy's board (40:40) - Becoming CEO (46:16) - Culture shock (48:09) - “We need you, trust us” (51:25) - eBay and Skype (57:15) - Pushed out (01:00:40) - Accountability and family (01:03:53) - Time horizons (01:05:55) - Gen AI-supported art (01:08:29) - Who Etsy is hiring and what “grit” means to Josh Mentioned in this episode: Ken Chenault and American Express, Nick Daniel, Rachana Kumar, Ticketmaster and IAC, Etsy Studios, Silverlake, Shopping.com, Google, Microsoft, and Austin City Limits. Links:Connect with JoshLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

In this episode, Business Forward welcomed former U.S. Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin and Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing Director of General Catalyst and former Chairman and CEO of American Express, for a briefing on the damage the outcome of this election could do to America's economy and our global competitiveness.  

Amid college campus protests over Palestine and Israel, stark US political divides, and legal challenges to diversity initiatives, business leaders face new pressure on whether to speak out and take action on issues of our time. Ken Frazier, former CEO of Merck, and Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express, offer their unfiltered advice, as board members of the Harvard Corporation and two of America's most prominent Black executives. It's a candid conversation about the most controversial topics in American business, from DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) to January 6th.Subscribe to the Rapid Response podcast feed: https://listen.rapidresponseshow.com/SubscribeFor more info, visit: www.rapidresponseshow.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Amid college campus protests over Palestine and Israel, stark US political divides, and legal challenges to diversity initiatives, business leaders face new pressure on whether to speak out and take action on issues of our time. Ken Frazier, former CEO of Merck, and Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express, offer their unfiltered advice, as board members of the Harvard Corporation and two of America's most prominent Black executives. It's a candid conversation about the most controversial topics in American business, from DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) to January 6th.Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With support from American Express' longtime CEO Ken Chenault, the founder of fintech Bilt Rewards has become a billionaire creating a membership rewards program for house and apartment renters across the country. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Dr. Chuck Wallington, a visionary in the corporate realm and a passionate storyteller, graced our podcast, he didn't just recount his journey from a curious child to an illustrious executive at Cone Health, he also illuminated the path for future Black leaders. With a freshly minted book in hand, "A Seat at the Seasweet Table," Chuck offers an intimate glimpse into the successes and struggles of 30 Black executives navigating the tumultuous waters of today's business world. Our conversation ventured into the stark reality of African American men's scarcity in corporate leadership and how this drought limits mentorship and growth opportunities, an issue that resonates with my own experience as a Chinese, female, millennial leader.This episode is a melting pot of poignant reflections and practical wisdom, examining the underrepresentation issues in executive roles and celebrating the triumphs of those who have broken through the glass ceilings. We delve into the stories of these executives, their combat with VUCA challenges, and the critical role of allies and sponsors in my personal narrative, highlighting the transformative power of diversity in leadership. A mosaic of perspectives is showcased, with Chuck's eye-opening research and interviews underscoring the importance of authenticity and the pressing need for inclusion in workplace cultures.Glean insights from Chuck's defining principles for success, which are anchored by faith, recognition of one's innate talents, and the strength drawn from family and community. Through laughter and earnest discussion, we learn the significance of mentorship, the influence of role models like Ken Chenault, and the importance of lifelong learning and data-driven decisions. By the end of our time together, the indomitable spirit of those who forge forward, despite the corporate realm's challenges, serves as a testament to the resilience and community bonds that sustain us.

A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week collects the best writing on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are only snippets. Click on the headline to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below.Thanks To This Week's Contributors: @TEDchris, @LilyWhitsitt, @RocketToLulu, @saeedtaji, @geneteare, @EricNewcomer, @jeffbeckervc, @jasonlk, @elonmusk, @benshapiro, @StevenLevy, @apple, @bheater, @bmw, @Growcoot, @illscience, @venturetwins, @omooretweets, @conniechanContents* Editorial: Civility and Civilization* Essays of the Week* US Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024* Lower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 * Unicorns & Inevitabilities* Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager Survey* Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023* Video of the Week* The Mac at 40* AI of the Week* BMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plant* Google's New AI Video Generator Looks Incredible* OpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surge* The Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” Workflows* Andreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AI* OpenAI Is a (Relative) Steal* News Of the Week* Ted fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speaker* Tesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' Group* TikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content Options* Instagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'* Tiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising Challenges* Worldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experience* Startup of the Week* Loyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M Round* X of the Week* Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with Ben ShapiroEditorialThere is a lot to digest in this week's newsletter. Gené Teare's two essays on Seed investing head up the Essays of the Week, along with Jeff Becker talking about unicorns and inevitabilities, Eric Newcomer on who are the top investors and Jason Lemkin on the reasons 2024 might be harder for Venture Capital than 2023.But my attention was distracted from venture capital by a Guardian article announcing (triumphantly, I might add) that several TED fellows had resigned from the organization due to an invite to Bill Ackman to speak at this year's TED event in Vancouver.“Lucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusion”It seems Ackman is not alone. They also object to Bari Weiss being invited. The leavers are also not alone; up to 30 others have signed a “solidarity” letter.The accusations echo much of the discussion around the medieval assassination of Jews on 7 October and Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas in the aftermath. Because these speakers are against anti-Semitism and so supportive of Israel's war against Hamas, they are accused of the ridiculous claim of supporting “Genocide” against Palestinians.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.It probably will not surprise readers of this newsletter that I applaud TED curators Chris Anderson and Lily James Olds for not backing down on the invitations. Whatever one believes about the current conflict in Israel, it is clear that banning opponents of anti-Semitism because of their stance is not a solution to anything. I believe the cause of fighting anti-Semitism should be close to the heart of any progressive person. It is not anti-Palestinian to support Jews against being slaughtered in the street, to oppose anti-Semitism, or to condemn Hamas as anti-Jewish murderers. Supporting Jews against slaughter by Hamas is not incompatible with supporting Palestinians. The Guardian reported that Ackman responded to the resignations with a statement:“I stand unapologetically with Israel and against antisemitism and terrorism, while strongly supporting the Palestinian people. Attempts to cancel speech and eliminate the free and respectful exchange of ideas among people with differing views are driving much of the divisiveness that plagues our nation. Truth, wisdom and ultimately peace are the result of the free exchange of ideas and debate, precisely what Ted is all about. It is sad that this is not more widely understood,”Unsurprisingly, one of the resigners, Farouky, told the Guardian he did not regard the issue as freedom of speech. It clearly IS about freedom of speech. Speech only needs protecting when opinions are wide apart and strongly held.For example, here are my views on the actual issues:These are trying times. Over 25,000 deaths in Gaza are hard to comprehend. And I certainly cannot. But I can understand that Jews have to defend themselves. And I can understand that progressive thinkers MUST stand up to anti-Semitism, whatever form it takes.In case there is doubt about my support for Muslim victims of racism, my book Under Seige is about the attacks on Muslims in the UK between 1961 and 1981. It starts with recognizing that racism targets differences and that Jews and Muslims are both targets. Indeed, the very ghettoes that Pakistani and Bengali immigrants were being attacked in had earlier, in the 1930s, been inhabited by Jewish settlers fleeing pogroms. I am not Jewish, and I am not Muslim. But I will always be on both of their sides when they are attacked for their ethnic and racial origin.In Israel, Jews were killed for being Jews. Palestinians are being killed because Hamas is hiding in their cities and buildings. I do not consider Israel's response to be racist against Palestinians. I consider it reasonable in the context of 7 October. I consider that Hamas has done this to Palestinians and probably wanted that outcome. I am sad that Hamas has done this for the Palestinian victims. But I do not doubt that Hamas is to blame.My views may anger you. But do you want me banned or silenced?My title this week is Civility and Civilization. The TED events bring both to the fore. Like those I write here, opinions are there to be disagreed with, debated, and interrogated. Civilized behavior requires dialogue and civility within the dialogue. I certainly understand opinions I disagree with, and far from banning them or walking away so that I do not have to hear them, I want to hear them. We all should.This is a different editorial than usual. I hope the humanity of refusing to forget 7 October and the determination to preserve the view that fighting anti-Semitism is a non-negotiable minimum requirement of civilization are grasped. By the same token, Islamaphobia must be fought. But in Israel, there is no Islamophobia at work. Jews are simply reacting to an atrocity. They are right to blame Hamas.Essays of the WeekUS Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024Gené Teare, January 24, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.Despite a broad pullback in global startup investment over the past two years, investors say the U.S. seed funding environment was the most vibrant compared to other funding stages during the downturn.In fact, U.S. seed funding in 2022 grew by close to 10% in terms of dollars invested, in contrast to a downturn at all other funding stages. In 2023, U.S. seed funding fell 31% — a significant proportion — but still less than other funding stages year over year, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. (It's also worth noting that those other stages had already experienced year-over-year declines in 2022.)In the current startup funding market, “we're seeing a lot more great talent excited about starting things,” said Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies and is therefore close to the seed ecosystem.Other investors share that enthusiasm. “Valuations are coming down, more talent is available in the market,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures. “A lot of these companies at seed and Series A are going to scale into what will likely be the next bull market.”Seed trends over the decadeSeed as an asset class, not surprisingly, has grown in the U.S. over the past decade. In 2014 less than $5 billion was invested at seed. At the market peak in 2022, seed investment was more than $16 billion, although it fell to $11.5 billion in 2023.Despite the downturn, seed funding in 2023 was still $2 billion to $3 billion higher in the U.S. than in the pre-pandemic years of 2019 and 2020.Higher bar, pricier rounds, better valuedBut in a tougher market, seed investors are being more selective about which companies they fund.“We're being far more disciplined and patient knowing how hard it is for these companies to get to Series A and beyond,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “Our bar for conviction is higher than it had been in the heyday where everything was getting funded.”In the slower funding environment, the firm has been investing later at the seed stage, “gravitating toward ‘seed plus' or ‘A minus' — pick your favorite term for it — because I feel like I get to see more risk mitigated. I get to see more data,” she said.Freestyle seeks to have ownership of around 12% to 15% in the companies it backs. “The reason is because of our model,” Lefcourt said. “We are low-volume, high-conviction investors.”And because the firm invests in companies that are pre-Series A, “our reality has been that our valuations have actually been higher in this market, which is not what we would have predicted.“But the data we've seen is, we're not alone in that,” she said.…MoreLower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 Gené Teare, January 25, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the second in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Read Part 1, which looked at seed funding trends over the past decade and the median time period between seed and Series A funding, here.Seed funding to startups has grown into its own asset class over the past decade, with round sizes trending larger, and a bigger pool of investors backing these nascent startups. But in the aftermath of 2021's venture funding heyday and subsequent pullback, investors say that while seed funding has held up better than other startup investment stages, these very young startups will see lower valuations and must now clear a much higher bar to get backing.More companies raised seed funding above $1 million in 2021. Those companies — which raised during a record-smashing year for venture funding — are saddled with valuations that could be too high for this current market — even at seed. Many of those startups have been forced to cut costs to extend their runways, and face a tougher sales environment.“You could then be sacrificing growth, which is one of the main levers that Series A investors are looking for,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures.2021 after effectsIn 2021 it was “grow, grow, grow, grow,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “It's embarrassing to look back on, but that was the game being played.”Investors got sloppy during the boom times, she said. “I think a lot of VCs were thrilled to back you, and then say, ‘we'll figure it out.' ”“The reality is that almost anything that was done then — call it 2021 — was the wrong price,” she said.This led to down rounds, even at seed, though those are generally not viewed negatively like they were in the past, she said.In fact, “when our companies get their down rounds done, it's a sign of it's a good business. It just had the wrong price on it,” she said.While the bar is higher to raise funding these days, “I think it's so much better for a company who gets to start in this environment,” Lefcourt said.Down rounds can actually be a sign of conviction, she said. “None of us would do all the heavy lifting to not only give the company more capital, but recap it, which takes a lot. It's a heavy lift — none of us would do that if we weren't super jazzed about the company. The lazier approach, the easier approach, is to just put it on the note, keep it flat, and be done,” she said.Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies, is hearing of “more ‘pay-to-play' these days and it's starting to get ugly.” This happens when new investors wipe out the prior investors, and anyone seeking equity needs to pony up into the new funding round.Median and averages climbNonetheless, “seed round valuations haven't dropped a ton from even the peak,” according to Forum Ventures' Cardamone. But, “the bar to raise a seed [round] is a lot higher.”“Most first-time founders especially, and the vast majority of founders generally — they have to get significant traction to be able to raise that same round they used to be able to raise. And a lot fewer of those rounds are happening,” he said.“A priced seed round of $3 million at $15 million [pre-money] is still happening, but you might have to be at $500,000 ARR, to raise that round now. Whereas in 2021, it was the norm to raise that round pre-revenue,” he said.Series A fundings have gotten harder as “companies are going out and raising three seed rounds,” said Cardamone.Based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, median and average seed round sizes in the U.S. have climbed through the past decade.In 2023, median and average raises are not far from the peak of 2022, Crunchbase data shows, and were well above pre-pandemic levels. (However, this will shift downward somewhat as the long tail of seed fundings are retroactively added to the Crunchbase database.)Seed rounds got larger“If I have conviction, we may need them to have more money, cause we know it's going to take them longer to reach the milestones that are now higher,” said Lefcourt.Per an analysis of Crunchbase data, larger seed rounds — those $1 million and above — have increased through the decade.The amount of funding to seed-stage companies below $1 million hasn't budged much, and is a fraction of what it was earlier in the decade.Seed below $1 million in 2014 represented around 25% of all seed funding.That has come down as a proportion every year since then.And as of 2021 that proportion has dipped below 10% for the first time, ranging from 5% to 7% of all seed dollars invested in the U.S. since then.Earlier in the past decade, the number of seed deals in rounds below $1 million outpaced those rounds at $1 million and above significantly.But 2021 was once again a pivotal year. That's when $1 million and above seed rounds outpaced smaller seed for the first time.In 2023, they are neck and neck in count. (That might shift as the long tail of seed rounds are added to the Crunchbase database long after they close.)What this all shows is that seed has become an increasingly significant and elongated phase in a company's early life cycle, where companies are raising multiple million-dollar seed rounds. And as of late, more companies than ever before are wading in the seed pool.What does this mean for the seed funding market in 2024?…MoreUnicorns & InevitabilitiesUp and to the right, or not so much?JEFF BECKER, JAN 22, 2024TLDR: Go read Aileen Lee's update to the Unicorn Club… and a few inevitabilities.Did anyone catch Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon's Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later?If not, go read it. That's your MMM.If you did read it, you can't help but wonder if the tech sector isn't going to resemble the public markets over time. Ups and downs, but consistently up and to the right over a long enough period.After all, we are creating leverage in ways we've never seen before.And for unicorns, that meant 14X growth over a 10-year period.Could you imagine another 14 or even 10X from here? That would be stratospheric, from ~500 to ~5,000 unicorns? What if the exit sizes did too? $5B, $10B, $50B?Crazy to think, but hardly impossible. After all, we've already seen near-centicorns like Uber's IPO at $75B in 2019.The interesting part about that thought exercise though is not the crazy zero interest rate IPO's, but the fact that entry valuations didn't and don't move nearly as fast as top end outcomes because of the time horizon to realizing them.For example, Airbnb raised $20K from Y Combinator for 6%, then they took another $600K for 20% in their seed.That was 2009. The idea of an IPO for $47B just 11 years later in 2020 probably wasn't even a consideration. Paul Graham and the YC team would've had to believe Airbnb's IPO could compete with AT&T, General Motors, and Visa.Insane.Fast forward, that $333,333 valuation at YC has moved to $1.78m (125K for 7%), and they'll stack another 2.6% ownership on average from their $375K MFN with the average YC company raising seed at a $14.4m cap instead of Airbnb's $3m.That's a ~5X increase in valuation at pre-seed & seed for a 47X increase in IPO size if you were modeling $1B outcomes into your VC fund model in 2009.I'm not saying that will continue. There are counterforces of course.* Margins are way too high. The fact that software margins have persisted at 80% or more is just craziness. Companies will start to use price more aggressively to compete for market share as cheap AI tools enter the market and try to unseat them. This compression will change the value of discounted cash flow models.* Pricing models need to change. One way to reduce sticker price and maintain some semblance of healthy long-term margins is to pay a smaller implementation fee, but incur ongoing services & upgrade costs. This is a more traditional pricing model, and creative economics that leverage this kind of thinking run rampant in the titans of tech. It's a game of deeper roots, higher switching costs, and long-term contracts. With API calls and data usage more prevalent, we'll also see more pay-per-use models, the same way we buy copiers. We'll also see more pay-for-performance models with attributable ROI, akin to Amazon's ACoS model or Rakuten's affiliate marketing model. Customers will prefer it too, placing a higher emphasis customer value. This will also drive margins to condense.* AI, AI, AI. AI will cut OpEx costs dramatically. SDR teams, gone. Copywriters at agencies, you don't need as many. Data scientists? Just run a query against your data lakes. The list goes on. Costs of running these companies is going to get shellacked. Good for margins for sure, but also a compelling opportunity for newcomers to undercut and unseat incumbents too.* More hardware. With software margins condensing, hardware margins will start to feel more attractive too, the maintenance and upgrade fees will resemble what we see in SaaS, and the software that powers these machines will be incredible. Skynet for autonomous off-road vehicles, absolutely.* Less dilution, earlier exits, and stratification. We already see it in the S&P 500 with the top end accounting for an outsized share of total value. With that kind of cash on balance sheets, bigger companies will just buy the smaller ones. Think about how Broadcom rolls up companies. If you've built the business more efficiently, you've also raised less, incurred less dilution, and that $100m exit when you still own 50% is looking pretty prett-ty good compared to the same outcome 5-10 grueling years later to own 5% of $1B.* Massive founder salaries, less emphasis on growth. If you've built a company that's profitable from day one, and you have complete control of your board, what's your incentive to keep the pedal down on growth, or stay on the VC treadmill? World domination? Why not pay yourself 10X, stop fundraising, and continue to tighten the core business until someone acquires you? It's better for the founding team and employees for sure, and it's probably better for customers in most instances too.These are just some of things I think we'll see over the next five years until we approach ZIRPy-dirpy times again and massive growth becomes irresistible.But there are also a whole slew of things I think are inevitabilities that will benefit from these dynamics because we will not only have new technologies, with more attractive pricing, but we will be tackling new opportunities that were created by the prior evolutions across adjacent industries.For example…* Cost of energy is going to zero with nuclear fusion* Longevity is starting to work; check out Loyal for Dogs* Batteries & cameras continue to improve; medical devices, for one, will be more personal & affordable* Disintermediation of big ad networks with new global distribution channels; check out Benjamin* Massive cost reductions driven by AI* Software will be built by software* An aging population is retiring (10,000 per day); wealth transfer & SMB's with no exit paths* Climate change* …and so on and so on and so onThe list is long. Much longer than this. If you want the rest, just reply or comment so that I know, and I'll go deeper next week.Net of all of it, I think we're going to see a tale of two cities. Stronger, more profitable businesses, with smaller, but better founder founder exits in the near term, and a continued growth both in number of total unicorns, and what that top-end outcomes look like in the longer-term.And like I said, go read Aileen's post.Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager SurveyI got my hands on a VC scorecard circulating among top founders & VCsERIC NEWCOMERJAN 25, 2024Before we get started, I want to be clear — this isn't the end-all, be-all list of the top venture capital firms or the most promising startups.But I got my hands on a survey of 91 people at 69 different venture capital firms conducted by a well-respected investor in venture capital firms.The survey results are spreading hand-to-hand in Silicon Valley. The results of the survey rank the most desirable venture capital firms and companies, according to VCs themselves. When I was out in San Francisco last week for The Information's 10th anniversary gala, sources kept bringing it up.My sources tell me that the survey was conducted by Ed Hutchinson, managing partner at Golden Bell Partners. Hutchinson is ignoring my emails.Which firms and companies would top VCs themselves put their money into? It's a question everyone wants to know the answer to.I've got my hands on their list of favorites:Firms* (1) Sequoia* (2) Founders Fund* (3) Union Square* (4) Elad Gil* (5) Benchmark…Much More (but only for subscribers)Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023by Jason Lemkin | Blog Posts, Fundraising, ScaleSo I thought the toughest times for venture would be behind us now.  In 2022, we were in free fall, with public market caps falling like a knife, and the IPO markets frozen.  And 2023 was the year of the Work Out in venture.  Bridge rounds slowed down, and VCs acknowledged a lot of portfolio companies just weren't going to make it.  It got real in 2023, and that realness got normalized.  The drama mostly was behind us.  And public SaaS stocks in many cases did really, really well in 2023.  So shouldn't 2024 at least be better for venture?So I thought.But the reality is I'm a bit more worried the venture drama in 2024 will be bigger than 2023.  Why?  Four core reasons:#1:  Now We Have to Deal With the Reality of the Stumbling Unicorns.The ones that are doing $100m+ ARR, still growing, but there just isn't going to be any more money coming.  This is going to burn up a ton of energy in VC funds.  Even tougher, the reality is while many VC funds marked down their unicorns to lower valuations in 2023, they often didn't mark them down enough.#2.  The Chase for AI Unicorns and Decacorns is All-consuming.  It's Still 2021 There.The one place where paper money seems easy to come by is Hot AI Startups.   And that's probably not you.  It's just consuming all the oxygen in venture, trying to get into the next Imaging AI startup worth $1B in 10 months.  In AI, 2021 never went away.  In AI, it's still 2021.#3.  A Lot of Seasoned VCs are Discouraged. This Doesn't Help Founders.A lot of VCs who have been around for a while are quietly discouraged.  They just don't see a great path to making a ton of money in venture these days.  We're in Year 3 of a venture downturn, and that weighs of most of us.  At a practical level, for founders, it makes it harder to lean it.#4.  More Valuation Markdowns Are Still to ComeRelated to the first point, but more markdowns are like mutliple rounds of layoffs.  They're just tough.  LPs lose confidence.  Coworkers lose confidence.  We should have gotten through a lot of this in 2023, but we didn't.  Personally, I've got several investments for example that I marked down. 70%-80% or more — that my co-investors didn't mark down at all.#5.  VCs Have Run out of ReservesVCs used what extra “reserve” capital they had for bridge rounds in 2022 and 2023.  Now it's gone.  That's adds to the stress as companies struggle.  You don't have a play anymore.The bottom line is there likely is at least another full year of working through the excesses of 2021.  That will weigh across venture.  No matter what some AI headlines suggest.Video of the WeekThe Mac at 40Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still RulesThe pioneering PC revolutionized how people interact with computers. As the Mac enters its fifth decade, Apple says it will continue to evolve.STEVEN LEVY, Jan 19, 2024 10:00 AMON JANUARY 24, Apple's Macintosh computer turns 40. Normally that number is an inexorable milestone of middle age. Indeed, in the last reported sales year, Macintosh sales dipped below $30 billion, more than a 25 percent drop from the previous year's $40 billion. But unlike an aging person, Macs now are slimmer, faster, and last much longer before having to recharge.My own relationship with the computer dates back to its beginnings, when I got a prelaunch peek some weeks before its January 1984 launch. I even wrote a book about the Mac—Insanely Great—in which I described it as “the computer that changed everything.” Unlike every other nonfiction subtitle, the hyperbole was justified. The Mac introduced the way all computers would one day work, and the break from controlling a machine with typed commands ushered us into an era that extends to our mobile interactions. It also heralded a focus on design that transformed our devices.That legacy has been long-lasting. For the first half of its existence, the Mac occupied only a slice of the market, even as it inspired so many rivals; now it's a substantial chunk of PC sales. Even within the Apple juggernaut, $30 billion isn't chicken feed! What's more, when people think of PCs these days, many will envision a Macintosh. More often than not, the open laptops populating coffee shops and tech company workstations beam out glowing Apples from their covers. Apple claims that its Macbook Air is the world's best-selling computer model. One 2019 survey reported that more than two-thirds of all college students prefer a Mac. And Apple has relentlessly improved the product, whether with the increasingly slim profile of the iMac or the 22-hour battery life of the Macbook Pro. Moreover, the Mac is still a thing. Chromebooks and Surface PCs come and go, but Apple's creation remains the pinnacle of PC-dom. “It's not a story of nostalgia, or history passing us by,” says Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a rare on-the-record interview with five Apple executives involved in its Macintosh operation. “The fact we did this for 40 years is unbelievable.”…Much MoreAI of the WeekBMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plantBrian Heater @bheater / 3:00 AM PST•January 18, 2024Image Credits: FigureFigure today announced a “commercial agreement” that will bring its first humanoid robot to a BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The Spartanburg plant is BMW's only in the United States. As of 2019, the 8 million-square-foot campus boasted the highest yield among the German manufacturer's factories anywhere in the world.BMW has not disclosed how many Figure 01 models it will deploy initially. Nor do we know precisely what jobs the robot will be tasked with when it starts work. Figure did, however, confirm with TechCrunch that it is beginning with an initial five tasks, which will be rolled out one at a time.While folks in the space have been cavalierly tossing out the term “general purpose” to describe these sorts of systems, it's important to temper expectations and point out that they will all arrive as single- or multi-purpose systems, growing their skillset over time. Figure CEO Brett Adcock likens the approach to an app store — something that Boston Dynamics currently offers with its Spot robot via SDK.Likely initial applications include standard manufacturing tasks such as box moving, pick and place and pallet unloading and loading — basically the sort of repetitive tasks for which factory owners claim to have difficulty retaining human workers. Adcock says that Figure expects to ship its first commercial robot within a year, an ambitious timeline even for a company that prides itself on quick turnaround times.The initial batch of applications will be largely determined by Figure's early partners like BMW. The system will, for instance, likely be working with sheet metal to start. Adcock adds that the company has signed up additional clients, but declined to disclose their names. It seems likely Figure will instead opt to announce each individually to keep the news cycle spinning in the intervening 12 months.Unlike some other humanoid designers (including Agility), Figure is focused on creating a dexterous, human like hand for manipulation. The thinking behind such an end effector is the same that's driving many toward the humanoid form factor in the first place: Namely, we've designed our workspaces with us in mind. Adcock alludes to Figure 01 being tasked with an initial set of jobs that require high dexterity.As for the importance of legs, the executive suggests that their importance for maneuvering during certain tasks is as — or more — important than things like walking up stairs and over uneven terrain, which tend to get most of the love during these conversations.…MoreGoogle's New AI Video Generator Looks IncredibleJAN 25, 2024MATT GROWCOOTGoogle has announced Lumiere: an AI video generator that looks to be one of the most advanced text-to-video models yet.The name Lumiere is seemingly a nod to the Lumiere brothers who are credited with putting on the first ever cinema showing in 1895. Just as motion picture was cutting-edge technology at the end of the 19th century, the Lumiere name is once more being associated with something new and original.The demo of Lumiere that Google put out focuses firmly on animals. The model can generate a scene using just text; much the same way AI image generators work, the user can dream up any scenario they would like to see a short video clip of.However, the user can also use an image as a prompt. Google provided multiple examples: including some that are real photos such as Joe Rosenthal's iconic Raising the Flag photo; “Soldiers raising the united states flag on a windy day” saw one of the 20th-centuries most recognizable photos suddently come to life as the soliders struggle with the flag that's being affected by gusts.Also in Lumiere is a “Video Stylization” setting which allows users to upload a source video and then ask the generative AI model for various element changes. For example, a person running may be suddenly turned into a toy made of colorful bricks.Another feature Google showed off is “Cinemagraphs”, where just a section of an image is animated while the rest stays still. “Video Inpainting” is included too which involves masking part of the image so that section can be changed to the user's desire.Space-Time Diffusion ModelLumiere is powered by “Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model.”This difficult-to-understand concept is apparently in contrast to existing video models which “synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution — an approach that inherently makes global temporal consistency difficult to achieve.”…Much MoreOpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surgeOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has opened discussions with global investors over the possibility of funding a network of artificial intelligence (AI) chip factories to keep pace with soaring demand.Altman is seeking around $8 billion to $10 billion worth of funds to set up several AI chip fabrication plants around the globe, an endeavor that will require synergy between leading chip manufacturers backed by investment giants.Altman is reportedly in talks with Japanese-based financial giant SoftBank Group (NASDAQ: SFTBF) and Abu Dhabi's G42 over funding plans, but details remain sparse. The discussions with G42 have been underway since 2023, with Altman describing a potential chip partnership as laying the foundation “for equitable advancements in generative AI across the globe.”Aside from SoftBank and G42, insiders say that Altman is still pursuing collaborations with other industry players to set up a network of chip fabrication plants. Although exact entities were not namechecked, industry experts are noting Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Samsung Electronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NASDAQ: TSM) as potential partners.Altman's approach to raising funds hinges on concerns that the chip supply will not be able to meet global demands for AI offerings by 2030. The OpenAI's CEO argues that the ideal solution will be a collaborative effort to set up chip manufacturing plants rather than build in silos.OpenAI has had its fair share of chip scarcity, rolling back a number of its offerings over a steady chip supply. To meet the rising demand, the company is reportedly mulling several options, including the prospect of building its chips from scratch and joining ranks with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to explore an in-house solution.Given the costs associated with an in-house approach, OpenAI may pursue the acquisition of a chip manufacturer as a short-term solution or expand its collaboration with existing partners. However, a potential acquisition opens its own can of worms, including an inquiry by antitrust regulators.Governments are also involvedIn 2023, Altman urged the South Korean government to double their investments in AI chip manufacturing as a veritable strategy to play a leading role in the nascent ecosystem. Currently, South Korea ranks behind the U.S., China, and Japan in chip manufacturing, but a concerted government involvement could see the country climb up the charts.The OpenAI boss disclosed during his visit to South Korea that his firm will back local entities building chips for AI and other emerging technologies, with Samsung rumored to be in top position.“We are exploring how to increase our investment in Korean startups,” said Altman. “We are excited to meet as many as we can here today. I think this type of collaboration is essential to our work.”..MoreThe Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” WorkflowsAnish Acharya, Justine Moore, and Olivia MoorePosted January 25, 2024Few people love the software they use to get things done. And it's no surprise why. Whether it's a slide deck builder, a video editor, or a photo enhancer, today's work tools were conceived decades ago — and it shows! Even best-in-class products often feel either too inflexible and unsophisticated to do real work, or have steep, inaccessible learning curves (we're looking at you, Adobe InDesign). Generative AI offers founders an opportunity to completely reinvent workflows — and will spawn a new cohort of companies that are not just AI-augmented, but fully AI-native. These companies will start from scratch with the technology we have now, and build new products around the generation, editing, and composition capabilities that are uniquely possible due to AI. On the most surface level, we believe AI will help users do their existing work more efficiently. AI-native platforms will “up level” user interactions with software, allowing them to delegate lower skill tasks to an AI assistant and spend their time on higher-level thinking. This applies not only to traditional office workers, but to small business owners, freelancers, creators, and artists — who arguably have even more complex demands on their time. But AI will also help users unlock completely new skill sets, on both a technical and an aesthetic level. We've already seen this with products like Midjourney and ChatGPT's Code Interpreter. Everyone can now be a programmer, a producer, a designer, or a musician, shrinking the gap between creativity and craft. With access to professional-grade yet consumer-friendly products with AI-powered workflows, everyone can be a part of a new generation of “prosumers.”In this piece, we aim to highlight the features of today's — and tomorrow's — most successful Gen AI-native workflows, as well as hypothesize about how we see these products evolving.What Will GenAI Native Prosumer Products Look Like?All products with Gen AI-native workflows will share one crucial trait: translating cutting-edge models into an accessible, effective UI.Users of workflow tools typically don't care what infrastructure is behind a product; they care about how it helps them! While the technological leaps we've made with Generative AI are amazing, successful products will importantly still start from a deep understanding of the user and their pain points. What can be abstracted away with AI? Where are the key “decision points” that need approval, if any? And where are the highest points of leverage? There are a few key features we believe products in this category will have: * Generation tools that kill the “blank page” problem. The earliest and most obvious consumer AI use cases have come from translating a natural language prompt into a media output — e.g., image, video, and text generators. The same will be true in prosumer. These tools might help transform true “blank pages” (e.g., a text prompt to slide deck), or take incremental assets (e.g., a sketch or an outline) and turn them into a more fleshed-out product.Some companies will do this via a proprietary model, while others may mix or stitch together multiple models (open source, proprietary, or via API) behind the scenes. One example here is Vizcom's rendering tool. Users can input a text prompt, sketch, or 3D model, and instantly get a photorealistic rendering to further iterate on.Another example is Durable's website builder product, which the company says has been used to generate more than 6 million sites so far. Users input their company name, segment, and location, and Durable will spit out a site for them to customize. As LLMs get more powerful, we expect to see products like Durable pull real information about your business from elsewhere on the internet and social media — the history, team, reviews, logos, etc. — and generate an even more sophisticated output from just one generation. * Multimodal (and multimedia!) combinations. Many creative projects require more than one type of content. For example, you may want to combine an image with text, music with video, or an animation with a voiceover. As of now, there isn't one model that can generate all of these asset types. This creates an opportunity for workflow products which allow users to generate, refine, and stitch different content types in one place.…MoreAndreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AIBy Kate Clark, Erin Woo and Cory WeinbergJan 23, 2024, 7:22am PSTFor years, partners at Andreessen Horowitz proclaimed they would scour the startup world for the next big consumer marketplace like Airbnb or the next hit consumer app out of China, areas in which the firm had unique expertise. Now, it's shifting toward an area more en vogue across venture capital: consumer apps powered by artificial intelligence.Those changes are happening amid an overhaul of its consumer team. Connie Chan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who formerly led a team of consumer investors and was known for spotting internet trends coming from China, said she is leaving the firm.  She may raise her own fund, a person familiar with the matter said. Anish Acharya, a general partner at the firm who invested in enterprise-focused and financial technology businesses, now leads the consumer team, said people familiar with the change.Chan's move also follows a distancing by U.S. VC firms from investments in China tech, once a hotbed for U.S.  investors. In recent months, Chan has privately said it's becoming more difficult for her to work at Andreessen Horowitz because the partners have been increasingly disinterested in anything China related, another person said.The Takeaway• Fintech-focused GP Anish Acharya leading consumer deals• Consumer GP Connie Chan is leaving the firm• Consumer partner Anne Lee Skates left to start own fundThe changes are part of a broader personnel shakeup, including the decision by senior consumer investor and Airbnb board member Jeff Jordan to step back from making new investments last year. Of the four general partners that led the firm through a consumer deal blitz, none remain on the consumer team.Meanwhile, Anne Lee Skates, a consumer partner who worked on the firm's investment in live shopping app WhatNot, left in the fall to raise her own fund, according to two people familiar with the matter. Axios first reported that Chan was leaving the firm.The Andreessen Horowitz changes are emblematic of a broader VC industry gravitation toward AI and away from once-hot sectors like consumer marketplaces and financial technology, as a spike in interest rates undercut the growth aspirations of startups trying to elbow out incumbent social platforms and banking institutions.“We've gotten into this cycle now where, generally speaking, investors are less interested in consumer,” said Ben Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau. Known for its consumer investments in Warby Parker and Allbirds, the firm has invested 70% of its latest fund in enterprise companies, he said. “And AI feels like this very hopeful, very exciting, fresh thing.”Founders of some consumer startups have noticed the shift at Andreessen Horowitz. One founder of a consumer startup in the firm's portfolio said they had heard little from investment partners over the last year, a contrast to a steady drumbeat of emails the founder got in prior years from Andreessen staff who support portfolio companies with marketing and operations advice.Andreessen Horowitz's consumer investing team has been perhaps most well known for its focus on backing digital marketplaces, from peer-to-peer self-storage to real estate investment marketplaces, that could turn into the next Airbnb. Every year, it releases a ranking of top marketplace startups. “We are obsessed with marketplaces and have been since our inception,” Chan, who led investments in  social fashion startup Cider for the firm in 2021.But some of those startups backed by the firm, such as self-storage startup Neighbor, have struggled to take off in recent years. And like other venture firms, Andreessen Horowitz has also stepped back from investing in Chinese startups, an area of focus for Chan. She had championed the idea that the next wave of breakout U.S. consumer startups will model themselves after China's internet success stories, like all-in-one app WeChat.With $53 billion in assets under management, Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest of traditional Silicon Valley firms and closely watched among other VC firms as a trend setter. And its track record of sniffing out hitmakers primed its partners to find the next trendy consumer app.The number of consumer deals Andreessen Horowitz has led dropped to 13 last year from 30 in 2021, a record for the firm, according to PitchBook data. It's possible the firm completed more consumer deals and that those investments haven't been announced. Its investments in AI companies have jumped to 23 from nine over the same years, including leading a $415 million investment in Mistral, the French developer of an open-source large language model.The firm has beefed up this team of investors primarily focused on enterprise, software infrastructure and AI startups. Led by Martin Casado, a close confidante to the firm's founders Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, it is raising its first standalone fund and has brought on two new general partners, Anjney Midha and Zane Lackey, since 2022, as well as a number of junior partners.As the infrastructure team gained power, the consumer team's profile shrank. The firm in 2023 combined its consumer and fintech teams and created a new group, called apps, led by general partner Alex Rampell, who previously co-founded installment lender Affirm, The Information reported last year. Under Rampell's leadership, the newly formed apps team will also soon launch a dedicated apps fund, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The consolidated team has been encouraged to pursue AI deals.Within Rampell's apps group, Acharya now leads the consumer sub-group. His portfolio of companies includes payroll company Deel and Silo, a provider of supply chain automation software. He's also an investor in Titan, a consumer investment application.Fueling the firm's shift away from consumer apps are likely disappointing returns. The startups that captivated consumers during the pandemic shutdowns have failed to retain their attention. Growth at companies the consumer team bet on, like Clubhouse, which Andreessen Horowitz backed three times in one year, and photo-sharing app BeReal, which it backed in 2021, has stalled.…MoreOpenAI Is a (Relative) StealBy Stephanie PalazzoloJan 22, 2024, 7:35am PSTOver the past year, we've seen billions in funding thrown at AI startups at eye-popping valuations. More important than the absolute valuation figures, though, is how they stack up to those startups' revenue numbers.In the chart above, we've tracked the valuations of eight AI startups that have recently raised funding, calculated against their projected revenue. On average, these companies raised money at a price that is 83 times their projected sales for the next twelve months. That's a big multiple by any measure, reflecting the rocket ship nature of these startups. But what makes the comparison noteworthy is that OpenAI has one of the lowest multiples, even though its business has the most traction.Venture capitalists tend to value early-stage startups at a premium based on their growth rates. OpenAI's business is far bigger and more mature—if we can use that word for a company growing as fast as OpenAI—than other generative AI companies. So, as fast as its revenue pace is growing—more than 20% in just two months most recently—newer firms are growing even faster.For instance, AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI doubled its annual recurring revenue from $3 million to $6 million from October to January. VCs were likely taking that expected growth into account at the time of investment, as the company would have garnered a much lower 75-times forward revenue multiple if it had raised at the same price just a few months later. Similarly, even though OpenAI rival Anthropic was likely generating around $200 million in annualized revenue at the end of last year (according to its October estimates), its projection that it would reach $850 million in annualized revenue by the end of this year surely made its mind-boggling valuation more palatable to investors.When you see the details of these AI startup funding rounds, it can sometimes feel like investors are throwing darts at nine-figure numbers on a wall. The chart suggests there's a method to the madness. Typically, startups selling to companies are valued based on the sector in which they operate. The lowest valuation multiples are accorded to startups offering industry-specific applications, while those offering more generalized applications draw a premium. The most highly valued firms are often infrastructure startups, which create the tools that developers use to build these apps. This order stems from how big the target market of these startups are, ranging from a specific industry (like healthcare or education) to all developers. We can see that general order reflected in burgeoning AI startups. For instance, Harvey, which sells an AI application for lawyers, has one of the lower multiples, while broader-reaching companies like Glean and VAST Data land higher multiples.It seems like investors aren't quite sure yet where model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic fall on this spectrum. Their costs are very different from a typical software startup due to how much computing power they need, and many investors are still worried that closed-source model developers may be overtaken by their cheaper, open-source counterparts.…MoreNews Of the WeekTed fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speakerLucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusionChris McGrealThe Ted organisation has been hit with resignations and criticisms after naming the controversial activist billionaire Bill Ackman, who was instrumental in forcing out Harvard's president over antisemitism allegations, among its main speakers at this year's conference.Four Ted fellows, led by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the group on Wednesday, accusing it of taking an anti-Palestinian stand and aligning itself “with enablers and supporters of genocide” in Gaza.“2024 main stage speaker Bill Ackman has defended Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and has cynically weaponised antisemitism in his programme to purge American universities of Pro-Palestinian freedom of speech,” the pair wrote to Chris Anderson, who leads Ted, and Lily James Olds, director of the fellows programme.“We've become increasingly concerned about the fundamental values and moral compass of the organisation over the years, but with this year's speaker selection, it is clear Ted has crossed a red line.”The conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada, in April, under the banner The Brave and the Brilliant”. The theme of Ackman's talk has not been revealed but his selection was announced last week after he was accused of using his money and influence to help force Claudine Gay's resignation as Harvard's president following her disastrous appearance before Congress in December when she was questioned about on-campus antisemitism during the Israel-Gaza war.Ackman has taken stridently pro-Israel positions, including justifying the scale of the attacks on Gaza in which more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and the forced removal of about 2 million Palestinians from their homes. He has described criticism of Israel as antisemitism and called for the blacklisting from employment of American students who signed petitions denouncing the offensive in Gaza in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.Farouky and Walkowicz's resignation letter noted that other speakers announced by Ted include the journalist Bari Weiss, who they describe as having “a long, sordid, and well-documented history of anti-Palestinian speech”, but that there are no Palestinians in the line-up.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.After the resignation letter was published, two other fellows – the entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir and cosmologist Renée Hlozek – also quit. Nearly 30 others added their names “in solidarity” without leaving Ted.…MoreTesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' GroupBy Martin Peers, Jan 24, 2024, 5:00pm PSTStock market pundits may want to come up with a new name for the big tech stocks driving the overall market. The “magnificent seven” descriptor—referring to Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla—no longer seems to make much sense. I'd like to suggest that's because none of the company CEOs look like cowboy gunslingers from the 1960 movie that made the phrase famous. It's hard to imagine Steve McQueen playing Tim Cook or Andy Jassy, for instance (although Yul Brynner admittedly could have filled the role of horseback-riding Jeff Bezos).The real reason the moniker no longer works, however, is that at least one member of the group, Tesla, has had anything but a magnificent 2024 so far, and its fourth-quarter earnings report, released Wednesday, only made things worse. Before Tesla reported earnings tonight, its stock had fallen 16% so far this year, and it tumbled another 3% after hours to around $200 a share. This isn't a reaction to CEO Elon Musk's antics, which include asking for a bunch more stock, although that surely doesn't help. The stock decline reflects the slowdown in sales suffered by Tesla, which observers attribute to increased competition and a loss of government incentives. Automotive revenues, which make up the bulk of Tesla's top line, grew just 1% in the fourth quarter—down from 18% in the first quarter.In its outlook for this year issued today, the company said its growth in the volume of car sales would be lower than in 2023, and noted that its team is working on its “next-generation vehicle.” Meantime, expenses have been skyrocketing, eroding its profit margin. But our less-than-rigorous takedown of the magnificent seven branding isn't just about Tesla. If you look at the year-to-date performance of big tech stocks, or even their 2023 performance, you can see that just two tech stocks have roared this year. One is Nvidia, which is in a class of its own: up 27% since Jan. 1, thanks to its stranglehold on the specialized chips used in artificial intelligence. The other is Meta Platforms, which is up nearly 13%, reflecting confidence in its ad business.  In comparison, Microsoft and Alphabet are each up around 8%, likely thanks to expectations that AI will lift their businesses, while Apple and Amazon lag behind with year-to-date stock price rises of less than 5% each. Instead of the magnificent seven, it might be more appropriate to refer to the group as Nvidia, Meta and the humble five.… MoreTikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content OptionsBy Andrew Hutchinson Content and Social Media ManagerThe next stage of TikTok is coming, with some users now seeing the option to upload 30 minute long videos in the app.As you can see in this example, shared by social media expert Matt Navarra, TikTok's currently testing the new 30 minute upload option in the beta version of the app.Which, if you've been paying attention, is not really any big surprise.TikTok has been steadily increasing its maximum post limit for years, with the platform originally starting at 15 seconds per clip, which was then extended to 60 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, before rising to 10 minutes in 2022.Last October, TikTok began experimenting with 15 minute uploads, so the trend towards longer clips isn't new.Though 30 minutes is likely the upper limit, based on the Chinese version of the app. Douyin, which is TikTok in China, expanded its upload limit to 30 minutes per clip in 2022, and it hasn't gone any further as yet.And presumably, Douyin has also seen good response to this longer time limit, which is why TikTok is now looking to implement the same, though it does seem like a long time to be watching a TikTok clip in-stream.Will users really warm to TV show length clips in the app?…MoreInstagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'Feature will work even on encrypted messages, suggesting platform plans to implement client-side scanningAlex Hern and Dan MilmoInstagram will begin scanning messages sent to and from under-18s to protect them from “inappropriate images”, Meta has announced.The feature, being kept under wraps until later this year, would work even on encrypted messages, a spokesperson said, suggesting the company intends to implement a so-called client-side scanning service for the first time.But the update will not meet controversial demands for inappropriate messages to be reported back to Instagram servers.Instead, only a user's personal device will ever know whether or not a message has been filtered out, leading to criticism of the promise as another example of the company “grading its own homework”.“We're planning to launch a new feature designed to help protect teens from seeing unwanted and potentially inappropriate images in their messages from people they're already connected to,” the company said in a blogpost, “and to discourage them from sending these types of images themselves. We'll have more to share on this feature, which will also work in encrypted chats, later this year.”…Much MoreTiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising ChallengesBy Francesca Friday and Maria HeeterJan 24, 2024, 4:46pm PSTSeveral Tiger Global Management employees focused on raising capital for the New York firm's venture funds have taken buyout offers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departures of the staff, who worked with prospective investors, come as the firm has struggled to raise money for its latest venture capital fund after a collapse in startup valuations soured its paper returns for earlier funds.As of the second quarter of 2023, a $12.7 billion fund that Tiger started making investments from in October 2021 had a paper loss of 18%, calculated as an annualized return net of management fees, according to internal data distributed to investors in the fund. That's a slight improvement from six months earlier, when the 2021 fund showed a loss of 20%. The fund's performance is in the bottom quartile of funds started that year, the document said, and has also lagged the S&P 500's annualized net return in the same period.The Takeaway• Tiger employee buyouts are the latest example of VC cost-cutting• Tiger's $12.7 billion had lost 18% on paper as of June* Tiger could soon show a $350 million gain from OpenAI stakeAs of June 30, 2023, the $12.7 billion fund hadn't returned any cash to investors, which isn't unusual for such a young fund. But the paper losses are closely guarded secrets that reflect the kind of write-downs other venture firms have been making over the past two years as tech valuations have fallen.It isn't clear how big Tiger's investor relations team is, but the departures are the latest example of belt-tightening across the venture industry. Firms are raising smaller funds and striking fewer deals, reducing the need for sprawling support staff—including those who help firms raise money from pension funds and endowments...MoreWorldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experienceby Vivian NguyenThe next-gen device will feature various colors and shapes to enhance its visual appeal.Worldcoin, an iris biometric crypto project, is set to launch a new Orb that aims to offer a more user-friendly iris-scanning experience, said Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, the developer behind the project, in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch today.“The next Orb will roll out in the first half of this year and will feature alternative colors and form factors in an effort to look ‘much more friendly,'” Blania explained. “Overall, it is going to look way more tuned down and similar to an Apple product.”Blania acknowledges that the initial design of the Orb predated his time at the company. “The new orb is coming and the next iterations will look quite different,” he remarked during a fireside chat at a recent StrictlyVC event, signaling a departure from the current, more controversial design.The goal of Worldcoin, as described by Blania, is to reach billions of users as fast as possible.“The thesis is very simple. We race toward billions of users as fast as we possibly can,” said Blania.Founded by Blania, Sam Altman, and Max Novendstern, Tools for Humanity has raised around $250 million from prominent investors like a16z and Bain Capital Crypto, among others. The project is famous for its unique Orb device designed to scan people's irises and assign them a “World ID,” granting access to Worldcoin's application and a digital passport. Worldcoin's vision is to authenticate individual identities and prevent the creation of multiple accounts.The current design of the Orb has been a topic of much debate due to its intimidating look, similar to a prop from a sci-fi movie, according to Blania. The company has also faced criticism for its beta testing approaches in developing economies and concerns over privacy and data security.Despite some skepticism, the Orb has seen practical use. At the StrictlyVC event in downtown San Francisco, a Tools for Humanity employee reported that a “couple dozen” attendees scanned their iris to receive a World ID. There has also been “field testing” of the new Orb design.…MoreStartup of the WeekLoyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M RoundChris MetinkoJanuary 24, 2024Bilt Rewards, a loyalty rewards startup, raised a $200 million round led by General Catalyst at a $3.1 billion valuation — more than double the number after its last fundraising in 2022.The round also included participation from Eldridge Industries, Left Lane Capital, Camber Creek and Prosus Ventures.The New York-based startup allows consumers to earn rewards on the rent they pay. Bilt plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its network to include local dining, grocery stores, ridesharing and other retail purchases.“We're not just building a loyalty program; we're creating a community-centric ecosystem that benefits everyone from renters to local businesses,” said founder and CEO Ankur Jain.The company also appointed some big names to roles in the company. Bilt named Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, as its chairman, and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, as an independent director.Big moneyThe company reported its annualized member spend is nearing $20 billion. It also became profitable on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization basis last year.Those metrics must have impressed investors, as Bilt has seen its valuation shoot up after raising a $150 million Series B at a pre-money valuation of $1.4 billion in October 2022. Founded in 2021, the company has raised a total of $413 million, per Crunchbase.Last year was a slow go for loyalty startups. Such companies raised only $74 million, per Crunchbase data. However in 2022, loyalty startups raised more than a half-billion dollars thanks to big raises that included Bilt's Series B and Madison, Wisconsin-based Fetch's $240 million Series E.With this fundraise, things are looking up for loyalty startups again.X of the Week This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thatwastheweek.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of The Work Positive Podcast, host Joey Faucette talks to Chester Elton, the Co-Author of multiple best-selling books, including "The Carrot Principle" and "Anxiety at Work." Chester is also the co-founder of The Culture Works, a global training company that helps organizations create high-performance teams and increase employee engagement. The conversation begins with Chester discussing the importance of recognizing and addressing anxiety in the workplace. He shares his experience with anxiety and his lessons from it. Chester also talks about the impact of loneliness on employees and the importance of leaders creating a sense of belonging and community. Joey and Chester then dive into the topic of empathy in leadership. Chester shares examples of some of the most empathetic and compassionate leaders he's studied, including Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Company and Ken Chenault of American Express. They discuss how empathy can be expressed differently, including creating a culture of collaboration and co-creation. Key takeaways from this episode include: Recognizing and addressing anxiety in the workplace is important for employee well-being and performance. Loneliness can be a significant issue for employees, and leaders should create a sense of belonging and community. Empathy in leadership can be expressed in different ways, including collaboration and co-creation. As a leader, it's essential to think about the kind of legacy you want to leave and ask yourself if you're the leader you want to be. Connect with Chester: Website: https://thecultureworks.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesterelton/   Get in touch with Dr. Joey at www.workpositive.today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can corporations impact social change? Or maybe the better question is, are they obligated to?Ken Chenault, former CEO and Chairman of American Express and award-winning executive leader, joins host Rachel Romer and special guest Adam Grant to discuss on this episode of Opportunity Divide, a show from Guild.Guild CEO Rachel Romer and best-selling author Adam Grant speak to Ken Chenault, chairman and managing director of General Catalyst, about disrupting higher education, skills-based hiring, and promoting diversity in the workplace. They discuss the negative impact of a zero sum mindset created by the higher education movement and how shifting the focus from excluding people to including them can lead to more innovative and successful companies. Additionally, they talk about the importance of giving people opportunities through retraining and reskilling, rather than relying solely on credentials while touching on mentorship, promoting diversity, and providing opportunities for all individuals in the workplace.Key takeaways from our conversation with Ken:Opportunity is created by your leadership. Focusing on skills and learning can create transformative opportunities for individuals without college degrees and reduce inequality in the workforce.Mentorship is a two-way street. Both being a good mentor and selecting mentors based on their good judgment can have a profound impact on the mentee's success.Meritocracy can cause blind spots. Diversity and inclusion are not only morally important but are also beneficial for organizations in terms of innovation and resilience. Focusing on a meritocracy alone can lead to bias and favoritism, so acknowledging the importance of diversity is crucial.This episode features a conversation on skills-based hiring, leadership, diversity, and responsible innovation that will enable you to provide better opportunities for your frontline employees. Join us!More resources from GuildAbout Ken Chenault:Kenneth I. Chenault is the Chairman and a Managing Director of the venture capital firm, General Catalyst, and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express Company, a position he held from 2001 to 2018. As a managing director of General Catalyst, he focuses on investing in fast-growing companies that have the potential to become large, fundamental institutions. He also provides invaluable guidance to portfolio companies, particularly to those with an eye towards global markets and responsible innovation, as they scale their teams and products. Under his leadership at American Express, the company built one of the world's largest customer loyalty programs – Membership Rewards – and earned global recognition as a leader in customer service. Ken is recognized as one of the business world's experts on brands and brand management.

Join host Rachel Romer and special guest Adam Grant as they kick off their thought-provoking podcast series, "Opportunity Divide", presented by Guild. Together–with experts like Brené Brown, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, Ken Chenault, and Geoffrey Canada–they will explore innovative ways to bridge the opportunity divide and empower organizations to unlock career mobility for their workforce.In this episode, Adam and Rachel discuss the Opportunity Divide at hand, and what trends and takeaways leaders can start to unravel and understand today in order to narrow the gaps within their own organizations. And, Adam shares some key findings from his research that will help leaders understand the current state of America's workforce.Key takeaways from this conversation include:Investing in creating a great workplace culture is a long-term strategy that pays dividends in the future. Leaders can start by prioritizing employee engagement and looking into good HR practices.To close the opportunity divide and build a healthy work culture, leaders should focus on removing elements of toxic culture such as disrespect and exclusion. Leaders can also provide frontline workers with more flexibility to improve work-life balance, which will lead to a more motivated workforce.Leaders should invest in promoting from within and providing opportunities for career growth. By doing so, organizations can create good jobs, which serve both individuals and organizations, and foster creativity and innovation. "Opportunity Divide" is a must-listen for frontline leaders and managers, HR professionals, and anyone passionate about driving change and unlocking the full potential of America's workforce. Join Rachel Romer and special guest Adam Grant as they illuminate the path towards a more inclusive and prosperous future for businesses and individuals alike.Join us as we work to close the Opportunity Divide

Here's a look at our Fast Company Innovation Festival last year. Tune in to General Catalyst Chairman and Managing Director Ken Chenault, and PSP Partners Founder and Chairman Penny Pritzker, two seasoned business leaders who shared their insights on the economic and business outlook for 2023.

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Working remotely isn't always as luxurious as it seems. Many people in remote positions struggle to stay motivated in their work and greatly miss human connection. So what can we do from a leadership perspective to alleviate the emotional pitfalls that remote teams often experience? Thankfully, Melissa Romo, wrote a book to show us the way. Melissa Romo is a veteran of global business management, having held executive roles in Warsaw, Paris, London and New York for some of the world's most recognized companies. Melissa has built and managed high-performing teams around the world in office-based, hybrid and fully remote settings. She is the author of the forthcoming book “Your Resource Is Human” (2023), a practical guide to empathetic leadership for building culture and connections in the remote and hybrid workplace. Melissa's book has been lauded by workplace and leadership experts as “the book 21st century leaders and followers have been pining for.” (00:40) Ilona's Reflections; TLDR The human connection through empathetic leadership in the digital age Beginning to understand cyber psychology (05:13) About the book Identifying the truth behind what it's really like to work remotely Learning how to support your remote team (18:31) What do leaders in the digital age need to do differently? Why it's important for leaders to have a diversified skillset Companies need to decide if they want to be 100% remote or hybrid (29:08) Who is a leader that influenced you? Understanding what it means to have a sponsor Ken Chenault - carrying yourself with unwavering conviction (35:07) Tell me about something that helped you on your leadership development journey Melissa's baptism by fire story of managing a team in another country (42:07) What are the trends in leadership that you are seeing in your field? Authentic leadership is a hot topic but many are still trying to discover what it actually means and how to adapt (48:07) What are your 3 top tips for leaders in the digital age? Spend time with your people, trust your team and don't fuss with the detail, but also get your hands dirty Links for resources from this episode: Podcast episode: Kenneth Chenault; What's in your Glass? With Carmelo Anthony Book: Decoding Sponsorship; The Secret Strategy to Accelerate Your Career and Launch Into Leadership by maggie Chan Jones Melissa Romo LinkedIn Melissa Romo on TikTok Subscribe to Melissa's Newsletter, Showing Up Want to know where you're at in your leadership journey? Download our FREE leadership assessment tool right HERE! Connect with Ilona below! Instagram: @ilona.f.brannen Website: www.slatedigital.co.uk LinkedIn: Ilona Brannen FRSA - Podcast Editor & Strategist: @episodeready

Taking risks can be the catalyst for immense scale or dire straits. Avoiding taking any risks at all leads to stangnancy and empowered competitors. The key is to know which risks are worth taking, and when and how to take them. This episode highlights the best conversations we've had recently about taking advantage of risk and how fortune favors the brave. Featuring New Georgia Project's Stacey Abrams, Care.com's Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Bankable Productions & SMiZE Cream's Tyra Banks, MetricStream's Shellye Archambeau, Moderna's Stéphane Bancel, Digital Undivided's Kathryn Finney, Ellevest's Sallie Krawcheck, and American Express's Ken Chenault. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dlirtXSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leaders know to never waste a good crisis. But the true art is figuring out the how. Carolyn and Lindsay talk to Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing Director of General Catalyst, about how he built his reputation on shepherding American Express through some of the biggest crises of our time — and left a lasting legacy with 17 years as CEO.Continue the conversation on LinkedIn and, if you're interested in joining the Chief network, apply to be a member at Chief.com. This episode is presented by Fidelity. 

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan of Chief.com, a private membership network focused on women executive leaders. In this episode, Carolyn and Lindsay talk us through each round of financings, from Seed to Series A to Series B and they share exactly how they did it and what level of traction they had at each stage. They also provide tips for raising capital, managing a rapidly growing startup, and more. Chief.com has raised $140 million over three rounds: 1) Chief announced its $3 million seed round in October 2018, led by Primary Venture Capital and Flybridge Capital Partners, with participants including Accel, Box Group, Able Partners, XFactor Ventures, Silas Capital, BBG Ventures, and Alexa Von Tobel. 2) In June 2019, Chief raised a $22 million Series A, co-led by General Catalyst and Inspired Capital, with previous investors and GGV Capital participating. Ken Chenault, chairman and a managing director of General Catalyst, and Alexa von Tobel, founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital, joined the board of directors. Chief also announced an additional $15 million extension in June 2020, led by GGV Capital. 3) In March 2022, the company raised $100 million in Series B funding at a $1.1 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to $140 million. The round was led by CapitalG, the independent growth fund of Google parent company Alphabet, and General Partner Laela Sturdy joined the board of directors. Previous investors General Catalyst, GGV Capital, Inspired Capital, Primary Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, and BoxGroup also participated in the round. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $3 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.

Ken Chenault is someone I really admire. He was a very successful and respected CEO of American Express, and today he's the Chairman and Managing Director of General Catalyst. He's also the co-founder of OneTen, whose mission is to upskill, hire and advance one million Black Americans over the next 10 years into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement. It was an honor to talk to Ken about leadership and culture, and how we can help create opportunities for individuals and society. Listen to this new episode to hear how you can emerge as a leader.

Season two of The New Rules of Business is coming soon! Chief Co-Founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan are back to dig into today's most complicated leadership issues. They cover topics like where to spot the newest form of toxicity in the workplace, why executives should wade into uncharted socio-political waters, and how to manage through crisis (after crisis). On the podcast, they'll be in discussion with the best business minds and academics including Cornell Professor Courtney McCluney, Ken Chenault, author Eve Rodsky, Joanna Coles, and more. Learn the new rules of business with Chief. Season 2 coming soon.

"Corporations can be a force for good – and they can also be very successful," says Ken Chenault, chair of investment firm General Catalyst and former longtime CEO of American Express. During the past year, Ken has been an outspoken advocate for business leaders to actively engage in societal matters. After George Floyd's death, he and Merck CEO Ken Frazier launched OneTen, a coalition to create 1 million jobs for Black Americans that now includes major brands from IBM to Nike to Walmart. Chenault has pushed corporate chiefs to use their leverage to protect voting rights, and he's come out with a platform for Responsible Innovation that puts what he calls “social due diligence” alongside financial due diligence. Standing up for what's right, Ken says, fuels long-term success: "The most important thing is the quest for truth, character, and values."Read a transcript of this interview at: mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtXSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In times of uncertainty, leaders have a responsibility to inspire hope. Sharing hard-won wisdom, business leader Ken Chenault talks about what it takes to enact positive, enduring change -- and why it's more important than ever to invest in responsible innovation that uplifts people and centers equality and fairness. A quick favor! We love making TED Business, and we want to make it better. So if you have a few minutes, share your thoughts at surveynerds.com/ted

In times of uncertainty, leaders have a responsibility to inspire hope. Sharing hard-won wisdom, business leader Ken Chenault talks about what it takes to enact positive, enduring change -- and why it's more important than ever to invest in responsible innovation that uplifts people and centers equality and fairness. (This conversation was hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers.)

In times of uncertainty, leaders have a responsibility to inspire hope. Sharing hard-won wisdom, business leader Ken Chenault talks about what it takes to enact positive, enduring change -- and why it's more important than ever to invest in responsible innovation that uplifts people and centers equality and fairness. (This conversation was hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers.)

In times of uncertainty, leaders have a responsibility to inspire hope. Sharing hard-won wisdom, business leader Ken Chenault talks about what it takes to enact positive, enduring change -- and why it's more important than ever to invest in responsible innovation that uplifts people and centers equality and fairness. (This conversation was hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers.)

Ralph de la Vega is Chairman of the De La Vega group, which focuses on investments in entrepreneurial startups. He is the former Vice Chairman of AT&T Inc., and the author of Obstacles Welcome. He is actively focused on helping young people reach their full potential. He serves on the boards of American Express Company, New York Life Insurance Company, and Amdocs Corporation. He is the former Chairman of Junior Achievement Worldwide and continues to serve on its board of directors. He also served as the Chairman of the 2017 Jamboree for the Boy Scouts. Mr. de la Vega has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and a master's degree in business administration from Northern Illinois University. He completed the Executive Program at the University of Virginia and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from FAU. He is the author of the best-selling book Obstacles Welcome: Turn Adversity to Advantage in Business and Life (Thomas Nelson, 2009). He is a native of Cuba and resides in Florida. Learn more: Ralph's website: https://www.ralphdelavega.com Book "Obstacles Welcome": https://www.amazon.com/Obstacles-Welcome-Adversity-Advantage-Business/dp/B003VWC44O LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphdelavega/ Shout-out: Today's Diversity Leader Shout-out goes to Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing DirectorChairman and Managing Director General Catalyst (former Chairman and CEO of American Express) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-chenault/details/experience/ Music: Intro - Vente by Mamá Patxanga is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License Outro - Amor Y Felicidad by SONGO 21 is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/si-suite/message

Ralph de la Vega is Chairman of the De La Vega group, which focuses on investments in entrepreneurial startups. He is the former Vice Chairman of AT&T Inc., and the author of Obstacles Welcome. He is actively focused on helping young people reach their full potential. He serves on the boards of American Express Company, New York Life Insurance Company, and Amdocs Corporation. He is the former Chairman of Junior Achievement Worldwide and continues to serve on its board of directors. He also served as the Chairman of the 2017 Jamboree for the Boy Scouts. Mr. de la Vega has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and a master's degree in business administration from Northern Illinois University. He completed the Executive Program at the University of Virginia and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from FAU. He is the author of the best-selling book Obstacles Welcome: Turn Adversity to Advantage in Business and Life (Thomas Nelson, 2009). He is a native of Cuba and resides in Florida. Learn more: Ralph's website: https://www.ralphdelavega.com Book "Obstacles Welcome": https://www.amazon.com/Obstacles-Welcome-Adversity-Advantage-Business/dp/B003VWC44O LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphdelavega/ Shout-out: Today's Diversity Leader Shout-out goes to Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing DirectorChairman and Managing Director General Catalyst (former Chairman and CEO of American Express) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-chenault/details/experience/ Music: Intro - Vente by Mamá Patxanga is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License Outro - Amor Y Felicidad by SONGO 21 is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/si-suite/message

On today's show, Melo sits down with the chairman and managing director of the venture capital firm General Catalyst, Ken Chenault. As one of the one of the business world's foremost experts on brands and brand management, Ken shares some great insight on both his path, leadership style and his work in the community. The conversation begins with Ken sharing what it was like growing up in the civil rights era, playing sports and coming of age with “Dr. J,” Julius Irving on Long Island. Over a glass, the two delve further into Ken's career journey, including his meteoric rise in becoming the CEO of American Express from 2001-2018, and discusses his leadership style and what that means in a practical setting. Finally, Ken talks about his outstanding work in founding OneTen (https://oneten.org/), an initiative which assists the black community in getting sustainable jobs by working with companies to focus hiring practices on skills, not just credentials. He also shares details about his work and advocacy fighting for voting rights and much more.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's guest is Ken Chenault, the Former Chairman and CEO of American Express, and the current Chairman and Managing Partner of General Catalyst, a dynamic private equity firm. Now, if you run a business or lead a team, there are moments when you need to lean into confrontation. And I don't mean dance around the confrontation, I'm talking about facing it head on. For a lot of people, this can be really hard to do, really intimidating. But the great leaders I know, like Ken, have learned how to engage in constructive confrontation. In this episode, you'll also learn:

We're taking a look at some of our favorite moments from the 2021 Fast Company Innovation Festival. Here's a conversation about closing the opportunity gap with Ken Chenault, chairman and managing director of General Catalyst, and former chairman and CEO of American Express; Gerald Chertavian, the founder and CEO of Year Up; Ruth Bowen, platform automation manager at Bank of America; and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet.

Abstract: How are boards of directors of major companies coping in 2021 with the increasing expectations from so many stakeholders? How are boards equipping themselves to meet the challenge of overseeing large global organizations? In this episode of the Principled Podcast, Marsha Ershaghi Hames, Partner at Tapestry Networks, guest hosts a conversation about the critical role boards play in shaping ethical corporate culture with Don Cornwell, an accomplished corporate leader who currently sits on the boards of AIG, Natura & Company, and Viatris. Listen in as Marsha and Don talk about the importance of intention when making decisions at the board level—especially as it relates to diversity, mentor sponsorship, and professional guidance.   [1:28] Guest Don Cornwell's diverse background and pioneering career journey. [3:25] Where are we now in terms of diversity on Wall Street? [9:22] Where is the U.S. going wrong in terms of maximizing capital and production? [13:12] How can boards and corporate leaders take the first steps to open doors and drive intentional sponsorships while navigating DEI? [21:08] How can boards begin to transform their own culture? [26:09] How boards can take action to cultivate ethical culture given the context of these times.    Additional Resources: Article:  Father and Son Investment Bankers Describe Wall Street Regrets [Subscription required]   Featured guest: Don Cornwell retired as chair and CEO of Granite Broadcasting Corporation in 2009, a company he founded in 1988. Granite developed from an entrepreneurial idea into a diverse company operating 23 channels in nine television markets and became one of the nation's 25 largest television station groups. Previously, Don was employed for 17 years in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. While at Goldman Sachs, he was engaged in public and private financing and merger and acquisition transactions for publicly traded and privately-owned companies, with a primary focus on consumer product and media companies. In addition to transaction responsibility, he served as the chief operating officer of the Corporate Finance Department from 1980-1988. Currently, Don serves on the board of directors of AIG, Inc., Natura Holdings, Viatris Inc. and Blue Meridian Partners, Inc. Don is also a trustee of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of NY. At AIG, he is Chair of the Compensation and Management Resources Committee and a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Don served on the boards of Pfizer from 1997 to 2020, Avon from 2002 to 2020, and CVS Caremark Corporation from 1994 until 2007. At Pfizer, he was Chair of the Audit and Regulatory and Compliance Committees and a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance and Science and Technology Committees. Viatris was created as a public company as a result of a strategic merger of Pfizer's Upjohn business with Mylan Inc. At Avon, he was Lead Director of the board, Chair of the Finance and Strategic Planning Committee and a member of the Nominating and Governance and Audit Committees. Avon was acquired by Natura in 2020. Don previously served on the board of Occidental College, the Advisory Council of Harvard Business School, the MS Hershey School and Trust, the Wallace Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and as Chair of the Board of the Telecommunications Development Fund appointed by the Chairman of the FCC. Don received his BA from Occidental College in 1969 and MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971 and has been honored as Alumnus of the Year by both institutions.   Featured Host:  Marsha is a partner with Tapestry Networks and a leader of our corporate governance practice. She advises non-executive directors, C-suite executives, and in-house counsel on issues related to governance, culture transformation, board leadership, and stakeholder engagement. Prior to joining Tapestry, Marsha was a managing director of strategy and development at LRN, Inc. a global governance, risk and compliance firm. She specialized in the alignment of leaders and organizations for effective corporate governance and organizational culture transformation. Her view is that compliance is no longer merely a legal matter but a strategic and reputational priority.  Marsha has been interviewed and cited by the media including CNBC, CNN, Ethisphere, HR Magazine, Compliance Week, The FCPA Report, Entrepreneur.com, Chief Learning Officer, ATD Talent & Development, Corporate Counsel Magazine, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and more. She hosted the “PRINCIPLED” Podcast, profiling the stories of some of the top transformational leaders in business. Marsha serves as an expert fellow on USC's Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and on the advisory boards of LMH Strategies, Inc. an integrative supply chain advisory firm and Compliance.ai, a regulatory change management firm. Marsha holds an Ed.D. and MA from Pepperdine University. Her research was on the role of ethical leadership as an enabler of organizational culture change. Her BA is from the University of Southern California. She is a certified compliance and ethics professional.   Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Principal podcast brought to you by LRN. The principal podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business and compliance, transformative stories of leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategies from our community of business leaders and workplace change makers. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: How are boards of directors of major companies coping in 2021 with the increasing expectations from so many stakeholders? How are boards equipping themselves to meet the challenge of overseeing large global organizations? Hello, and welcome to another special episode of the Principled podcast, where we continue our conversations about the critical role boards in shaping ethical corporate culture. I'm your guest host, Marsha Ershaghi Hames, a partner at Tapestry Networks. And today, I'm pleased to be joined by Don Cornwell, an accomplished corporate leader who currently sits on the boards of AIG, Natura & Company, and Viatris. Don, thank you for coming on the Principled podcast. Don Cornwell: Marsha, thanks for the invitation. I look forward to our conversation. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Excellent. So Don, let's share with listeners a little bit. You've had a very unique background from your early career at Goldman Sachs to founding and leading Granite Broadcasting, which at its peak, was the largest African American-controlled television broadcasting con in America. You've continued to lead a distinguished career of service on both corporate and nonprofit boards. Could you tell our listeners just a little bit more about your amazing journey? Don Cornwell: Well, I've done a lot of moving around for a kid who was born in segregated Oklahoma in 1948. My family moved to the Pacific Northwest when I was five, so they could frankly continue their careers as educators. And so I lived in Tacoma, Washington, until I graduated high school in 1965, then left to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed immediately by a move to Boston to attend Harvard Business School. And from there, often New York to join a considerably smaller Goldman Sachs. As you know, I left Goldman Sachs in 1988 after 17 years. I started a business, you've referenced it, Granite Broadcasting Corporation, and we built that for 20 years. And then I left the company and essentially went into so-called retirement, which I've failed at miserably and have continued to serve on corporate boards. You didn't mention, I have to mention, Pfizer and Avon and CVS. I've been very proud of my association with all three of those companies. So I wouldn't want to pass that. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Well, you mentioned your journey with Goldman Sachs. You had joined their investment banking department in the early '70s. And I actually was reflecting on that fantastic interview with Bloomberg, the profile with you and your son last year. Your story is very pioneering for African Americans working on Wall Street. As you look back on that experience, what are some of your observations on diversity on Wall Street, and essentially the being the only one in the room? Has there really been progress? Don Cornwell: So I did the interview, the Bloomberg interview with my son, because I thought it provided a context of experience by African American professionals over a significant period of time. I started at Goldman Sachs in 1971 and he joined, I should say, after I graduated from Harvard Business School. And he joined Morgan Stanley in 1998 after he graduated from Stanford Business School. I am shameless about promoting the article. So if any of your listeners have an interest, they should check it out. On your question, so I would say the industry is making what I call directionally correct movement. That's a good thing, but I guess I'm at an age in life where I can say that I think the progress is too slow and I think it's not deep enough. And so in making that comment, I can point to some really terrific success stories at various financial firms. And by financial firms, I'm incorporating everything from banks and insurance companies to the typical Wall Street firms that you think about. But in thinking about those success stories, I'm hard pressed to find what I would call an adequate pipeline of aspiring and qualified young professionals available for the succession planning of the future. I've found, in my career, that when you build a pipeline, and that's something that Pfizer talks about a lot, but when you build a pipeline of talent, the issues that we're discussing become somewhat moot. However, when you don't have a pool of talent, you then find yourself scrambling to, and I put quotes around the word "improve," from a very unimpressive baseline. And frankly, in this day and age, that does not go unnoticed by shareholders, and stakeholders, and society. So I guess I would give the industry a mixed grade. I think it's getting better. I think that there's some great success stories that I read about and know about, but much more work to be done. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Speaking of that, I actually read another article or a derivative article. And I read a quote here that said "Wall Street has a problem with black excellence." And most super successful people on Wall Street are just excellent at what they do and how they got there. However, when someone is excellent as an African American, it is not embraced. How does that sort of land with you or resonate with you? Don Cornwell: Well, it's an interesting observation. I don't know where it comes from. I think I would sort of turn it just a little bit to say that I felt, in my time, that the process of growing in a career, no matter who you are, requires an effect. What I would describe as someone who intentionally wants to see success. So the observation, to be candid that I've made about the financial community, I think, is a problem across industry and the country. I think we simply have not done enough to hire, encourage and retain young people of color, or women, in general industry.  I think that we leave a lot of talent behind. We're getting better, but we leave a lot of talent behind. So when I talk about, I have a theme of being intentional about a success experience, I can certainly say that each and every one of the success stories that get spoken about a lot, people like Ken Chenault that Ken Frazier, just to name a few, and I can name many, many others, that they can point to those moments in their careers where they were given a helping nudge along the way. And so I'm sort of simple minded about it, which is that if people in power want to see success in that regard, they have to be intentional about it. It has to be something that's on their mind. They have to insist on it. And quite frankly, when decisions, tough decisions. Have to be made as to whether somebody's performing or not, they have to be willing and not afraid to call it. Because as I said, everybody isn't going to make the cut, but it's great if people can feel comfortable that they have that opportunity. In the Bloomberg interview, and I hope you don't mind my going on at lengthy here a little bit, but this is one of my favorite topics. I spoke about intentional sponsorship. That's my theme. And I spoke about it in context of senior managers. I read, referenced a fellow that I called my very best boss ever. He has unfortunately passed away. His widow read the interview and called me and was quite amazed at how I felt about this. And I think she understood things that I had said to her over the years about how important he had been to my life and my family's life in terms of my own success. So I always say that during that eight year period, when I had his sponsorship within Goldman Sachs, and by the way, he wasn't necessarily a great guy. I've had people contact me after the interview and say, "Well, he wasn't very nice to me." And so I get that, but I do know that once he asked me to join his team, then I became part of the team and he became my advocate. And that was the best period of my career at Goldman Sachs. And quite frankly, my worst periods were when I didn't have that guidance. I think, and I hope you'll let me go on just a little bit longer, but I think that as a country, we're not maximizing our human capital. We see that every day as we work our way through the pandemic. I mean, think about it. Human capital, with a bit of help from our global partners, came up with multiple ways to stop the coronavirus. Okay. I mean, that's amazing if you think about it. I mean, we're all somewhat concerned these days about the continuation of variants and issues about whether you get a boost, et cetera. But the facts are is that we found a way, in a very, very short period of time, to bring a halt to this really vicious virus. And so that's the wonder. On the other hand, we are also picking up the newspaper and learning that we are short of people to do the most basic jobs, as well as, quite frankly, many of those requiring much more in the way of skills. As a country, I think we've given up on our public education system. It used to be an advantage for us. We spend a lot of time bashing teachers and so forth, and fighting about the curriculum and so forth. We're resisting efforts to train people. We need the labor, but we don't want the cheap labor coming across the border, even though we don't necessarily have the labor to fill many of those jobs. And I'm going to be a little controversial in my next comment, and you guys can edit this out if you want. But I have long said that the country long benefited from structural inequity/ if you think about the quality of teachers we had many, many years ago, when one of the best jobs available to a bright woman or a person of color was as a teacher. And I used my mom as an example, she finished first in her class in college in 1942. There were no corporations or financial institutions on her campus aggressively recruiting, particularly at an HBCU. And so society benefited because you had this class of individuals who were largely directed into a profession that was the best available to them, and we're indebted to them, but that's changing. And without getting into the debate about teachers, and quality, and what have you, that's changing. And that's a debate for another day, but it goes back to my opening comment, which was that we're not spending enough time maximizing human capital. And I think that's a problem. And it ties back to DEI. It ties back to ESG. It ties back to a lot of things that we might talk about. So I'll pause there. I know I'm talking too long. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: No. Yeah. So first of all, Don, I mean, you are touching on some very, very timely issues that, I mean, companies are exploring ways to essentially future proof talent models that clearly we've got an inequity, as you say, of infrastructure and how organizations go to recruit and build their pipeline. So when I sometimes hear the comments of, "There isn't a pipeline," or "We are not able to build a pipeline." Sometimes, I often think, "Where are you looking?" And there are some organizations today that are starting to try to build bridge around skill mobility, bridges into minority serving institutions. You mentioned HBCUs. But to go and to build recruitment pipelines to offer opportunities in other types of fields that may not have been historically or traditionally built into that recruitment infrastructure. So you're really touching on an important point that we probably should set up another conversation to unpack acutely. However, you earlier also mentioned this kind of societal shift that's a lot of pressure from company consumers, and stakeholders, and investors on companies to take more responsibility. And I like how you share your reflection on that intentional sponsorship by this mentor in your life. I am wondering, in the area that you sit today from your vantage point, how can boards, how can corporate leaders take those first steps to, whether it's mentorship programs, or to be more prescriptive or surgical in driving this notion of, "We need to open doors. We need to find ways to design more intentional sponsorship." Are these conversations happening within the board? Because I know, again, this is unique to your story. And I've heard other similar stories where it was that one mentor or sponsor who took them under their wing and just offered the difficult, often difficult guidance, to chart out the path. But how can we do more of that? Because clearly, the pressure's there for companies to take responsibility, but it's the how part, it's the pragmatic. What are the steps to activate that? What are your thoughts on that and what are you hearing or observing from where you sit today? Don Cornwell: So I think every board room where I have the honor of residing, the topics on the table, the topic is one of discussion and there's work being done and reporting out on the topic. So I think it's on the agenda. I'm not sure, from my perspective, whether corporate boards today really recognize that these societal forces that we think about, how powerful those items are for the future, that we get very caught up in a variety of other topics, which are also very, very important. And I'm sure you'll ask me about a few of those at some point here. But I do think that, and to some degree, this kind of gets to one of the notions that I have about the composition of boards, which is the notion that we actually need more people in the room with not only courage to ask tough questions, but also a wider lens in many instances, because I'm not sure that we're really necessarily seeing what's coming at us from a lot of different angles. If I can go back to the comments I made about diversity and inclusion, and a little bit ESG that you had asked about that, I really think these are societal forces that are starting, whether we want it to or not, to drive the corporate board agenda. So just a couple of thoughts. Can you imagine what the board discussions in Facebook are like these days? Or if you've been following Netflix. Could be a more successful company, quite frankly than either of them. All right. I mean, Facebook was founded... My daughter is 36 now, and she's a 2007 graduate of college. And I remember when she was a freshman, she and all of her friends were talking about whether or not they would sign up for Facebook, which had only been started maybe two years before they were to be freshmen. And Facebook's the bad people, there's all kinds of negative things being said about Facebook, but just look at the corporate and business success or Netflix. I mean, my God. How many times did I find the little red envelopes around my house that had never been returned? And talk about a success story. But what are they talking about at those boards? They're talking about all the issues that here on cable television 24/7. At Netflix, you're talking about comedian who has decided to be less than politically correct in the way he talks about things. And so that raises all kinds of challenges about speech and what's appropriate. But then you move from that and you've got, [inaudible 00:16:55] Exxon. My God, what could be more... There it is, Exxon. And you literally have activists find a way with major shareholders to challenge their corporate strategy. And it's front and center around climate and sustainability. What are you doing? And they end up changing out board members. And then there's one that you may or may not have heard of, but I pay a lot of attention because of my history in the broadcast business. It's a company called Tegna, which is essentially the old Gannett company's television station group, which is quite a large group. And they have been under attack for three years by a very, very sophisticated activist shareholder. And his primary focus, his primary focus has been on the treatment of people and particularly the treatment of people of color within the company. And it's been kind of a fascinating thing to watch. The corporate, the board has succeeded in being reelected each year, but the noise gets louder and louder. And at the current time, that activist has now joined forces with one of the major private equity firms and has made it an offer to who buy the company. And so that board is very much under siege. And so I see these forces from society demanding a seat at the table. And quite frankly, these are not the topics that are ever at all candor on the agenda in most instances. You get me started on this, so I apologize, but you think about the tensions that corporations are having to navigate as between national and global interest. Anybody that's doing business in China, those of us who deal with compliance, and risk, and what have you, we spend all of our time thinking about China as a compliance issue. But you've got geopolitical stuff there. I mean, don't go to China and start talking about your great relations in Taiwan. And they've got their views about data privacy. And quite frankly, beyond China, just across the globe, there are views about that. And so that's my way of saying that boards are being forced by the outside world to think about stuff, including the issues... DEI is not just a, "Oh, we got to check that box." Okay. In my opinion, it's part and parcel of so much that's going on out there that boards are having to deal with. Then, of course, we've got to deal with cyber. I mean cyber's going to destroy us if we're not careful. Compliance and ethics is an amazingly significant issue. If you saw yesterday that the whistleblower in the LIBOR scandal is getting a $200 million payout. That's going to motivate a few people. And then I always finally point out, and by the way, we're hopefully coming out of a pandemic and we're going to be worrying about organizational culture, given that most of us have spent two years working remotely, and we got to figure out how to get back together again. So longwinded answer to your question and hopefully a little bit helpful. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Yeah, no, no, very helpful. And I'm glad you've touched upon what we're witnessing in terms of this societal shift and the increased pressure from investors, regulators, employees, other stakeholders, just the demands on companies to show progress. Business resiliency, environmental climate transaction plans. And then, of course, there's no question in terms of not only human capital. And I don't really like the phrase human capital. Or natural capital sometimes is also on the climate stuff, but it's really our people, our talent and the innovations and the diversity of how they bring ideas to the table, can really transform and create a certain agility to business progressing. And as this is continuing to capture the board and corporate leaders' attention, I like the phrase when you said boards really are starting to get forced to think differently. And I want to unpack that a little bit. So you touched on culture. I want to start with this notion of transforming board culture. And you mentioned earlier having the courage on the agenda to maybe ask more difficult questions. But how can boards, or you have had such a distinguished career, both as an executive and on serving boards. How can boards really start to begin to transform their own culture? Before boards can take the step for oversight of culture within the organization, how do they turn the mirror back and reflect on themselves and take the steps to really help cultivate a transformation within their own board culture? Don Cornwell: Yeah. I'm probably more of a pessimist in all these things than many. And I don't know if that's helpful or unhelpful. My experience has been that crisis tends to drive focus, and we all get very comfortable doing what we do. We do it every meeting, whether it's four meetings a year or 10 meetings a year, whatever the case may be. And then it's when all of a sudden, we get something that comes in, sort of a curve ball that we're forced to try to get smarter. And so my best board experiences have been in situations where there is what I would describe as intentional diversity of voice around the table. And diversity has always thought about it from the context of gender, and ethnicity, and what have you. And I think those are very much part of it, but I also think that diversity of voice in terms of experiences and worldview is just so important. I have found that when you have that... So you have to start with the notion that you are not going to figure it all out, okay? That bad stuff will happen. And so you want to be prepared to react, but then you should spend time, not only trying to figure out the root cause... But I guess I think it was Andrew Grove, the guy who founded Intel. He had a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. And I've always found that to be, at least that my business experience, just so true. That there's a need to constantly scan the horizon, looking for what's coming over the hill, that you could just not imagine. And so I think that best boards are trying to find ways to empower the management teams, to scan the horizon, to think about risk, think about the unimaginable, think about what you do when the unimaginable happens. That's, I guess, my belief about it. I know a lot of people think that a lot of it has to do with the books and records and the control and so forth. And it certainly does, but I will tell you that I can go back and look at scandal after of scandal and crisis after crisis. And you discover that all that stuff that I just described, the books and records and stuff all seemed totally fine until you discovered that something else was going on that was much more difficult. And so I'm a big believer in trying to inject a bit of imagination, creativity, energy, new ideas, new perspectives in the boards. I'm a believer in having boards that have some longevity and some experience. I enjoyed, in my long career on the Pfizer board, ultimately being the one that the new directors would turn to and say, "Don, why did we do that?" Okay. And there was great value to that, but it was also time for me to go. And that I'm pleased to say that one of the people that was recruited in the context, not to replace me, but in the context of my leaving, Scott Gottlieb. Scott and I had gotten each other in a year of overlap, and anybody who's watched television, he's a very, very bright young person. And I just think that people who come to the party with different sorts of experiences can just bring so much to a board. And I urge boards to do that. I think some are trying hard. I think some are still, in my honest opinion, still checking boxes that satisfy the New York Stock Exchange, or some perceived notion of best practices, and not necessarily bringing enough wisdom and perspective to the boardroom table that can hopefully help management as they try to navigate their way through increasingly difficult times. So I'm talking too long. I'm going to stop there. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: No, then you're actually spot on, Don. I mean, when you say "Crisis tends to drive focus," I mean, and clearly you're drawing from, you've served on boards of so many highly regulated industries. You mentioned Pfizer, you've got pharma, you've got finance services and so forth. Tell me, when there is crisis, when there are ethical lapses, what role can boards do, especially in these times with these shifts that we're discussing in society? How can they really take action to cultivate ethical culture in the organization? What are the steps they can take there? Don Cornwell: So I don't want to get too specific, but I lived through one with one of my former boards, where the company ended up making a settlement with the government and writing a very, very large check to compensate for all sorts of perceived and admitted sins. I think that out of that, both management and the company clearly recognized that this had been an issue and that we needed to figure out how to do better. But the focus, which I greatly appreciated, and I had a little bit to do with leading, though lots of others were leading the charge, the focus had to do more with root cause, and how do we get there? What could we do to change? How could we make sure that the organization knew that that certain behavior was not part of what that company wanted to convey to the outside world? So that really became a major investment of time and resources on the part of the company and with regular reporting to the right committees, audit, and regulatory and compliance, and then ultimately, to the board, about just what was being done, not only to prevent a repeat of what had happened, but also to what was being done to make sure that, within the culture, everybody sort of knew what was expected? And to be candid, it was made a lot easier because the CEO was not, in any way, either conflicted or hesitant. Very strong views on the issue. And quite frankly, personally, very embarrassed by what had happened. So that's what I call, what do you do afterwards? And so you deal with it. I mean, we did the usual stuff of figuring out who needed to be appropriately treated, fired, terminated, remediated, what have you. We went through all that. But I think that the bigger learning, I think, for this company, and very much into it as I was leaving the board and I'm very much hoping that that will continue to be the case, was really what I would describe as, "So let's scan the horizon. Let's figure out how to identify the next issues and see if we can get ahead of it." And I mean, they literally formed a... I guess I hate to call it a committee, but I guess it's a committee, that on a regular basis, was effectively reviewing, within this particular part of their business, sales practices and new developments, et cetera, and looking at where there might be issues, my contribution, which I think they followed, was to find the person in their organization that nobody tended to like, who was not afraid to say, "But, sounds good, but..." And to empower them to find ways to reward the person for bringing an independent and a challenging viewpoint. That's hard in organizations. I don't know how well they did with that. I think they did some of it, but the point is that you're trying to be ahead of it. You're trying to recognize that bad stuff happens. That you can talk to the cows come home, but bad stuff happens and it will happen. And people for either evil reasons or innocent reasons sometimes go over the line, go where they shouldn't go. You just have to recognize that that's going to be the case. From a board perspective, I always took the position you have to recognize that. You have to make sure managers know that bad news can be delivered safely, that you're not going to all of a sudden have the hanging party go out because someone came in and told the audit committee that there had been an issue, but that what you really wanted was, "So how do we find this out? What are we doing about it? What do we think the causes were? What can we do better?" And then you go through the checklist. So again, not sure if I responded to your question, but I do think that boards are having to organize themselves around these challenges. And in my opinion, there are no right answers. There's no exact answer to any of it, which is why I always argue that you got to talk about it a lot. You got to recognize that sometimes the agenda of that's laid out isn't necessarily the agenda that you really need to be focusing on, and at least have some discussion about that, so that the person who might have a different idea can feel empowered to bring that idea up. Anyway, I'm going to stop there. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: You're hitting really excellent points. I feel like we could continue this for a good another hour because culture in and of itself, it's so elusive. And to your point, there's the agenda. And then there's the fuzzy noise. And how do we extract that clear focus? And while, so glad you said this, bad stuff happens, it'll continue to happen and crisis continues to unfold. However, I think it's, how do organizations take a step back and try to see, what are the lessons that we can learn? How can we be a little bit more acutely aware to try to identify these signals early? And how do we really foster a culture where management is also comfortable coming in and escalating, or bringing these to our attention sooner? Or what are the challenging questions we can ask of management to try to uncover these issues sooner? So it's sort of a mutual dialogue here, but clearly, Don, this is a conversation we could probably continue to have, but we're reaching the end of our time. And I have learned so much from you. I feel like I was intentionally sponsored today. So many new ideas are sparked in my head. So thank you so much for sharing your time and for joining us on this episode today. And I want to say to our listeners, this was a real special treat. We're just so thrilled to have Don share his reflections and experiences here. And I'm Marsha Ershaghi Hames. With gratitude for tuning in to the Principled podcast from LRN, and I'm going to sign off. Thank you. Outro: We hope you enjoyed this episode. The Principled podcast is brought to you by LRN. At LRN, our mission is to who inspire principled performance in global organizations, by helping them foster winning, ethical cultures rooted in sustainable values. Please visit us at lrn.com to learn more. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And don't forget to leave us a review.

My guest today is David Fialkow, co-founder of General Catalyst. If you are looking for a dose of fun, charismatic energy from a very unique investor then this is the conversation for you. David has a diverse background not only as an investor but also as a philanthropist and filmmaker. He won an Academy Award for his role as the producer of the 2018 documentary Icarus. During our conversation, David and I dive into what makes a great founder, the importance of storytelling, and the value of effectively convening people within your network. After listening to all of his great stories, I think you'll see why David has so much fun and success helping founders. Please enjoy my great conversation with David Fialkow.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.   ------   This episode is brought to you by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. If you've been scrambling to keep up with the deluge of IPOs and SPACs these days, Canalyst has models on Robinhood, Marqeta, Grab, and everything in between. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/patrick.   ------   This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep's new Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at your perfect temperature. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. To embrace the future of sleep and get $150 off your new mattress go to eightsleep.com/patrick or use code "Patrick".   ------   Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:03] - [First question] - How the process started that led to filming Icarus and becoming a VC  [00:16:01] - Lessons learned about identifying creativity in potential founders [00:19:26] - What it looks like when a founder doesn't clearly love their product  [00:24:35] - Different aspects of building a successful investment firm [00:28:22] - Features of Ken Chenault that differentiates him from other CEOs [00:30:12] - Applicable lessons for the effective convening of people [00:35:20] - Whether or not he cares about the business model of new companies they back  [00:40:57] - The story of Icarus [00:47:24] - What is David drawn to at the moment [00:51:13] - Key ingredients required to tell a powerful and convincing story [00:53:16] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

Dear founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, board members Angela Ahrendts, Ken Chenault, Belinda Johnson, Jeff Jordan, Alfred Lin, and Ann Mather, and all investors, hosts, and guests;I write to you today in the hope that you will radically re-structure your company before it starts a class war in which you will almost certainly lose the lion's share of your wealth, your moral conscience, your place in history as innovators instead of oppressors, and you and your family's physical safety.Brian, Joe, Nathan; you started Airbnb with the best of intentions. You couldn't afford to make rent on your San Francisco apartment, so you bought some air mattresses and served breakfast to your guests. Brilliant.But things of changed since then. Now you control an $80 billion company that has devoured millions of housing units, evicted countless families, and turned their homes into full-time clerkless hotels, with a promise in your IPO documents to fight democracies in court for as long as you can afford to do so.To be clear, renting out spare rooms, attics, basements, and backyards in owner-occupied properties isn't the problem. It's when an investor outbids a family for a second property and turns it into a full-time Airbnb. Or worse, when a holiday rental company does so. Or worse, when a highly-leveraged hedge fund buys a swath of holiday rental companies. Or worse, when a sovereign wealth fund buys a portfolio of hedge funds. It's why the average house will cost $10+ million within 50 years.Picture the future and do the math. Your company's mandate is to grow exponentially forever. If new housing construction doesn't keep up — and it hasn't for more than a decade — it's mathematically impossible that your company won't take hundreds of millions of houses away from real families in the decades ahead. Do you think this will end well for you?As it stands, you have set your company on a path that can only lead to ruin — for millions of houseless families, and eventually, your leadership team and your investors.But it doesn't have to be this way.1. Start with transparencyAs far as we're aware, only 8% of Airbnb hosts are renting a room in a single house, and that number is falling fast. How many million houses has Airbnb taken off the market so far, and how many more are being stolen each month?It's only fair that the commons knows what we're up against. If you want to build real public trust, your company needs to allow independent auditors to track how many of your hosts are actually owners who rent rooms in houses they occupy full-time, versus how many investors have taken a housing unit off the market and turned it into an unregulated clerkless hotel.2. Ensure all your hosts are owner-occupiers onlyYou must revert to your original model. When an owner occupies a house, they take care of it. They know their neighbors. They keep the noise down. They shop locally. They keep the local schools open by sending their kids. They set down roots.Absentee landlords kill communities. They don't have roots. They don't care about noise or safety or cleanliness. They don't care about schools. They don't care about neighbors. All they care about is extracting wealth.Worst of all, the huge proliferation of holiday investors is skyrocketing house prices beyond all affordable values. This means that the real societal contributors — productive workers — have to relocate to less desirable locations further away from their places of work. This is already robbing millions of people of billions of hours of life due to extra commuting, and the environmental toll of all that pollution is yours to bear.All of this could be ameliorated by ensuring that every single one of your hosts is only renting out space in a housing unit that they own and live in full-time.3. Limit the number of rental nights to 14/yearObviously, high year-round commercial availability removes a house from the residential market. The average American gets two weeks of vacation per year. As such, it seems reasonable to limit the number of rental nights to the number of vacation days of the average owner-occupier. Many cities have already started to put such a limit in place, but if your company truly cares about the commons, you'll pre-empt them all by ensuring your hosts are good citizens first, and hosts seconds.In a word, there must be no more full-time Airbnbs in residential homes.4. Stop suing democraciesI realize that part of your business plan includes building a war chest to fight 100,000+ cities in court. But is this really how you want to make your money? By fighting democracy? How will your children and grandchildren look at you when they learn the truth of your actions? Is this how you want history to remember you?Airbnb's fight-the-public-forever model is going to cost you a ton of money, and it's going to cost the commons even more. But do you expect us to just roll over and die? When millions of us don't have a place to live, what will you expect us to do instead?5. Stop bribing CongressLet's face it, the rest of the world calls corporate lobbying what it actually is: bribing. Why do you have 13 lobbying firms in Congress? Why did you hire a PR firm to meet with Scottish delegates on 28 occasions? Why did you fund more than 400 fake grassroots organizations?Instead of bribing corporate-captured puppet politicians to make laws that oppress the commons, why not build a company that doesn't require the overthrow of democracy instead?6. Start building clerkless hotelsClearly, there is a huge market for your business.People don't love the hassle of hotel check-ins and check-outs.They like paying online.They like having kitchens.They like having unique and interesting spaces.If you build it, they will come.Seriously — as more people start to travel regularly, there's likely a market for more than a billion Airbnb hotel units globally. Airbnb could earn (actually earn) a real profit by revolutionizing the hotel industry.You've been bleeding investor cash for nearly a decade, so why not make a profit for a change?7. Start an AirbnbankNow, of course, the sheer brilliance of extraction economy companies is that you take a massive cut of the profits without shouldering any of the risks and costs, shunting all those pesky expenses onto the backs of your army of hosts.So why not continue to pass the buck by giving your hosts an opportunity to invest in full-time commercially-zoned vacation space?Start a bank, give hosts mortgages, and allow them to buy units in Airbnb towers in properly zoned commercial areas. This would allow hosts to skim passive profits off tourists, allow you to make your hefty Airbnb fee, and earn interest like a fat cat Wall Street banker.You could also control maintenance and cleaning and security on these buildings, extracting further fees from your hosts. You could also rent ground-level space to restaurants, fitness centers, food shops, pubs, barbershops, and spas. Heck, you could even save a few floors for office share space and destroy WeWork for good. Best of all, you'd never have to take another residential unit away from a family ever again.Because even one house taken off the residential market to be used as a holiday house is one too many.Like it or not, your company is now the tip of the spear in a movement that is rapidly commodifying global residential real estate. You're leading the charge in turning a human necessity into a tradeable commodity. Access to affordable shelter is a universal human right, and you're devastating real people.A word of warningNow obviously, your full-time job is simply to boost Airbnb's stock price, so I don't expect you'll heed any of these suggestions; in which case, all that's left to say is: Enjoy it while it lasts. Because they're coming for you, and when they do, there will be blood. You thought Occupy Wall Street had a big turnout? Wait until hundreds of millions of evicted renters smash your empire. Rule number one of business: Never back desperate people into a corner. Pretty soon, the listings on your website will just become a hit list.Expect thousands of municipal lawsuits from city councils. Expect class-action lawsuits from evicted renters and priced-out buyers. Expect pitchforks in the streets.Expect bricks through windows and fires in listed properties.Expect homeless mobs climbing the walls of your gated mansions.If you continue on your current course, you will pay reparations one way or the other — so either get a good insurance policy or get back to your original business model so the world may call you blessed.A personal noteMy wife and I are having our first baby in late September. Our house lease expires in March, and our landlord is turning our home into an Airbnb. There isn't a single house to rent at any price within a half-hour drive. We have to leave the village we've come to love these past few years. We want to raise our child in a real home, but let's be honest — our landlords will extract way more money by renting our house out nightly instead of monthly.Our whole village is the same way. Nearly every property that comes up for sale is snapped up in days by a holiday rental company for far more money than any local family can afford to pay. If the trajectory continues — and there's no indication that it won't — there's a good chance our local school will close before our child has a chance to attend.I can't describe to you the sinking feeling I get in my stomach every time a sixty-year-old suburban woman stops in front of our place and says to her husband, “oh, that one would be cute,” or worse, when a holiday rental company van pulls up and snaps a photo of our home.There's a ticking clock that hangs over our heads, counting down the days until we'll inevitably have to move to a less desirable location, into likely a much smaller place, and still pay way more money, thanks to the commodification of real estate in the hands of Airbnb land-lorders.Calls to actionThere is much to be done in this world, and much of it is an undoing.Airbnb investors and board members: For the sake of long-term societal safety and short-term societal affordability, I call on you to divest of Airbnb stock in the same way you would of fossil fuels and weapons of war, or at the very least, become activist members that force the board to abandon its non-owner-occupied position.Airbnb hosts: I encourage you to only rent out rooms or units on your primary residential property, and sell any properties that you have stolen from the commons.Airbnb guests: I encourage you to stay in hotels, resorts, regulated bed and breakfasts, and in real commercially-zoned vacation rental properties, not in residential neighborhoods. If you want to use Airbnb in an ethical manner, do your due diligence to ensure that the property you're renting is a bona fide owner-occupied unit and not a unit that has been taken away from a family. It's deeply troubling to enjoy family vacation time in a space when you know another family has lost theirs — it's time to make the Golden Rule popular again.Citizens: Lobby your city councilors, county clerks, state representatives, and Congresspeople to ban all commercial activity and investment in residential real estate. Whether they include a 500% second house premium, a cost-prohibitive landlording license, or an outright ban on non-owner-occupied clerkless hotel rentals, we simply must drive investors out of the residential real estate market.Please sign this petition to save my village.Please spread the word and raise awareness about Airbnb.If you'd like to write to any of Airbnb's board members or executive management, their email is [first name].[last name]@ airbnb.comBrian, Joe, Nathan: You started Airbnb with the best of intentions. You couldn't afford to make rent on your San Francisco apartment. Today, your company has made it nearly impossible for people like your former selves to live in San Francisco, Paris, New York, London, or nearly any other desirable place on earth, including my little village.Houses are supposed to be homes. You've extended the capitalist script by turning houses into abusive investments, extractive commodities to be sold to the highest bidder. Please go back to your roots before society burns your whole empire to the ground. Get full access to Surviving Tomorrow at www.surviving-tomorrow.com/subscribe

Former American Express Chairman and CEO and current General Catalyst Chairman and Managing Director Ken Chenault, shares his thoughts on leadership, race, creating diverse workforces, responsible innovation, and his hope for the future. Ken covers his early life, growing up, his experience leading American Express for nearly two decades through crises and digital transformation, and the advice he gives founders and CEOs building innovative, enduring companies backed by General Catalyst.Upon Ken's retirement from American Express, Warren Buffett, the company's largest shareholder stated, “Ken's been the gold standard for corporate leadership and the benchmark that I measure others against.” Ken is recognized as one of the business world's experts on brands and brand management. He has been honored by multiple publications including Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders in its inaugural list in 2014 and, most recently, in 2021.  Ken serves on the boards of Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway, Chief, Guild Education, and the Harvard Corporation. He is a co-founder of OneTen, a coalition of leading executives coming together to upskill, hire and advance one million Black Americans over the next 10 years into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement. He also serves on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution's Advisory Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

"Corporations can be a force for good – and they can also be very successful," says Ken Chenault, chair of investment firm General Catalyst and former longtime CEO of American Express. During the past year, Ken has been an outspoken advocate for business leaders to actively engage in societal matters. After George Floyd's death, he and Merck CEO Ken Frazier launched OneTen, a coalition to create 1 million jobs for Black Americans that now includes major brands from IBM to Nike to Walmart. Chenault has pushed corporate chiefs to use their leverage to protect voting rights, and he's come out with a platform for Responsible Innovation that puts what he calls “social due diligence” alongside financial due diligence. Standing up for what's right, Ken says, fuels long-term success: "The most important thing is the quest for truth, character, and values."Read a transcript of this interview at: mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtX

"Corporations can be a force for good – and they can also be very successful," says Ken Chenault, chair of investment firm General Catalyst and former longtime CEO of American Express. During the past year, Ken has been an outspoken advocate for business leaders to actively engage in societal matters. After George Floyd's death, he and Merck CEO Ken Frazier launched OneTen, a coalition to create 1 million jobs for Black Americans that now includes major brands from IBM to Nike to Walmart. Chenault has pushed corporate chiefs to use their leverage to protect voting rights, and he's come out with a platform for Responsible Innovation that puts what he calls “social due diligence” alongside financial due diligence. Standing up for what's right, Ken says, fuels long-term success: "The most important thing is the quest for truth, character, and values."

A group of Black business executives are urging the rest of corporate America to oppose legislation aimed at restricting voting access, following a new law in Georgia that critics say disproportionately hurts voters of color. Merck CEO Ken Frazier and former Chairman and CEO of American Express Ken Chenault led a group of executives in publishing an open letter in The New York Times pushing Wall Street to wield its power. Frazier and Chenault discuss the effort to rally opposition to legislation in Georgia and 43 other states, and they discuss corporate America’s role in speaking out against voter suppression. Frazier and Chenault consider vocal opposition in the C-suite an obligation to morality and to democracy, and they underline the significance of this moment in U.S. history. 

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Jeff Immelt served as CEO of GE for 16 years. He has been named one of the “World’s Best CEOs” three times by Barron’s. During his tenure as CEO, GE was named “America’s Most Admired Company” by Fortune magazine and one of “The World’s Most Respected Companies” in polls by Barron’s and the Financial Times.  Notes: Raised in Cincinnati, OH by his father Joe and mother Donna. Both of his parents grew up in the depression. Growing up Jeff said, “I remember when my dad had a great boss, he was motivated, and when he had a lousy boss, he was neither challenged nor happy. The worst kind of boss he always used to say, was one who criticized all day long but never offered solutions.” GE was founded on April 15, 1892, by one of the greatest inventors in history, Thomas Edison. For most of the 20th century, GE had more patents than any other corporation. Jack Welch, deemphasized technology and innovation, and instead focused on management techniques like six sigma. Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology invented by a Motorola engineer named Bill Smith in 1980. It trains managers to be experts (called Black Belts) in improving business processes to reduce product defects. Jeff's first day as CEO of GE was September 10, 2001. On his first day, he introduced himself, via simulcast, to GE’s 300,000 employees. His second day as CEO was 9/11/2001. "Good leaders absorb fear. They give people a plan. You have to hold two thoughts at the same time." By the end of his first week as CEO, GE’s shares had dropped 20%, decreasing the company’s market capitalization by $80 billion. Leaders learn everyday — “I’ve always believed an important determinant of success could be found in how one answered 3 questions: How fast can you learn? How much can you take? What will you give to those around to you?” The trifecta: “In your career, you meet only a handful of leaders who have the trifecta of being able to innovate, execute, and develop talent. Omar Ishrak had that." Jeff was the ultimate grinder, a true believer of GE, he got the “meatball” (the GE logo) tattooed on the left hip. The GE story is extremely personal for Jeff.  Why the "Success Theater" story about Jeff is wrong. "For seven years, 10 times per year, I had a leader from GE flown to my house with their spouse. We'd serve them dinner and then I'd spend 6+ hours with the leader asking them questions, learning about them, and saying, 'Tell me something I don't know.'" What Jeff learned from playing football in college at Dartmouth: "When the best player is not caring about the team, nobody will get in line." The story of Harry Wilson (Russell Wilson's father, Jeff's teammate in college) and Reggie Williams. "Football teams are self policing. It's a series of peer relationships. Failure is not definitive. You have to always think about the next play." "The best people get 100% of the work done in 80% of the time. That leaves them more time to push boundaries." How did Jeff get picked to be Jack Welch's successor? "I was a good peer. Your peers are who promote you. Those relationships have to be earned." What was a Jack Welch Quarterly Business Review like? "Jack was a screamer. He was spontaneous. He would like at page 7 and then jump to page 17 and ask questions." Front line obsession - "You have to have a passion for understanding how people work." Front line managers - "I told them they are more important than me. That have direct access to the customer." The profession of sales: why it's noble Amazing sense of urgency - Never waste a minute or let it pass See the company through the customers eyes - "The salesforce sets the culture... I was persistent, dogged..." Good leaders are systems thinkers: Keep your head up and stay engaged at the same time Read books, ask question... "You must be curious." Sustain excellence: Must be a learner. "Fred Smith (CEO of FedEX) is my leadership hero." Heart broken over GE: "You can still progress as a human being even when you have a broken heart. You have to keep trying. Even when the efforts don't seem to be working for you." "There's value in a human being in just keep moving. Don't hide. Don't disappear." When you are on top, it is easy to be long on friends. When you hit bottom, there are a select few who reach out. For me, those standouts included American Express’s Ken Chenault, Delta Airlines' Richard Anderson, and especially Cisco’s John Chambers. Apply to be part of my Leadership Circle

According to Black Enterprise: "OneTen was founded by Ken Chenault, Chairman and Managing Director of General Catalyst and former Chairman and CEO of American Express; Ken Frazier, Chairman and CEO of Merck; Charles Phillips, Managing Partner of Recognize, Chairman of the Black Economic Alliance, and former CEO of Infor; Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman and former CEO of IBM; and Kevin Sharer, former Chairman and CEO of Amgen and former faculty member at Harvard Business School. “This is a moment in time for Americans to move past our divisions to come together and reach our full potential as a nation. Our country's workforce of the future will be an increasingly diverse one,” said Frazier in a written statement. “Through the creation of 1 million jobs for Black Americans over the next 10 years, OneTen has the potential to address persistent intergenerational gaps in opportunity..."

According to 2015 numbers by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the total number of men working in public relations and related services and advertising, 5.9 percent are African American. In this episode we speak with a PR Executive who has researched the perceptions, experiences, and possible barriers for African American males to getting into, and leading within, the field of communications.Guest: Chuck Wallingtonmarketing@conehealth.com Link to Ken Chenault address to Barron's Tech Conference https://bit.ly/2HAhl2B 

    Jevan Hutson: How Racism in Online Dating Affects Economic Opportunities (Ep. 176) Jevan Hutson joined Joe Miller to talk about how racism in online dating affects economic opportunities. Bio Jevan Hutson (@jevanhutson) is a Gregoire Fellow at the University of Washington School of Law, where he researches technology policy, social computing, surveillance and privacy, and data ethics, and is an editor for the Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts. Jevan currently works for the Technology & Liberty Project of the ACLU of Washington, where he advocates for algorithmic accountability in government and restrictions on government use facial recognition technologies. He previously worked for Nintendo of America, Miller Nash Graham & Dunn, and Boeing. Jevan holds an MPS in Information Science and a BA in History of Art & Visual Studies from Cornell University, where he was a Research Assistant in the Social Computing Lab and Social Media Lab. Resources What Dating Apps are doing to Fight Bias by Jevan Hutson (Axios, 2019) Debiasing Desire: Addressing Bias and Discrimination on Intimate Platforms by Jevan Hutson, Jessie G. Taft, et al. (University of Washington School of Law, 2018) Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media by Tarleton Gillespie News Roundup US took down Russian troll factory during 2018 election Several U.S. officials said last week that they blocked the Internet Research Agency’s internet access as the Russian troll factory attempted to interfere with last year’s midterms. The Washington Post reports the operation was the first of its kind after the president and Congress bolstered cybercommand last year. Donald Trump approved the operation.  YouTube disables comments on videos featuring minors YouTube has disabled comments on videos that include minors under age 18. The move comes after pedophiles were lurking in comment sections directing users on where to access suggestive images of children. FTC wins fraud case against company that hired fake Amazon reviewers The Federal Trade Commission has won a case against Cure Encapsulations for paying a third party to write Amazon reviews of a supplement called garcinia cambogia. The drug is known to cause acute liver failure. It’s the first-evern case of its kind. Among other reviews, fake reviewers wrote that the supplement “literally stops fat from forming” rated it an average 4.3 out of 5 stars. Cure Encapulastions is now liable to pay a $12.8 million fine. FTC fines TikTok The Federal Trade Commission has fined China-based social media company TikTok $5.7 million because before it merged with Musical.ly, Musical.ly illegally collected the names, emails, pictures and location data of kids under 13. The U.S. hasn’t fined TikTok for anything that happened after the merger. TikTok has over 1 billion downloads – 100 million here in the U.S. – and is seen by many experts as legit Facebook rival. California AG Becerra looks to expand privacy California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is looking to improve his state’s privacy law that’s set to take effect next year by allowing private individuals to sue companies for damages. The current bill as written allows individuals to take legal action only after giving companies 30 days to correct violations. Nevada Sen. Cortez Masto takes on racial ad targeting Catherine Cortez Masto -- the Democratic Senator from Nevada -- is taking on racial ad targeting in a new bill that prohibits companies like Facebook from targeting on the basis of race. Propublica found back in 2016 that Facebook allows advertisers to exclude racial groups from certain campaigns—a practice which continued at least until the end of 2017. Twitter suspends Jacob Wohl Twitter suspended far-right activist Jacob Wohl for allegedly attempting to influence the 2020 presidential election by creating fake accounts purporting to support divisive candidates like Howard Schultz. Previously, USA Today had quoted Wohl as saying that he was planning to create “enormous left-wing online properties”. Wohl says it was just an “intellectual exercise”.  New FTC monopoly task force The Federal Trade Commission has established a new task force designed to look specifically at tech sector monopolies. The task force will boast 17 staff attorneys and be based in the competition bureau. Airline seatback monitors have cameras Some passengers on a Singapore Airlines flight shared a viral video showing the seatback video monitors in front of them had cameras in side them. Another passenger shared a picture of a similar camera he found on an American airlines flight. United and Delta followed up saying their screens also contain cameras. All four airlines say the manufacturer ships that screens that way for potential future uses, but that currently the cameras are disabled.  Currently. One of the manufacturers—Panasonic—told BuzzFeed that it would never activate the cameras without consent from the airline.   New York governor Cuomo wants Amazon back So as you know, Amazon backed out of plans to build out one of its new headquarters locations in Long Island City.   And now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is like [new edition clip] [PAUSE] Love is HARD! [PAUSE] Representatives from some 70 powerful New York organizations took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to publish an open letter to Amazon Founder & CEO Jeff Bezos. Signatories included National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial and the NAACP’s New York State Conference and Astoria Chapter and the Presidents of the Queensbridge Houses and Astoria Houses Tenants Associations—corporate signatories included Ken Chenault and others. The State University of New York’s Chancellor also signed the letter, as did the Chancellor Designee of the City University of New York and the President of LaGuardia Community College. Several unions also signed. In the letter, the signatories characterized the public debate that followed the announcement as “strident”. It’s pretty hard to pass up an opportunity to add your name to a full-page letter in the New York Times. Whether anyone has carefully evaluated the upsides of the deal for every day New Yorkers isn’t clear. No word yet from Amazon. Events of Note House Energy & Commerce Hearing “Inclusion in Tech: How Diversity Benefits all Americans” Wed., 3/6 2019 @ 10:30am 2322 Rayburn Federal Communications Commission “Symposium on Media Diversity” Thurs., 3/7 2019 @ 9AM-5:30PM 445 12th St., SW

For men of color, the job market can be arduous to navigate regardless of how many letters are behind your name. So, how to find, apply, interview, and receive the job of your dreams. In this era, having a coach that can move you through the process is critical. Marvin Chambers, leadership coach and ally joins me on this episode to detail his journey helping others ascend like Ken Chenault. On the B side, New Orleans Native Michael Ruffin joins me to talk about his on ascension, detailing his struggles and how he overcame them to become a picture of success. Fantastic show.

One of a kind: The remarkable life and times of Senator John McCain; Almanac: Don LaFontaine, the voice of movie trailers; Remembering 1968: Chicago's bloody Democratic Convention; Diving board; Ken Chenault on leadership and success at American Express; 

Imagine you've worked 23 years at a company, up to the top. You're being groomed to be the next CEO. And then the current CEO tells you – actually, he's not leaving anytime soon.  That's the position Al Kelly was in nine years ago at American Express. What happened next is a textbook case in how to handle career curveballs. Today Kelly is the CEO of Visa, and has great things to say about Ken Chenault, who’s retiring as CEO of American Express. Kelly also has great insight into what's happening in the world of money, from Bitcoin to Apple Pay.  I sat down with Kelly recently at the National Retail Federation conference in New York. Visa is a big company, worth more than a quarter trillion dollars, and its technology touches a staggering number of the payment transactions happening around the world. We talk about that – plus his career, which has taken him around some interesting corners.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Shankman, a pioneer in modern PR, marketing, advertising, social media, and customer service, profiles the famously nice executives, entrepreneurs, and companies that are setting the standard for success in this new collaborative world. He explores the new hallmarks of effective leadership, including loyalty, optimism, humility, and a reverence for customer service, and shows how leaders like Jet Blue's Dave Needleman, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Steve Jobs of Apple, Ken Chenault of Amex, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, and the team behind Patagonia harness these traits to build productive, open, and happy workplaces for the benefit of their employees, themselves, and the bottom line.

This episode adds a new dimension to our discussions with innovators, by taking us inside a huge company - American Express. My guest is Courtney Kelso, who leads the Amex product and marketing team in Enterprise Growth. I talked with Courtney about two things. First, their strategic move into creating an inclusive set of services, through Bluebird and Serve. And second, what it takes to innovate inside a big company. Interestingly, the two are linked.  Their work on building an inclusive strategy is the engine of innovation at American Express. Think about trying to drive disruptive innovation in an organization that's not only enormous and global, but is also 165 years old - one of the oldest financial brands anywhere. As Courtney says, American Express was a freight company, moving Americans west in the 1800's. Innovation and adaptation are in its corporate DNA, but change at big companies is hard. And then also think about taking a company like American Express, which has always epitomized elite, high-prestige financial services, and shifting it from being an exclusive brand to an inclusive brand. It's a fascinating saga, full of lessons for everyone. Inclusion within a famously "exclusive" brand The story starts about five years ago, when American Express looked hard at the changes underway in how people think about both money and technology, and especially mobile -- the ability to run most of your financial life from your phone. They also pondered the fact that Amex was missing an enormous market in the so-called underserved, estimated to be between 65 and 140 million people in the United States - in other words, not a niche. They realized that the economic problems created and worsened in the Great Recession had converged with an emerging set of technology solutions. American Express responded by launching the Enterprise Growth Group, which Courtney joined immediately. The goal was to go after totally different customers with different product sets. They unveiled an alpha version of Serve in March of 2011 , and then built the Bluebird card, aiming to be part digital wallet, part bank alternative, and part prepaid card . The goal was to reach Americans who struggle to manage and move their money or, as Courtney puts it, the people who are either excluded from the mainstream economy or "unhappily banked." An early move was to create a partnership with Wal-Mart to focus on these needs. Along the way, American Express financed the movie, Spent, which brings these customers' needs to life and demonstrates that "it's expensive to be poor."  If you haven't seen Spent and shared it in your organization, I recommend doing so. In our conversation, Courtney tells us why they made these changes, how they did it, their efforts to "be respectful" to a customer group they didn't know, what they expected, what they learned about them, and what has surprised them.  They undertook a "walk talk chalk," encouraging their leaders to step into the shoes of the kinds of customers who appear in Spent by, for instance, learning what it's like to stand in line on a Friday night to cash to check.  They also connected with the Center for Financial Services Innovation (note that I serve on CFSI's board), to bring its recommended Compass Principles into designing these products. They focused human-centered design thinking on challenges like smoothing out financial "lumpiness" for people who earn enough money to pay their bills, but don't have the right amount at the right time. Courtney describes the fascinating and varied ways customers immediately began using the new tools - including as a bank account alternative and to find ways to save.  She talks about what people want most. She talks about revelations about the preferences of young customers today, and how savvy they are in using mobile services. Today, her group bases every product design decision on the preferences of mobile users (unlike, say, a bank that views mobile as just a new channel for old products). She explains how, with critical mass established on the platform, they can push the envelope with new features, including the first-ever rewards program on a prepaid debit card. And she shares a progress report -- over $7 billion loaded on the platform as of March 2015, with merchant spend up 300% from 2012 to 2013, and 90% of these customers being new to American Express. Innovation In September 2014, these efforts evolved into creation of FILABs - the financial innovation labs - through which American Express brings together researchers and academics with real live products. After inviting proposals, they selected three partners -- a nonprofit in behavioral science called Ideas 42, along with UC Berkeley and a team of researchers from UCLA. The goal is to use design thinking and agile development methodology to make financial products drive financial health. They are testing new ideas for both processes and products, from nudges and alerts to auto savings and debiting, to see what works. Some of this is proceeding under the aegis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Project Catalyst, which seeks to foster and evaluate fintech innovation. They'll be releasing significant findings in the near future. In our conversation, I asked Courtney how to innovate in a great big company - after all, her Enterprise Growth group, itself, has over 1,000 people. Her answers may surprise you - including her comment that their most exciting recent innovation idea came from (of all places) the general counsel's office. It's fun to hear the excitement in her voice as she talks about what doesn't work, and what does. Two more observations before we listen to Courtney. In our talk she said, "I'll be honest," and explains that launching an "inclusion" strategy raised some worries about potential harm to the invaluable American Express brand, which had been painstakingly built over 165 years to be synonymous with prestige. So, they surveyed their top-tier customer base, asking whether Bluebird and Serve made them think worse, or better, of American Express. The results were resoundingly positive. Second, think about the picture she paints.  She says the company could see, five years ago, that the financial landscape was changing and American Express would have to disrupt, before they were disrupted. She says CEO Ken Chenault launched the enterprise growth initiative to "cannibalize" American Express from inside, through innovation. I'm at Harvard this year writing a book on innovation and regulation, which recently prompted me to read Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen's classic, The Innovators Dilemma and newer related work. One of his insights is that disruptive innovation usually must begin in markets that are lower-margin and less attractive than the ones served by industry leaders. The disruptions gestate and develop in these side-markets, and then eventually burst into the mainstream with a better, cheaper product - often too late for the industry's leading firms to adjust. American Express seems to be following something like this logic, putting its innovation engine in the hands of people trying to reach a separate market that's traditionally been "underserved." The results to date are fascinating. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Courtney says the whole company now routinely recruits from her team. Here is more on some of the topics we discussed: CFSI's Compass Principles CFPB's Project Catalyst project with American Express Ideas 42 The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries  The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen  Please subscribe to the podcast by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot", or in iTunes. If you enjoy our work to bring together thought provoking ideas and people please consider a contribution to support the site. Donate

American Express CEO Ken Chenault speaks about the importance of recruiting the right people for the company he leaders, and the company's success in recruiting top talent from London Business School.

American Express CEO Ken Chenault talks to London Business School about turning points in his career, lessons in leadership and shares useful career advice.

American Express CEO Ken Chenault speaks to London Business School about the importance of formulating the right strategy in uncertain economic times and the implications it has on the company he leads.

"We want to be the company that will put us out of business..." Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express speaks to London Business School about the company's key achievements during his tenure.

American Express CEO Ken Chenault on the importance of formulating the right strategy in uncertain economic times and the implications it has on the company he leads.

Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express speaks to London Business School about the company's key achievements during his tenure.