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Speaker: This podcast is brought to
you by Knowledge at Wharton.
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Patti Williams: Jen, it's so nice to have you
here. Thank you for coming to
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the Wharton School, and thank
you for our conversation. I'm so, so pleased.
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Jennifer Tejada: Well, my pleasure.
It's great to be back to
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Wharton. - Awesome. So I thought
we would just start and maybe
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set the ground with, what is
PagerDuty, right? So I've read
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that half of the Fortune 500 and
nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 100
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use PagerDuty. Tell me a little
bit about what PagerDuty is, and
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what are you doing for these
organizations? - Sure.
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So PagerDuty is a pure software
as a service platform that
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exists to help the largest and
most innovative companies in the
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world deliver reliable and
highly available technology
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services. And if you think about
how any business runs that you
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interact with as a consumer, all
of those businesses are running
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on software and increasingly
data and AI today. And the
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challenge is you become really
reliant on the convenience, or
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the 24 by seven on demand
availability of something, and
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when suddenly your brand
experience isn't available to
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you or doesn't work effectively
because of a technology
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challenge, you don't blame the
technology, you blame the brand
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as a consumer. And so, as the
world's been, so to speak, eaten
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by software and become more
technology driven, reliable and
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available technical
infrastructure, software
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services, applications, and
increasingly, LLMs and agents
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have become mission critical and
important. And software, like
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human beings, is imperfect, and
we're also deploying an
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unprecedented amount of software
and technology into the
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ecosystem, and now new
technology in the form of LLMs,
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agents, applications,
integrations, APIs. All that
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complexity leads to the storming
of breakdowns, or what we call
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incidents. And so the way our
customers think about us is we
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help them manage their digital
operations. And increasingly,
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whether you're a financial
services business or online
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travel and hospitality, a tech
company, you know, a ride share
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platform, all of these platforms
increasingly deliver the vast
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majority of their brand
services, their experience, they
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drive their revenue, driven
transactions, all through
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technology. And so it has to
work, and it has to work
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perfectly all the time. - Yeah,
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it's amazing. I think for so
many organizations, a lot of
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that was back office, right? It
wasn't solution critical. - For sure.
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- And that's a real change in, I
think, the importance of this,
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and how sort of the center of
the strategic sort of value
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proposition it really is for
many of these companies.
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- Yeah, the way I think about it
is you would never think of
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NASA's mission control as back
office, but that is kind of how
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this works. You have a
combination of technology, people,
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and AI watching how a very
complex technology organization
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operates, and giving you an early
read on, you know, where are some
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things that are looking like
they're acting outside of their
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traditional operating
boundaries? Or, where do you see
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an early sign that something bad
is about to happen? And so the
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goal for us and for our
customers is not to just help
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them respond more effectively
when things don't work the way
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they're supposed to, but to help
prevent big issues from
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happening, and likewise, to
learn from every challenge that
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runs on the platform. And so
we've been in the AI business
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now for almost 16 years. We've
been collecting a significant
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amount of proprietary data since
the very beginning of Pager-
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Duty. We started with machine
learning and algorithmic AI,
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analytical AI, and in the past
year and a half, have added
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generative AI, and just
yesterday, announced agentic AI
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in our platform.
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- Amazing. We're going to come to
that in just a minute. I want
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to -- you've been at
PagerDuty since 2016, I think. -Yeah.
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- As CEO, right? - That's right.
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- Eight years is a pretty long time.
- It's unusually long for our industry, for sure,
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particularly for somebody who
isn't the original founder.
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- Yeah, amazing. And I think you
took the company public in 2019?
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- That's right. - As you think about
your leadership over those eight
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years, what are some of the
biggest lessons you've learned
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about leading an organization
and leading this organization in
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particular? - That's a great
question. You know, in my early
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days at Procter & Gamble, in
probably some of the first
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management training that I
received there, and they did
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this tremendous job of putting
you through an academy of job
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specific coursework. And one of
the things they would say is, "Act
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and think like an owner," which
goes a little further than, "Spend
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the company's money like you
would your own," right? Some
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people don't spend their money
wisely, right? So that might not
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actually be a good metaphor. But
acting and thinking like an
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owner isn't just about, you
know, trying to drive the share
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price or the share value up.
It's, if you were running this
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job, or your team like it
was your very own business, and
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that you owned all the
investment in, all the outcomes,
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all the growth, all the
challenges, like, how might you
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think differently? And I think
so much about being a CEO,
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particularly in a culture of
innovation, in a high growth
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startup, in an early public
company, is about having that
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ownership mindset. And in some
ways, you know, the company
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was founded by three co-
founders. I sort of became the
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re-founder or the adoptive
parent. And what's interesting
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about that in the early days, is
you're raising that child
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with the other parents sitting
nearby, looking on, right? And so
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there's a very high standard for
how you adapt the
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company over time, how you
develop new capabilities
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on an existing foundation, how
you drive disruption, even when
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you may be attacking somebody's
sacred cows, so to speak. And
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probably the most exciting thing
for me has been how you first
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to reinvent yourself. We've been
through many chapters and many
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transitions as a company. We
were very small. You know, 30
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million in ARR when I joined,
less than 200 people. And now
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we're over 1,000 people, and
close to a half a billion in ARR.
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And so -- and we went from being
this private, you know, series
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A backed startup, to being a
public company traded on the New
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York Stock Exchange for now
almost six years. And so
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through all those chapters as a
leader, it's never boring,
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right? You're always
having to anticipate, like, what
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does the next leg of the journey
look like? How do we need to be
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prepared for that? And as you
get bigger, those preparation
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cycles take longer. You need to
be further out in front of kind
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of what's coming. And one of the
things I'm really proud of is, we
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did, I think, quite a good job
of future proofing our platform
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for big data, for AI and machine
learning, and now generative. We
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rallied around one of our core
value propositions, which is
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trust. So you know, PagerDuty's
core reliability engineering
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is critically important, because
if we have to be up when the
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rest of the world is down, and
our customers hold us to a much
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higher standard than most
technology and SaaS platforms.
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And so in the 16 years of
the company's existence, we've
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never had a maintenance window.
A maintenance window is when you
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log on to something and it says,
"Sorry, we're not available.
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We'll be right back." Can you
imagine if you were undergoing a
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major technology incident, a
ransomware attack here at
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Wharton, and the one platform
that is supposed to help you
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detect that and manage it and
resolve it and remediate is like
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not available for that hour? So
that -- our ability to keep
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innovating and expanding our
product set and our platform,
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while at the same time,
delivering the level of fidelity
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and reliability and trust that
our customers, some of the most --
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I think,
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like most critical and
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highest standard
holding customers out there in
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the marketplace, to live up to
that ongoing standard, as the
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bar keeps getting higher because
the technology gets more
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complex, has been a really big
challenge. And we've done it
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while delivering very high gross
margins, while continuing to
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grow, and, you know, while
becoming a profitable company
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and a company that produces a
lot of cash flow. - Amazing. One
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of the things that I think is
particularly interesting is that
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you don't have a typical tech
CEO background. - No.
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- Could you talk a little bit about your
background, how you got here,
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and how do you think that makes
you a better adoptive parent?
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- Yeah. Well, I grew up in small
towns across the Midwest. I went
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to the University of Michigan on
a scholarship. I got a
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liberal arts degree in
organizational behavior and
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business management, which was
basically psych for groups, you
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know, is the way I would think
about it. And going to a big
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university like Michigan or like
Penn, one of the benefits is
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you don't just learn how to
learn, you learn how to navigate
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a complex system, and you learn
how to advocate when you're,
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you know, a small speck in a
really big universe. And I felt
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like my experience at Michigan
prepared me for the world in a
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lot of ways, coming out of a,
you know, smaller city, into
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this very diverse environment
where I had to fight for
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classes, I had to kind of choose
my own major, and at the time,
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like I was a 19 year old kid
that felt very stressful. But
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when I look back on it, like the
opportunity to choose my own
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adventure and just spend four
years just discovering what was
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interesting to me, what I
thought was going to be
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important in the world, like
that was a very strong
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foundation. And I didn't really
know what I wanted to be when I
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grew up. I still am trying to
figure it out actually. I was
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originally going to go into
healthcare administration, and
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the industry was deregulating at
the time, so I decided to just
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go to work for a couple of years
and learn how to adult and just
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get some experience under my
belt, and by the grace of God,
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got a job with Procter &
Gamble, and they had this
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phenomenal leadership rotation.
So from the very early days of
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my career, I had -- I was taught,
I think, important basics and
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foundations of what makes a
great leader. How to find your
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own leadership voice, how to
think about how to surround
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yourself with the kinds of other
leaders or people that have
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skills that complement your
skills and experience. And so as
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early as in my very early twenties, I
was already thinking about, how
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do you compose a great team? You
know, what makes the collective
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of a team better than just the
sum of the individuals? So some
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of those really early lessons
stuck with me for a long time.
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But when I -- you know, I showed
up in the tech industry
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in the mid to late '90s,
because it was moving fast. I
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could see this innovation
happening, and I -- not only did I
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not want to be left behind, I
didn't want to be a simple
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participant. I wanted to be a
part of leading, you know, that --
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leading that disruption and that
innovation from the front. And
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so I took a very big risk and
went to work for a supply chain
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automation software company
called ITU, and I leveraged what
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I learned at Procter & Gamble
and what Procter & Gamble was
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known for, which was brand and
marketing and go to market, and
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to some extent product, because
product management at P&G is
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really brand, and kind of
leveraged that to get my first
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job in tech. And I didn't send
out any resumes, I met a guy on
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an airplane. And so, you know, I
always remind my daughter, who's
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a college sophomore right now,
like, "You've always got to be
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ready to give your elevator
pitch." And sometimes you're only
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going up two floors, right?
Sometimes you might have the
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Sears Tower to work with. But
when someone asks you who you
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are and what you do, like, make
sure you put your best foot
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forward in an authentic way that
makes someone want to learn
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more. And I think that liberal
arts degree, I think
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having an undergraduate
education was really all about
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identifying complex problems and
figuring out how to pick them
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apart, but then make the
solution accessible to lots of
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different kinds of people,
prepared me really well for
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general management, right? And
then I'd also say, I come from
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like a really hard working
family, so I have a sick work
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ethic, sick in a good way. And
I also came from a family that
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really expects you to contribute
to your community and to not
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wait to be asked. To take
initiative, to think about how
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you serve the community around
you. And I think that mindset of
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like looking out into the
community and figuring out where
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you can add value is really
important in the CEO job right
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now, because we have such a
diverse stakeholder community
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now, much more so than even five
years or 10 years ago in the
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role.
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- That's really interesting. So you
know, as a marketing professor,
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one of the things that I have
appreciated, besides the fact
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that you came from a marketing
background at P&G, and you
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have this sort of branding
mindset that you bring, that
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I've heard you say that you
spend about half of your time
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with your customers. - I do.
- I'm not sure most CEOs, even in
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marketing driven organizations,
spend half of their time with
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their customers. Talk a little
bit about why you do that, how
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you think it gives you
advantages as a leader.
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- Yeah, I mean, part of it was
just choosing a perspective that
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enabled me to devote time to
sort of understanding our users,
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but also the economic buyer, the
CEO the CFO, the CIO, who makes
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a decision to sign a multi-
million dollar, multi-year
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agreement with us. I mean, that
is a long term material
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partnership for a lot of the
companies we serve, and they
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have lots of choices. And so
part of it was figuring out how
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to get inside the minds of both
our users and our buyers, and
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really understand what was
important in their business.
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Because I think it's easy to
become sort of tunnel vision
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about like what your product
does, and focusing purely around
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the use cases that your products
support. And that's how you miss
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pivots. That's how you miss
opportunities to move into
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adjacent areas. It's more how
our customers' jobs are evolving.
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Like, what is keeping them up
late at night? And I mean, what
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are the big problems that they
worry about, not for this
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week or for this month or for
Friday's payroll, but like, what
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are the big problems that
are keeping them up 18 months
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from now, three years from now,
five years from now? And what's
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getting in the way of them
positioning themselves and their
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businesses for success? And can
you be part of moving those
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obstacles out of the way, or
addressing those obstacles, or
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even changing the way the
company operates? And so digital
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transformation has been like a
playground. You know, somebody
00:14:56
said that, "If you love
what you do, you never work a
00:14:58
day in your life." And I mean, I
really -- I love the study of
00:15:02
different businesses. I get to
look at businesses across
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industry and find patterns in
terms of where there are some
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common challenges or common
threads, where there are
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emerging threats or
opportunities, and use that
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pattern recognition to inform
our product roadmap, to think
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about the pace and speed with
which we invest in innovation,
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and where we might decide to say
no to something. And I feel like
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my ability to anticipate what's
coming really comes through
00:15:30
the the sum of all the
conversations I have with our
00:15:34
customers and our prospects. And
it also helped me approach
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networking. Like, I've never been
somebody who likes to network. I
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don't like to just go to a thing
and stand at the cocktail table
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with my name tag on and meet
people. But when I shaped it in
00:15:50
the perspective of, this is my
market research, and you know,
00:15:54
these are people that need to be
part of my community that
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informs how we allocate capital,
how we think about our future
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roadmap, how we even think about
our vision and mission as a
00:16:06
company, it made it not feel so
much like networking, and made
00:16:10
it a much more, I think,
tactical learning pursuit that
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delivers a really strategic
outcome in the end. And it's
00:16:20
funny, because I think a lot of
people in the industry have
00:16:24
given me feedback that I have a
really strong, deep and wide
00:16:28
network, and I always giggle
inside when someone says that to me,
00:16:31
because I don't like networking.
I don't really love going to
00:16:33
conferences. I'm really picky
about, like, which events I'll
00:16:36
attend and who I'm going to
invest my time speaking with,
00:16:39
and what I'm trying to learn.
Like, what are my goals in that
00:16:42
hour and a half, or the 16
minutes I'm going to have with
00:16:45
that person? Is there one thing
I want to try and take away
00:16:49
from that? But the thing
that surprised me the most is
00:16:52
just how much pattern
recognition emerges, and how
00:16:56
helpful that can be. In the early
days, when we were really an
00:17:01
amazing app that developers
loved to use themselves, I could
00:17:06
see this pattern around, you
know, data pattern recognition,
00:17:12
like being able to action
analytical insights very quickly
00:17:16
when time really mattered. So
you know, if you're a trading
00:17:19
platform in the financial
services industry, and you
00:17:23
somehow can't manage
transactions, because your
00:17:26
transaction environment goes
down, like, not only are you
00:17:29
losing significant money every
second, but you're also in the
00:17:33
risk of, you know, compliance
breach, regulatory issues,
00:17:37
fines, even, you know, being
prevented from continuing to
00:17:40
operate in certain
jurisdictions, and that can
00:17:42
happen in minutes. And so the
need to move fast really
00:17:45
matters. And so, you know, as
I've gotten to know my
00:17:50
customers, I've also gotten to --
been able to identify patterns
00:17:53
in certain verticals, new use
cases that I see that are common
00:17:57
across a vertical, and that
usually comes from talking to
00:18:00
the CIO, the CTO, the CEO, not
the user. Like, not somebody who is
00:18:04
is down, you know, hands on
keys, so to speak, phone in
00:18:07
hand, using your actual
application. I think that's
00:18:10
sometimes hard for people to
distinguish, right?
00:18:13
- Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so
first of all, as a professor, I
00:18:15
think we love people who love to
learn, and it sounds like you're
00:18:18
bringing that growth mindset to
the -- you know, to the experience
00:18:20
of networking, but also to
thinking about how you're
00:18:22
leading your organization,
so that's amazing. I wonder
00:18:25
if you can tell me a little bit
about some of that pattern
00:18:28
recognition as we're thinking
about AI. You know, you've been in
00:18:32
the space. The company's been in
the space for a while. But for
00:18:35
many organizations, it's maybe a
year old. They are just
00:18:38
trying to figure out something
that moves so fast it's hard to
00:18:43
keep up with, figure out what the
use cases are. And you know,
00:18:47
here at Wharton, we're
really lucky, we have this base
00:18:49
of faculty who have been in the
space for a long period of time,
00:18:52
and so we're able to share our
expertise. But I think, what
00:18:55
does it look like to -- what
are the kinds of patterns you
00:18:58
see across organizations when it
comes to understanding and using
00:19:03
AI? - Yeah,
00:19:03
I mean, I think things often
happen in stages or phases. And
00:19:08
you know, what I initially saw
was a very big hype cycle. Like,
00:19:11
a lot of our large enterprise
customers, knowing that AI was a
00:19:15
thing, recognizing quickly that
it was going to be important and
00:19:19
disruptive, but then falling
into one -- well, two camps, or in
00:19:24
some cases, both. This fear of
missing out. Like, I need to be
00:19:28
doing something, my board is
demanding I do something, I must
00:19:31
do something. Like, we have to do
something. We have to get
00:19:33
started, or start starting. And
then also this fear of getting
00:19:37
in. Oh my gosh, this is scary.
This could be really dangerous.
00:19:40
You know, we could ruin our
brand reputationally by doing
00:19:44
the wrong thing and not knowing,
like, how to start and how to
00:19:49
start in a safe way. And the
challenge when you're going
00:19:52
through a disruptive phase or a
disruptive cycle in the
00:19:57
technical industry is, if you --
it's very easy to use risk as an
00:20:01
excuse to innovate gradually or
incrementally, and generally,
00:20:05
more slowly than the disruptive
players that have a, you know,
00:20:11
stronger risk profile and are
willing to make bigger bets,
00:20:16
right? And that is often how,
you know, captains of industry
00:20:19
can be left behind, right? And
we've seen this prior to AI.
00:20:23
We've seen this in like the
payments space, for instance.
00:20:26
Who would have thought that
like our children would not have
00:20:30
cash and would use things like
Venmo and CashApp, you know?
00:20:33
When we think about just
how that particular sub
00:20:37
segment has disrupted
traditional financial services
00:20:41
and their access to consumer
assets, right? Like, it's just a
00:20:44
pretty interesting example, where
those startup payments companies
00:20:48
had nothing to lose, right? And
the incumbents are trying to
00:20:53
protect, you know,
their current incumbency, but
00:20:57
also figure out how to move
faster and do things that are a
00:21:00
little scary. I think we've
moved past that, like,
00:21:03
just try and figure out how to
get started, and now we're in
00:21:06
this evaluation and judgment
phase, where our customers are
00:21:09
trying to understand, like,
where is the real value? And
00:21:12
what's hard about that, to your
point, it's moving very fast,
00:21:15
but it's unclear where the value
in the AI stack is going to be.
00:21:20
Is it in the data
center processing? Is it in the
00:21:23
LLM? Is it data
ownership? Is it the application
00:21:26
sitting on top of it? Is it
agents? And you just see this
00:21:30
kind of trend jacking that's
happening as technology
00:21:35
providers, consultants, and
enterprises are all trying to
00:21:39
figure out how all this comes
together. I think the one really
00:21:43
strong pattern that has emerged
for me is, whoever experiments
00:21:47
the fastest and most efficiently
wins. And by setting up
00:21:51
experiments where you can pair
domain experts, so subject matter
00:21:56
experts, in important parts of
your business or customer facing
00:22:00
areas of your business that
matter to you with either easy
00:22:03
to use technology or the
technologists or researchers
00:22:07
that can help them apply the
technology to those domain
00:22:11
specific problems that they
deeply understand, that's where
00:22:14
you start to see these eureka
moments. Like, oh, this could be
00:22:17
very valuable.
00:22:19
There's, again, a lot
of experiments getting run. And
00:22:23
so I think it's very, very early
days. And what I'm sure of is
00:22:30
there's a lot of work that
humans do. Drudgery. You know,
00:22:35
tactical, sometimes repetitive,
sometimes interrupt work that
00:22:39
won't need to be done by humans
in the very near future, and we
00:22:44
shouldn't be afraid of that. We
should embrace that, because in
00:22:47
every other industrial cycle
where automation has been a
00:22:51
big part of the transition,
humans have just found more
00:22:54
interesting, high value,
innovative things to do with
00:22:58
their time. And I think that
will be the case with
00:23:01
generative AI and AI more
broadly.
00:23:03
- Yeah, super interesting. In
addition to being a CEO, I know
00:23:07
you are a board member. One of
the things that we have seen is
00:23:10
that sometimes boards aren't
quite sure what their job is in
00:23:14
this AI space, right? And what
do board members need to know,
00:23:16
and how do you think about this
as a board member versus as the
00:23:19
CEO of
00:23:20
an organization? - Sure. I mentor a lot of
operators and executives that
00:23:24
are making the transition from
being an operator, and, you
00:23:26
know, being in the business to
being a board member and having
00:23:29
oversight of the business. And
one of the things I try and
00:23:34
remind them of is, a big
part of their job is to ask the
00:23:38
questions that may not be
obvious to someone who's in it,
00:23:42
right? And sometimes that means
to step back and look at the
00:23:45
long term. Like, and sort of
try and think through the game
00:23:49
theory of, if we do this, and our
competitors do that, and
00:23:52
customers then do this, like,
what will that mean for us? Or
00:23:55
even testing, like, is this
decision a one way door or a two
00:23:58
way door? And helping management
sort of size the scale of some
00:24:03
of the strategic decisions that
they're making, and help them
00:24:06
sort of identify blind spots,
right? Or fill talent gaps.
00:24:11
Or just anticipate, because I
think when you're in
00:24:14
it every day, there is a
tendency to be near term
00:24:17
focused. You know, the public
markets drive this in the
00:24:20
90 day quarterly performance,
which is super short term. Like,
00:24:25
nothing really happens in 90
days. And so also, the board's
00:24:28
job is to keep the long
term viability, growth, and value
00:24:34
of the company in mind. And then
helping management think about
00:24:39
how you're serving your
stakeholders effectively.
00:24:43
There's a lot of coaching in
board work. There is -- there's a
00:24:48
lot of, outside the board
meeting, consideration. Like,
00:24:52
I often leave a board meeting
and two days later is when I sit
00:24:56
down and think, "Oh, I need to
reach out to Stefan, the CEO, and
00:25:00
talk to him about this." Or, "Oh,
this might -- this could be
00:25:02
helpful." And sometimes it's as
simple as, like, I sent a couple
00:25:06
of our board members the CEO
book that was helpful to me,
00:25:08
right? And the book keeps coming
up. It's kind of funny.
00:25:11
Sometimes it's just like a
tactical, simple thing, like,
00:25:14
how can I help you find a
shortcut? Because I've made this
00:25:17
mistake before, so you don't
have to learn it the hard way.
00:25:20
And I think we, often as leaders,
think of our boards as judges,
00:25:25
approvers, you know, our bosses.
And we need to think of our
00:25:29
boards as coaches, experts,
professors, maybe therapists,
00:25:34
mentors, like emergency
response, etcetera. And so I also
00:25:40
think that businesses can
sometimes be a little short in
00:25:47
their thinking about how you
build board culture. How do you
00:25:50
think about the unique role of
every board member in a board? In
00:25:56
my own head, with my board at
PagerDuty, like I have different
00:26:00
roles for every single one of my
board members, I give them,
00:26:02
whether they know it or not, you
know, homework, or I ask them to
00:26:05
help on certain things. And I'll
even -- if they're interviewing
00:26:08
someone for me, I'll even brief
them specifically on what I want
00:26:10
them to cover versus another
board member. So we get the
00:26:14
benefit of that complement of
skills and experiences. And the
00:26:19
last thing that I would say is,
one of the reasons I think board
00:26:23
culture is so important is
because transparency is so
00:26:27
important. Like, you need to feel
confident as a management team
00:26:33
that you can share the big
decisions and the big challenges
00:26:36
with your board in a transparent
way, and give them the
00:26:39
information they need to support
you in making the best possible
00:26:42
decision for the business. And
likewise, as a board, you want a
00:26:46
no surprises environment. Like,
you do not want to be -- there
00:26:50
should never be a surprise in a
board meeting. You should -- the
00:26:53
board should always be pre-
briefed that something's
00:26:55
happening. They should be
briefed incrementally on the
00:26:58
milestones and where you are
against things. And I'm not
00:27:01
perfect at that, but I do work
really hard to make sure nothing --
00:27:04
I don't sneak up on my board. I
don't even like surprises in
00:27:08
terms of flowers and jewelry.
Like, I'm very specific about
00:27:10
what I want. I think board
members are the same. - What's the
00:27:13
book that you recommended? - Oh, I
recommended <i>Working Backwards</i>,
00:27:16
which is a book that Bill Carr
and his partner, who were
00:27:19
executives at Amazon, wrote
about sort of the Amazon way of
00:27:23
starting with the end in mind.
Writing a press release and the
00:27:26
frequently asked questions that
you think you're going to get if
00:27:29
you're successful in delivering
this thing about, really, people
00:27:35
call it memo writing, but it's
really the skill of
00:27:40
summarizing the critical
insights that you want your
00:27:46
reader to focus on, and
distillation of a lot of complex
00:27:50
information that gets to higher
quality decision making and
00:27:54
higher quality execution. And so
I shared that because it's,
00:27:59
a template, and often
getting everybody to use the
00:28:02
same practice creates simplicity
in and of itself. Like, just
00:28:05
getting everybody on the same
page will drive a lot of
00:28:09
efficiency and simplicity and
clarity, even just a vocabulary.
00:28:13
Clarity is everything
right now. - So I know that you
00:28:16
are here today to speak to some
Wharton students, and you
00:28:19
mentioned that your daughter is
in college at the moment. What
00:28:22
advice would you give young
people about navigating their
00:28:25
own professional careers, maybe
especially at this moment? I
00:28:29
just came from lunch with some
MBA students who are finding the
00:28:32
job hunt a little daunting at the moment.
Whatdo you tell them? - You know, I
00:28:37
felt this way as a -- in the
early years of my adulthood, and
00:28:42
I hear this from my daughter
and her peer group, and it's
00:28:45
like, "Well, I should be doing X."
And it's this -- like, we're often
00:28:52
given these paths that
feel a little bit like a salmon
00:28:57
run in a river, you know? Like,
the current is going one way.
00:29:00
Like, you must go into
investment banking and get the
00:29:03
investment banking internship,
and then do your first two years
00:29:05
as an analyst. You must go into
consulting. You must do this.
00:29:09
You should do X. If you don't do
Y, you might never be able to do
00:29:13
Z, right? And I just think so
much of that is BS. Like,
00:29:17
investment banking is a very
small part, an important part,
00:29:21
of the business world, but there
are lots of other ways to build
00:29:25
financial acumen, to build
management acumen. And that's
00:29:27
not to take away from the
wonderful programs these
00:29:31
companies deliver and the
opportunities they create for
00:29:34
young people. But I just wonder
if the mindset could be, "What if
00:29:37
I could?" As opposed to, "I
think I should." Because I just
00:29:42
find so many kids that are like,
"Oh yeah, I did that because it
00:29:45
was what my B-school, you know,
kind of pointed me into that
00:29:48
direction, and I missed this
opportunity to just discover what
00:29:52
I would really be passionate
about." You know, when you're
00:29:54
really passionate about
something, you tend to be better
00:29:56
at it than when you're just
grinding through a checklist or,
00:30:01
you know, working your way up a
ladder. The other thing, you
00:30:05
know, I try and even get my
leaders and people to think
00:30:07
about, is that it's not about the
career ladder. It's more about
00:30:11
the architecture and the
tapestry of all the different
00:30:14
ways that you could go in a
business in service of having a
00:30:19
steep learning curve, of
building a diverse set of
00:30:22
experiences. And, you know, as
generative AI becomes more
00:30:27
and more a part of our daily
work lives and our lifestyles, a
00:30:31
lot of the time that we spend
on, you know, more tedious tasks is
00:30:34
going to go away, and we're
going to have the opportunity to
00:30:37
learn faster and apply new
learnings more effectively, more
00:30:40
quickly, with the benefit of
technology. And so the more
00:30:44
context you have, the better
you're going to be able to
00:30:47
leverage that technology. If you
stay in a narrow lane, you know,
00:30:51
if you're that wild salmon going
down the Copper River, like
00:30:55
you're only seeing one view of
the world. I always say to Sam,
00:30:58
my daughter, like, "Be the bear.
Jump into the river every now
00:31:01
and then, get a salmon, have a
splash, and then get back out
00:31:03
and go wander around in the
woods, and sort of see
00:31:06
what's going on around you." So
the last thing that I would say
00:31:11
is, we have such this finite
period in our lives where only
00:31:15
jobs are really to discover
what's important to us, right?
00:31:19
It's that period of
education, whether it's
00:31:21
undergraduate or, you know, your
graduate program. And that's
00:31:26
just, when you look back in your
fifties and forties and thirties at that
00:31:30
time, you will never say to
yourself, "I tried too many new
00:31:33
things. I discovered too many
new things," right? And I
00:31:38
think that pursuit of getting on
the path, the approved
00:31:45
grade A, five star, whatever
the path is, sometimes means
00:31:50
that you're too focused on the
destination and you miss the
00:31:54
journey, right? You don't -- not
only do not get to enjoy the
00:31:57
ride, you don't get to stop off
at the different places along
00:32:00
the way, which could change the
course of your life, you know?
00:32:03
And so it's,
how do we sort of stop and
00:32:07
reflect on that every now and
then so you feel like you're in
00:32:10
that current? You go, "Wait a
minute, like, could I just take
00:32:13
an elective that has nothing to
do with, you know, my core
00:32:18
program, that's an area that I
just want to discover, I don't
00:32:21
know anything about? That's
maybe with people I don't have
00:32:23
anything in common with. And,
you know, what might I
00:32:26
learn?"
00:32:27
- I love that, and I love the idea
of just making yourself open to
00:32:30
serendipity, and not only as a
young person maybe in an
00:32:33
undergrad or an MBA program, but
I love your idea that that
00:32:36
serendipity throughout your
career is also where you find
00:32:39
maybe the things that you care
most about. - For
00:32:41
sure. One of the challenges we
have in the tech industry right
00:32:43
now is that people tend to
specialize early. And so a
00:32:47
marketing person will, you know,
sort of take the elevator
00:32:50
straight up the marketing shaft
and be a CMO, and they may have
00:32:54
ambitions to be a CEO, but they
don't have the financial acumen.
00:32:57
They haven't owned the product
roadmap. They haven't carried
00:33:00
the revenue bag, so to speak.
And so then all of a sudden,
00:33:03
you're trying to find ways to
give a senior executive exposure
00:33:06
to these things so that they can
capably run the business as a
00:33:10
general manager. And I think the
more leverage we get from
00:33:14
technology, the more some of
these general leadership skills
00:33:18
are going to matter, because the
big, hard calls are going to be
00:33:20
around judgment, ethics, you
know, regulations, you know,
00:33:25
data usage, privacy. Like, some
of these areas that are
00:33:28
becoming more and more important
because of how technology can
00:33:31
leverage them so rapidly. - Yeah,
it leaves us to answer the big
00:33:34
questions. - Yeah. And those
big or the hard questions are,
00:33:36
that's where the fun stuff
lives, you know?
00:33:38
- Yeah, I agree. Thank you so much
for our conversation. I really
00:33:41
enjoyed it. Thank you. - Oh, it's my
pleasure. Thanks for having me.
00:33:43
- Such a pleasure.
00:33:47
- For more insight from Knowledge
at Wharton, please visit
00:33:50
Knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu.
