What we covered:

• Insights on how to scale a global technology company from 40 to over 7,000 employees.
• How SJ’s leadership strategy is to lead his people to grow and be better than he is after he was gone.
• The importance of great leadership is to create people that can serve their clients better.
• How my years of working with SJ made me a better team member.
• Why it’s important to properly identify what your niche is first before transitioning into adjacent niches and/or another field - this will help your organization function better and find product-market fit quicker.
• Why making maximizing making money is not always the best end goal when it comes to a fulfilling career.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Human nature (dictates that) you’d want to be in your tribe.”

“The requirements and the needs and the way that you dealt with startups vs. larger organizations are much different.”

“One thing people need to understand is everybody has an ego, and everybody is replaceable.”

“Products need to be products. That’s how you run a product company, and it’s different from services. We found the balance at 80% products and 20% services.”

“At Esri, we felt everybody should be compensated equitably across the organization.”

“Sure, I’ve made mistakes, but that is where the learning comes from”.

Links Mentioned:

Kurt’s Twitter

Kurt’s Instagram

Kurt’s LinkedIn

Esri

ArcGIS

SJ Camarata’s LinkedIn

SJ Camarata’s Twitter

Jack Dangermond

The University of Utah

Harvard University

Richard Toth

Carl Steinitz

Charles “Chuck” Killpack

GIS

Scott Morehouse

Jared Diamond