QUALITY OF CHARACTER IS YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

"Hiring is the key.”

John Greathouse, Professor of Practice at UCSB, co-founder of Rincon Ventures and renowned Santa Barbara entrepreneur sat for an extended conversation with Mark and Patrick about teaching, writing, and coaching. John’s a local treasure.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

What’s’ a Professor of Practice – and who else at UCSB is one? Hint, previous podcast guest Trip Hawkins

A brief dip into John’s history which reads like a history of Tech in Santa Barbara

How he manages to fill a room at UCSB with 350 students reliability every quarter.

His three things – you know we love lists of three

– Investing

– Teaching

– Writing

How his 4th-grade teacher told him he was a writer – at that young age. You can now find John’s writing at Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal

Why he loves writing so much (it’s about endorphins firing)

We talked at length about Corporate Ethics (you’ll remember a similar conversation with Sarah about Ethical Marketing)

John tells a great story (that he tells his students) about Contextual Ethics

What’s your company’s Moral Code – with a shout out to another podcast guest, Shaun Tomson – Commit to the Next Wave

Love the story about the Bell Ringer Award that he used to have. You will too.

More about Rincon Ventures and the ethos that they’ve created there

John is such a humble guy, he’d never tell you all of these things. So we’re glad to have gotten him to open up on the show

Bonus: If you can find a clip from the show that he can Mark were on (The Food Network) we’ll send you a postcard of thanks.