Grit

Guest: Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice

As the CEO of a growing company, Lattice’s Sarah Franklin has learned that one of her most important contributions is taking a leap of faith. “You have to have the courage to be the first one to do it,” she says,” and to show that it can be done, and to pave the way so that then your team feels trust.”

Sarah cautions, though, that sometimes courage is deciding to stop and go a different direction. As agentic AI becomes more common, the people building companies like Lattice should look to the “cautionary tales” of how social media and mobile phones have changed society, she says.

“We can have the courage to say, what are the outcomes that we want to prevent? Or what are the outcomes that we want to make sure happen? This all takes, courage, because it’s all unknown.”

Chapters:

• (01:14) - Schooling in Mexico

Mentioned in this episode: FaceTime, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Mahatma Gandhi, Instagram, the Fortune 500, Java, Jerry Maguire, National Parks, Nike, Michael Jordan, Apple and “Think Different,” Sara Varni, Scott Holden, Andy Kofoid, Databricks, Datadog, Behind the Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft, Elon Musk, Amazon AWS, George Hu, Mike Rosenbaum, Cheryl Feldman, Zac Otero, Guidewire Software, AI agents, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and LinkedIn.

Links:

Connect with Sarah

• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: David Heinemeier Hansson, CTO & co-owner of 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails 

37signals CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has organized his life around his passions: Writing, racing sports cars, and coding. “ Why aren't we all doing that?” he wonders. “Why aren't we all trying to optimize our life in such a way that much of it is enjoyable?”

Part of the problem, David argues, is that it’s impossible to find a creative or productive flow inside of mainstream work culture. Open offices, managerial over-hiring, and sloppy scheduling prevents people from reaching a flow state.

“40 hours a week is plenty than most people,” he says. “... So many people today are focused on just adding more and more hours. They're not thinking about how those hours are spent.” 

Chapters:

• (01:19) - 24 Hours of Le Mans

Mentioned in this episode: TikTok, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Formula One, NASCAR, Lewis Hamilton, the NBA, Tesla Model S, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Steve McQueen, Jason Fried, Tetris, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber, Elon Musk and Twitter, the Dunbar number, Zappos, Google, Adam Smith, Stripe, Meta, Jeff Bezos, Basecamp, Zapier, 1Password, GitHub, SpaceX, private jets, Aesop, the Pagani Zonda, the Porsche Boxster, Lamborghini, Coco Chanel, LeBron James, Hey, Steve Jobs, Michael Arrington and TechCrunch, Y Combinator, Dr. Thomas Sowell,Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, Grit by Angela Duckworth, and LEGO. 

Links:

Connect with David

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

On this special episode of Grit, we look back at some of the coolest stories and best advice our guests have shared in 2024.

Chapters:

• (00:49) - David Risher on his Amazon easter egg & moving on

#191 CEO & Co-Founder Intercom, Eoghan McCabe: Second Beginning
#209 Former President & CEO Ford, Mark Fields: All Cylinders
#203 CEO Niantic, John Hanke: Buried Ships
#212 Founder Magic Leap & SynthBee Rony Abovitz: Underdog
#202 Chairman of Qualcomm, Mark McLaughlin: The Right Pitch
#189 Co-Founder Watershed, Taylor Francis: Worthy Missions

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: David Heinemeier Hansson, CTO & co-owner of 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails
 

37signals CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has organized his life around his passions: Writing, racing sports cars, and coding. “ Why aren't we all doing that?” he wonders. “Why aren't we all trying to optimize our life in such a way that much of it is enjoyable?”

Part of the problem, David argues, is that it’s impossible to find a creative or productive flow inside of mainstream work culture. Open offices, managerial over-hiring, and sloppy scheduling prevents people from reaching a flow state.

“40 hours a week is plenty than most people,” he says. “... So many people today are focused on just adding more and more hours. They're not thinking about how those hours are spent.” 

Chapters:

• (01:19) - 24 Hours of Le Mans

Mentioned in this episode: TikTok, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Formula One, NASCAR, Lewis Hamilton, the NBA, Tesla Model S, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Steve McQueen, Jason Fried, Tetris, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber, Elon Musk and Twitter, the Dunbar number, Zappos, Google, Adam Smith, Stripe, Meta, Jeff Bezos, Basecamp, Zapier, 1Password, GitHub, SpaceX, private jets, Aesop, the Pagani Zonda, the Porsche Boxster, Lamborghini, Coco Chanel, LeBron James, Hey, Steve Jobs, Michael Arrington and TechCrunch, Y Combinator, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, Grit by Angela Duckworth, and LEGO. 

Links:

Connect with David

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Larry Baer, CEO of the San Francisco Giants

In 1992, Larry Baer was part of the ownership group that bought the San Francisco Giants and successfully prevented the team from being moved to Tampa, Florida. Back then, they had a big problem to solve: An old, uncomfortable ballpark that voters wanted to see replaced, but didn’t want to pay for.

20 years after the construction and financial success of Candlestick Park’s replacement, Oracle Park, Baer — now the CEO of the Giants — embarked on an even bigger project, developing an entire neighborhood near Oracle called Mission Rock. “We’re in the baseball business, but really, we're in the media, entertainment, sports, real estate business,” he says. 

Chapters:

• (01:05) - Growing up a fan

Mentioned in this episode: Barry Bonds, Candlestick Park, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Josh Harris, Larry and Bob Tisch, CBS, Peter Magowan and Safeway, Charles Schwab, Don Fisher, Bill Hewlett, Arthur Rock, Charles Johnson, Harmon Burns, Bank of America, Walter Shorenstein, Dianne Feinstein, Bob Lurie, Bobby Bonds, Dennis Gilbert, Roger Craig, Al Rosen, Dusty Baker, Bob Quinn, Brian Sabean, George Steinbrenner, Bob Lillis, Matt Williams, Greg Johnson, the 1994 baseball strike, Chase Manhattan Bank, Warren Hellman, Jimmy Lee, Pacific Bell, Coca-Cola Company, J.T. Snow, Jeff Kent, Bill Neukom, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Sergio Romo, Hunter Pence, Marco Scutaro, Joseph Lacob and the Golden State Warriors, Tishman Speyer, Al Kelly, Ryan McInerney, Visa, Che Fico, Arsicault, Trick Dog and Josh Harris, the Chase Center, Sam Altman and Open AI, Anthropic, Daniel Lurie, Salesforce and Dreamforce, Imagine Dragons, Pink, the Moscone Center, and Billy Crystal. 

Links:

Connect with Larry

• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Tony Vinciquerra, outgoing CEO of Sony Pictures

Tony Vinciquerra never planned to get into the entertainment business, let alone to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. After seven years, he’s about to leave the CEO role at Sony Pictures (although he will stay on as chairman for one more year) and attributes much of his success to luck: “I’ve been in the right place at the right time a lot of times.” 

That said, he also encourages his children to proactively be curious, something that has served Tony well across his whole career. “I don’t have as deep an education as many of the people that [I] compete with,” he says. “So I try to make up for that by knowing what’s going on and being more curious ... working harder at it and being more — I don’t know what the right word is, but sucking more information in, all the time.”

Chapters:

• (00:54) - The perks of being a studio boss

Mentioned in this episode: Jason Kilar and Warner Bros., Jeff Zucker, John Waldron and Goldman Sachs, FX, Drayton McLane, Netflix, Variety, PlayStation, Spider-Man, Tom Rothman, CBS and Paramount, Comcast and NBC, Disney, Mike Hopkins, Amazon Prime, Funimation, Crunchyroll, Breaking Bad, The Last of Us, HBO, Uncharted, WBZ-TV, the Game Show Network, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Joker: Folie à Deux, Miramax, Here, Tom Hanks, Venom: The Last Dance, Michael Ovitz, Sam Altman and OpenAI, Pixomondo, Neal Mohan and YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, DirecTV and AT&T, NFL Sunday Ticket, Qualcomm, the New York Knicks, the Golden State Warriors, Larry Baer and the San Francisco Giants, Major League Baseball, Walmart and Vizio, Madame Web, Capital Cities, Mark McLaughlin, and Mark Fields and Ford.

Links:

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Jeff Wilke, former CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer and chairman of Re:Build Manufacturing

Jeff Wilke worked more than 20 years at Amazon, overseeing the million-person team that speedily gets packages from warehouses to doorsteps. In hindsight, he observes that Amazon Prime’s exponential growth was actually an incremental daily process.

“I used to say things like, ‘If God was running this plant, whoever is your God ... they can’t violate physical laws. How well would they do?’ And then we know where we are,” Jeff says.

“If we’re perfect in it, compounding over all this time, we’re going to get there. But when you’re in the middle of it, it can feel almost impossible.” 

Chapters:

• (01:37) - Grit and longevity

Mentioned in this episode: Peloton, Andy Jassy, Daniel Kahneman, Zoom, Allied Signal, Toyota and the Gemba Walk, MacKenzie Scott, Bob Thomas and Crucibles of Leadership, David Risher, Toys “R” Us, Amazon Prime, Jeff Blackburn, Louis Pasteur, Netflix, Bill Carr, Steve Kessel, Larry Bossidy, Rick Dalzell, West Point, John Mackey, Liesl Wilke, Tony Hsieh, the Met Gala, Anna Wintour, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tim Tebow, the New York Jets, Shopbob, Gucci, Zara, Cathy Beaudoin, Walmart, Dave Clark, John Doerr, Bill Baumol, and Bing Gordon.

Links:

Connect with Jeff

• Twitter

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Dan Streetman, CEO of Tanium

A graduate of West Point who served in Iraq combat operations, Tanium CEO Dan Streetman can’t help but compare his business career to his military experience. Understanding huge structures and processes is a crucial skill at both Tanium and in the Army, he says, as are the skills for aligning people around a shared mission.

“Before you go on an operation, you write a thing called an operations order ... [and] one of the most important things at the operations order is this paragraph called the commander's intent,” he explains, “which describes how you believe the mission is going to be accomplished and why it's important.”

“You may end up doing something completely different. But as long as you understand the mission and the commander's intent, the organization can do amazing things.”

Chapters:

• (01:05) - Election Day

Mentioned in this episode: Ronald Reagan, Terri Streetman, Ironman Triathlons, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Stanley McChrystal, Jon Abizaid, Charles Jacoby, Thomas Siebel and C3, Salesforce, Bill McDermott, Carl Eschenbach, Marc Benioff, Garmin, Mark McLaughlin, Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, World Series of Poker, Amdocs, David and Orion Hindawi, Citrix, Harvard University, Pets.com, Ben Horowitz, Vista Equity Partners, Vivek Ranadivé, Robert Smith, Operation Warp Speed, BreakLine, Bipul Sinha and Rubrik, Mikhail Gorbachev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, OpenAI and ChatGPT, and Google.

Links:

Connect with Dan

• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy

When 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

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 Josh

• LinkedIn

Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guests: Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder of Codeium; and Leigh Marie Braswell, partner at Kleiner Perkins

“A lot of people are really bad at knowing what good is,” says Codeium CEO Varun Mohan. Specifically, he’s thinking of startups that hire based on a “logo” — a well-known company on the résumé — rather than exceptional talent. Codeium is based in Mountain View, CA, and Varun believes that it’s incumbent on any new startup to hire in the San Francisco Bay Area, because of how exceptional talent is concentrated there. 

“When you hire someone that’s 10x better,” he says, “you can’t replace them with 10 1x people. Because the the 10x person is going to be thinking of ideas that none of these 1x people are ever going to think of.”

Chapters:

• (01:05) - Ludicrous growth

Mentioned in this episode: Graham Moreno, Wiz, ChatGPT, Google, Nuro, Goldman Sachs, Waymo, the DARPA Challenge, Alex Wang, Douglas Chen, Safeway, Equinox, Carlos Delatorre and MongoDB, The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, Exafunction, Mamoon Hamid, Figma, JPMorgan Chase, Starlink, SpaceX, Rubrik, Michael Dell, Stripe, and John Doerr.

Links:

Connect with Varun

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Connect with Leigh Marie

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Connect with Joubin

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected] 

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm