A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

If you heard only the following comment who would you think it’s about?

He was determined to succeed by any means necessary, subordinating questions of right or wrong to the good of his career and driving himself crazy with his hunger for power and control, his hypersensitivity to perceived threats to his independence and stature, and his overarching need to measure up.

Travis Kalanick? Howie Hubler? Parker Conrad?

Nope, none of the above.

What about this quote?

“It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.”

Marc Benioff? Pierre Omidyar? Henry Ford?

Nope, none of the above.

Both the description and the quote are about the same man.

Someone lightly touched on at school, but not explored in any depth, as were those who held the same position at other times.

Certainly most of the information in the article KG shared was new to me and I’ll bet it would be new to most of you.

The person is Herbert Hoover, the 31^st President of the United States.

The book, published last year is “Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times” by Kenneth Whyte.

Read the article (if not the book); you’ll find it very enlightening.

Then choose which parts of Hoover are worth emulating.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Read all Role Model posts here.

These days, people are fixated on success and finding ways to live longer. The latter doesn’t particularly interest me, but I’ve been conscious of the former from early on.

The first thing I did was figure out what “success” meant to me and I’m happy to say I’ve accomplished exactly what I set out to do. I suppose I could still screw it up, but I’d have to work very hard and have no reason or incentive to do so.

Interestingly, I defined it the same way that billionaire Jon huntsman did and for the same reasons.

“I have attended many funerals in my life,” Huntsman said, adding that he had conducted almost 200. “I have never heard in a funeral that this person made a lot of money or is politically very strong. They never discuss that. In a funeral, people discuss how this person was kind or gracious or had character and integrity. … For some people who are not kind, thoughtful or gracious, their funerals are very short. Nobody has anything to say. I learned from the funerals that we must plan our funerals when we are young. Plan your funeral, start early, by being kind.”

One has to wonder what will be said at the funerals of those who choose to do business and act like Travis Kalanick.

Huntsman wrote several books, among them his 2014 memoir Barefoot to Billionaire: Reflections on a Life’s Work and a Promise to Cure Cancer,

“I desire to leave this world as I entered it — barefoot and broke. To many, that may seem like an odd, unrealistic, even foolish thing. Not to me. Too many wealthy people hoard their riches, believing that dying with a large bank account is a virtue. I read about one woman who died and left her dog $10 million. What’s a dog going to do with that kind of money? Help other dogs? I see it another way: If I die with nothing because I have given it away, humanity is the beneficiary.”

Through both word and deed we all can learn from Jon Huntsman — most especially those who move in the world of tech where kindness is in such short supply.

Image credit: Wikipedia

I’ve been ranting for years about the negative effects of social media and how it lends itself to insecurity, FOMA, jealously, etc., how it enables trolls, kills empathy and, worse, its unmitigated, conscious focus on addicting its users in exactly the same way heroin addicts.

Of course, I’m not the only one; psychiatrists and psychologists, educators, parents, and a host of pundits have weighed in.

Everyone knows that actions speak louder than words, so it is telling that the biggest names in tech kept tech away from their kids and far away from the schools they attend.

This in spite of giving millions in cash and product to enable schools to embrace tech.

Since it’s proven that screens kill empathy, not to mention engagement, their actions will give their own kids a major advantage in adulthood, since empathy and critical thinking will be at a premium.

If the hypocrisy doesn’t encourage you to seriously limit screen time, no matter the howls of outrage, perhaps the new voices condemning the addiction and warning of the dangers will carry far more weight.

Why?

Because they are the people who helped create the problems, starting with Tristan Harris, a former in-house ethicist at Google.

“The largest supercomputers in the world are inside of two companies — Google and Facebook — and where are we pointing them?” Mr. Harris said. “We’re pointing them at people’s brains, at children.”

The new Center for Humane Technology includes an unprecedented alliance of former employees of some of today’s biggest tech companies. Apart from Mr. Harris, the center includes Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager; Lynn Fox, a former Apple and Google communications executive; Dave Morin, a former Facebook executive; Justin Rosenstein, who created Facebook’s Like button and is a co-founder of Asana; Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook; and Renée DiResta, a technologist who studies bots, and Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist who was an early employee at Facebook, said in November that the social network was “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

Read the article and then decide whose side you are on — the hypocrites or the social angels.

Image credit: NotionsCapital.com

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

My mother was born a century ago in San Francisco; growing up I spent at least part of every summer vacation there; as an adult I lived there for 25 years starting in 1977.

One constant in all that time was the truth of the saying, “San Francisco is 49 sq miles surrounded by reality” (not original to 60 Minutes).

That was true when my mother was growing up and probably before that.

It is still true, only now it applies to the South Bay, as well as parts of the East Bay.

The Bay Area has always marched to its own, different drummer, but that drummer has lost its mind.

Or maybe it’s not the different drummer, but that the inmates really are running the asylum (pardon the mixed metaphors).

These days, tech is the drummer and the inmates are the billionaires enamored with their own visions of a world created for the 1%.

Elon Musk is a prime example as is Peter Thiel.

Talk about guys with a god complex.

Perhaps we should revive an old roman custom — no, not feeding the 99% to the lions; that’s already happening.

Rather the one that reminded the 1% that they were not gods.

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I love occasionally sharing Wally’s posts. I consider him one of the clearest thinkers on real leadership — he makes sense, as opposed to noise. In this one he uses Douglas MacArthur to illustrate something many so-called leaders have either forgotten or ignored.

Despite the moniker “Dugout Doug,” Douglas MacArthur was an exceedingly brave man who was often heedless of danger. In his book, American Caesar, William Manchester tells about the time MacArthur was asked about why he remained in dangerous circumstances instead of seeking cover.

The General replied: “If I do it, the colonels will do it. If the colonels do it, the captains will do it, and so on.” That’s the MacArthur Maxim, what you do sets the example for the people who work for you.

The people who work for you will watch you carefully. They will pay attention to the things you pay attention to. They will be as ethical or not as you are. They will work as hard as you do. What you notice and reward, they will value.

You must make sure that your actions and your words deliver the same message. Which brings us to the Lazarus Corollary to the MacArthur Maxim.

Shelly Lazarus is the Chairman Emeritus of Ogilvy and Mather and former Worldwide Chairman and CEO. Many people consider her a role model. She’s not entirely comfortable with that, but she takes her role as a role model seriously indeed and she works consciously to make sure her actions and her words match up. The following quote is from her pre-Emeritus days.

“I know that work-family balance is important … I choose always to go to the school play, and field day and all that [because] it gives other women in the company, or clients, the confidence to be able to say, ‘I’m going, too.’”

Your example is the most powerful tool you have to influence the behavior of the people who work for you. Make sure you set the example you want and that the example you set and the one you talk about match up.

Reading Resource

American Caesar is William Manchester’s excellent biography of Douglas MacArthur. Manchester’s experience as a Marine who fought in the Pacific side of World War II gives him some special insight and he manages to capture both the genius and absurd posturing of Douglas MacArthur.

Copyright © 2017 Wally Bock, All rights reserved.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Winning takes many forms, as Ryan pointed out yesterday.

Let’s face it, we are not all going to be the next Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

But there seems to be plenty of room for us all to push a bit harder each day and surround ourselves with winners.

It is up to us to make that happen.

Not all winners desire to be founders anymore than all founders are winners.

I doubt anyone would/could/should minimize the abilities, skills, intelligence, and sheer grit that lands a person in a top senior role at a multibillion dollar tech company, such as Microsoft.

Achieving positions at that level are neither accidental nor serendipitous.

Now, imagine a future in which you are a winner of whatever kind and writing the summary paragraph of your LinkedIn profile.

What would you say when summing up what you did and how you accomplished it? What would you consider your major accomplishments?

Would it read anything like this? (Emphasis mine.)

“I am passionate about building technology that gets out of the way so you can focus on what matters most. My mantra ‘people first, technology second’ has been the driving force in my career. My focus has been leading teams and incubating new technologies and experiences to re-imagine the platform for intelligent work. In my career, I’ve helped build products, including Office, Windows, Internet Explorer, Xbox and Surface, that touch more than a billion people every day. As a leader, it’s important that my door always be open — to embrace everyone’s individual perspective, personality, style and abilities to makes my teams stronger — and creating a culture that the best ideas can come from anyone and anywhere.”

Is this someone worth emulating? Someone you’d want to hire?

Would your answer change when you learned this someone is a woman?

Because it is; she is Julie Larson-Green.

And it is the last 14 words of her summary that truly proclaim her a winner — by any standard.

Image credit: HikingArtist

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Ask most tech founders about role models and who they want to emulate and you’ll usually hear the same names —  Gates/Jobs/Page/Zukerberg/Bezos.

Rarely do you hear Benioff.

Granted, Benioff’s Salesforce’s revenues aren’t as high and the valuation is “only” $66 billion, but Salesforce sells no consumer products — ads are products — therefore has a much smaller market.

Revenues aside, Benioff is a much better leader and role model.

Not just a philanthropist, but an activist philanthropist who is not afraid to use his clout and get in the face of his peers.

Given the same clout, would you do the same thing?

A guy who believes a company’s concerns should go beyond its investors to include all its stakeholders, direct and indirect.

How far beyond yourself do your concerns go?

Tech’s been on the hot seat lately for a host of reasons, with gender issues front and center, especially equal pay.

Most, including the “role models” listed above, have been vocal in their promises to address the pay disparity.

Benioff, however, has put his money where their mouths are.

In 2015, his company did a salary study, and it turned out they needed to make some changes. So they spent $3M to level the playing field. A year later, they put salaries under the microscope again and found they had to spend another $3M to close additional pay gaps.

Now Benioff has pledged to evaluate salaries on a regular basis. For this and more, he was named a “Global Champion of Women in Business.”

And before you whine about not having enough cash to do that stop and think.

If you pay your people equally when you hire and promote there wouldn’t be a pay gap for you to erase.

Image credit: HikingArtist

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Arrogance seems to be a constant, whether in the cowboy heroes of yesterday or the “leader heroes” of today. Or perhaps we should say “unhero.”

Travis Kalanick is a true unhero and a good, if overused, example of above and beyond arrogance.

He publicly claimed he would be “Steve Jobs-ing” his dismissal and would return as CEO.

He still claims this in spite of a statement from Uber co-founder and director Garrett Camp, who says Kalanick will not return as CEO.

His “Steve Jobs-ing” comment refers to Jobs being forced out, but ignores the full story of how Jobs came back and what he did in the meantime (founded another company that Apple ended up acquiring).

What Jobs did NOT do was hire an advisory company that specialized in “CEO & Leadership positioning.”

“Through our close relationships with the world’s leading editors, reporters, producers, and hosts at top-tier print, online, and broadcast outlets, we develop and execute strategic, results-driven media engagement programs for CEOs that leverage traditional and social media platforms.”

More prosaically, it’s called spin.

In public relations and politics, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing a biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to persuade public opinion in favor or against some organization or public figure. … “spin” often implies the use of disingenuous, deceptive, and highly manipulative tactics.

In short, spin alleviates the necessity of actually changing.

All Kalanick needs to do is write a check, probably a sizable one, and Teneo, the company he hired, will sell the “new” Kalanick to the world.

All hail personal growth and authenticity — the myths of Silicon Valley — along with meritocracy.

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If you are interested in authentic personal growth be sure to check out this month’s Leadership Development Carnival.

Image credit: HikingArtist

I’ll bet you remember GoDaddy’s incredibly sexist commercials and bikinied conference models.

But did you notice that they totally stopped in 2013; they didn’t taper off, just stopped?

Obviously, something changed. It couldn’t have been public outrage; that had never bothered GoDaddy bosses before.

What happened was the installation of Blake Irving as CEO.

Irving not only stopped the ads, he set out to radically change a toxic culture that could easily have destroyed the company.

Culture starts at the top and its values and attitudes seep down throughout the organization.

That means change must also come from the top, but seepage won’t effect change.

Change requires structural and enforceable process change.

The answer is more complicated than just stamping out overt sexism. GoDaddy also focused on attacking the small, subtle biases that can influence everything from how executives evaluate employees to how they set salaries.

This was partly accomplished by changing the language, so that managers would evaluate impact as opposed to character.

“You can’t change a place just by hiring more women,” said Ms. Weissman, the senior vice president, who oversees a technical staff. “You have to create a safe space to talk about the assumptions all of us have. You have to work against the biases.”

Are the efforts paying off?

Today, almost a quarter of GoDaddy’s employees are women, including 21 percent of its technical staff. Half of new engineers hired last year were female, and women make up 26 percent of senior leadership. Female technologists, on average, earn slightly more than their male counterparts.

Who’d a’thunk it?

Go Daddy as one of the nation’s most inclusive tech companies and a top workplace for women and a lodestone of gender equity.

The company’s policies on equal pay, its methods for recruiting a diverse work force and its approach to promoting women and minorities had been lauded inside business schools and imitated at other firms.

Uber et al. take note.

With truly committed leadership a leopard can change its spots.

Image credit: jdog90

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Bill “Badger Bill” Whyte, founder of W.S. Badger, with $16 million in revenue and 100 employees, is an excellent role model for any entrepreneur who wants to grow and run a successful, socially responsible business that treats its people fairly. His thoughts on the subject are succinct and simple.

“You can be financially successful and be a big jerk, or you can be financially successful and be a contributor to making the world better. I know which way I’d like Badger to move.”

Other great founder role models include Anand Sanwal of CB Insights and Marc Benioff of Salesforce, among many others.

However, if you are looking instead for a role model that represents the worst of Silicon Valley look no further than Evan Spiegel.

Spiegel’s boundless arrogance was on full show in the company’s first earnings call with analysts.

During the event, many analysts’ questions about the company were dismissed by Mr. Spiegel. None of the executives made a particularly impassioned case for why the business would be a success over the long term.

But what else would you expect from founders who already dumped much of their stock?

Spiegel, his co-founder Bobby Murphy and Snap’s largest venture investor, Benchmark, sold significant amounts of their stock when the company went public

Along with the current $2.2 billion loss is the whistleblower lawsuit claiming the pre-IPO metrics were inflated.

Malcolm Berko provided the best comment I’ve seen regarding all those who ignored the warnings in the prospectus, bought the stock, and are complaining.

When greed succeeds, everyone smiles. When greed fails, everyone wails.

Image credit: HikingArtist