The Exchanges

Q I mean, I would absolutely, sorry, while I have the chance, I have to ask, in terms of the examples on the international growth and those markets expansion side, what are some examples that stand out to you?

A So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan. We were not as big as the local competitor in Japan at the time. I think they were called Mixi. And when we dug into the metrics in Japan, we noticed that most people were not inviting their friends. And when we compared the conversion rates in Japan versus in other parts of the world, there was a big drop-off occurring in Japan on that invite step. And when we dug into it and talked with our country manager in Japan and the team there, they said, you know, it's just a cultural thing. It's considered rude to invite people to a new thing like this, and that's why everyone's skipping that step, and so what we did, it was actually a fairly minor tweak. Instead of calling them invites, we called them announcements, and we said, now that you've signed up for Facebook, why don't you let Facebook announce to all of your friends that you're now on Facebook, and this is where they find you, and suddenly everyone started saying, sure, I'll, I'll let Facebook announce this to all of my friends, and just by changing the wording, It was more culturally accepted, and Japan went from one of our slowest growing countries to one of our fastest growing countries. Shortly after that, we surpassed our local competitor in Japan.

AI assessment note: “So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan.”

Q I mean, I would absolutely, sorry, while I have the chance, I have to ask, in terms of the examples on the international growth and those markets expansion side, what are some examples that stand out to you?

A So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan. We were not as big as the local competitor in Japan at the time. I think they were called Mixi. And when we dug into the metrics in Japan, we noticed that most people were not inviting their friends. And when we compared the conversion rates in Japan versus in other parts of the world, there was a big drop-off occurring in Japan on that invite step. And when we dug into it and talked with our country manager in Japan and the team there, they said, you know, it's just a cultural thing. It's considered rude to invite people to a new thing like this, and that's why everyone's skipping that step, and so what we did, it was actually a fairly minor tweak. Instead of calling them invites, we called them announcements, and we said, now that you've signed up for Facebook, why don't you let Facebook announce to all of your friends that you're now on Facebook, and this is where they find you, and suddenly everyone started saying, sure, I'll, I'll let Facebook announce this to all of my friends, and just by changing the wording, It was more culturally accepted, and Japan went from one of our slowest growing countries to one of our fastest growing countries. Shortly after that, we surpassed our local competitor in Japan.

AI assessment note: “So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan.”

Q I mean, I would absolutely, sorry, while I have the chance, I have to ask, in terms of the examples on the international growth in those markets expansion side, what are some examples that stand out to you?

A So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan. We were not as big as the local competitor in Japan at the time. I think they were called Mixi. And when we dug into the metrics in Japan, we noticed that most Most people were not inviting their friends. And when we compared the conversion rates in Japan versus in other parts of the world, there was a big drop off occurring in Japan on that invite step. And when we dug into it and talked with our country manager in Japan and the team there, they said, you know, it's just a cultural thing. It's considered rude to invite people to a new thing like this. And that's why everyone's skipping that step. And so what we did, it was actually a fairly minor tweak. Instead of calling them invites, we called them announcements. And we said, now that you've signed up for Facebook, why don't you let Facebook announce to all of your friends that you're now on Facebook and this is where they find you? And suddenly everyone started saying, sure, I'll, I'll let Facebook announce this to all of my friends. And just by changing the wording, it was more culturally accepted. And Japan went from one of our slowest growing countries to one of our fastest growing countries. Shortly after that, we surpassed our local competitor in Japan.

AI assessment note: “So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan.”

Q I mean, I would absolutely, sorry, while I have the chance, I have to ask, in terms of the examples on the international growth in those markets expansion side, what are some examples that stand out to you?

A So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan. We were not as big as the local competitor in Japan at the time. I think they were called Mixi. And when we dug into the metrics in Japan, we noticed that most Most people were not inviting their friends. And when we compared the conversion rates in Japan versus in other parts of the world, there was a big drop off occurring in Japan on that invite step. And when we dug into it and talked with our country manager in Japan and the team there, they said, you know, it's just a cultural thing. It's considered rude to invite people to a new thing like this. And that's why everyone's skipping that step. And so what we did, it was actually a fairly minor tweak. Instead of calling them invites, we called them announcements. And we said, now that you've signed up for Facebook, why don't you let Facebook announce to all of your friends that you're now on Facebook and this is where they find you? And suddenly everyone started saying, sure, I'll, I'll let Facebook announce this to all of my friends. And just by changing the wording, it was more culturally accepted. And Japan went from one of our slowest growing countries to one of our fastest growing countries. Shortly after that, we surpassed our local competitor in Japan.

AI assessment note: “So one that comes to mind is actually in Japan.”

Q you, but I always love to start with a little bit of context. So tell me, when you think about how you made your way into the world of startups, and how you came to lead some of the most powerful and fantastic growth organizations with the likes of Facebook and Uber, what did that entry into startups and growth look like for you, and can you provide that context?

A Sure. Well, for me, the story actually begins a little over 20 years ago. I'm dating myself now, but I built my first website back when I was in college. It was called datesite.com, and the way it worked, it was a crush site, so you'd put in email addresses of people you had a crush on, they'd get an email saying somebody likes you, and they'd have to put in email addresses of people they had crushes on, and if you matched up, it would say, you've got a match. I launched that on Valentine's Day of 1999 at Harvard, and within one week, a quarter of all the students at Harvard had signed up for it. So for me, that was my first time, one, building a website, but two, seeing exponential growth on the internet. And I was studying physics at the time and was really intrigued by that exponential growth that just happened kind of on its own. I started kind of iterating on a growth model, coming up with a framework for this is how you measure a viral loop. This is how you calculate the K factor. If the K factor gets above one, you get exponential growth. And then fast forwarding a few years when Facebook launched their app Platform. I found that to be a great place to experiment with building viral apps, and I built several silly apps that all grew to millions of users just through this viral loop, and then I ended up starting a company right after going to Stanford Business School call…

AI assessment note: “for me, the story actually begins a little over 20 years ago.”

Q you, but I always love to start with a little bit of context. So tell me, when you think about how you made your way into the world of startups, and how you came to lead some of the most powerful and fantastic growth organizations with the likes of Facebook and Uber, what did that entry into startups and growth look like for you, and can you provide that context?

A Sure. Well, for me, the story actually begins a little over 20 years ago. I'm dating myself now, but I built my first website back when I was in college. It was called datesite.com, and the way it worked, it was a crush site, so you'd put in email addresses of people you had a crush on, they'd get an email saying somebody likes you, and they'd have to put in email addresses of people they had crushes on, and if you matched up, it would say, you've got a match. I launched that on Valentine's Day of 1999 at Harvard, and within one week, a quarter of all the students at Harvard had signed up for it. So for me, that was my first time, one, building a website, but two, seeing exponential growth on the internet. And I was studying physics at the time and was really intrigued by that exponential growth that just happened kind of on its own. I started kind of iterating on a growth model, coming up with a framework for this is how you measure a viral loop. This is how you calculate the K factor. If the K factor gets above one, you get exponential growth. And then fast forwarding a few years when Facebook launched their app Platform. I found that to be a great place to experiment with building viral apps, and I built several silly apps that all grew to millions of users just through this viral loop, and then I ended up starting a company right after going to Stanford Business School call…

AI assessment note: “for me, the story actually begins a little over 20 years ago.”

Q has achieved product market fit, how do we think about, as you said, they kind of, you joined Uber to kind of start and structure that growth team. How should we think about the first steps in terms of structuring? Do you structure with a growth leader first? Do you structure with kind of growth reps, product managers? How do you think about the first steps to structuring that growth

A I look at both Facebook and Uber as examples, just because I was on both of those teams. And I, I think those companies have done quite well. And in both of those cases, they had separate growth teams where the growth leader reported directly to the CEO. And these teams were structured cross-functionally. A lot of the reason Uber was this way is I basically took everything I learned from Facebook and built the Uber growth team in this way. But when I say cross-functional, there were basically five Key functions on the growth team, product, design, engineering, marketing, and data science or analytics. I think the five critical functional teams, when I started the team at Uber, I only had five people on my team on day one. So I said, all right, Mike, you're going to run product, you know, Curtis, you're going to run engineering and so on. We found someone to run design, to run marketing and to run analytics. And that was the initial team. And some of these people You know, the first woman who ran our growth marketing team, she had never done marketing before, but because it was at such an early stage, we just had these passionate people that were eager to learn and just dove in and did it.

AI assessment note: “they had separate growth teams where the growth leader reported directly to the CEO”

Q challenge with scale. I mean, that relationship's a challenge with scale to have that intensity and inclusion. The other one that you touched on earlier is the relationship between product and growth that becomes more frictionful with scale. How do you think about creating seamless lines of communication with products And trying to remove as much friction as possible. Is there anything that can be done to remove those barriers?

A I think the most important thing to do when you have a growth team and a product team over communication between the, the head of product and the head of growth at Uber, I sat right next to Jeff Holden, our chief product officer, and we would try to communicate as frequently as possible about things. And that the times we ran into bumps along the road were probably times that we just Hadn't communicated well. And it's not just, just the two leaders communicating, but you really want the teams communicating too. I think setting up just regular weekly meetings where you get all the product leaders and growth leaders in a room discuss, here's what we've been working on this past week. And here's what we're going to be working on going forward over the next week, figuring out, are there potential areas of overlap we need to be able to discuss? Then there's also kind of the more formal roadmap Planning that we would do every six months where we would spend more time trying to make sure that we had just said, okay, here's the stuff products going to work on. Here's the stuff growth will work on. So you kind of draw those two circles, and ideally, you don't have overlap there. But even if you draw those ahead of time, and it looks like there won't be overlap, inevitably, there will be some areas of overlap, and that's where just the frequent communication, I think, can make a big diff…

AI assessment note: “setting up just regular weekly meetings where you get all the product leaders and growth leaders”

Q Can I ask as an example, sorry, for like Facebook and Uber, what would the North Star metric be? Because there could be so many. What would you say there were?

A Well, so at Facebook, when I was there, the North Star metric was monthly active users. So that was the metric that the entire growth team was looking at every single And every week we'd have a team meeting where we'd say, how much has MAU grown or not in the past week and why? And by having that North Star metric, we could then say to everyone on the team, if you're not working on something that's moving this metric in a positive way, you're probably not working on the most important thing. Similarly at Uber, our North Star metric, in fact, one of the first things I did when I started the growth team at Uber was said to the team, we've got to come up with our North Star metric. We decided on, instead of something like monthly active riders, We said, well, it's a two-sided marketplace. We need a metric that encapsulates both sides of the marketplace. So we did weekly trips because every trip requires a rider and a driver. And so that was the metric that we aligned the entire team around and said, this is the metric we need to move. Back to your original question, the nice to haves versus the needle movers. I think one of the most important things of any product leader or growth leader is prioritization. And it becomes a lot easier to prioritize things when you can ask the question, how much is this likely to move our North star metric? A lot of times you don't, obviously don't …

AI assessment note: “at Facebook, when I was there, the North Star metric was monthly active users.”

Q has achieved product market fit, how do we think about, as you said, they kind of, you joined Uber to kind of start and structure that growth team. How should we think about the first steps in terms of structuring? Do you structure with a growth leader first? Do you structure with kind of growth reps, product managers? How do you think about the first steps to structuring that growth

A I look at both Facebook and Uber as examples, just because I was on both of those teams. And I, I think those companies have done quite well. And in both of those cases, they had separate growth teams where the growth leader reported directly to the CEO. And these teams were structured cross-functionally. A lot of the reason Uber was this way is I basically took everything I learned from Facebook and built the Uber growth team in this way. But when I say cross-functional, there were basically five Key functions on the growth team, product, design, engineering, marketing, and data science or analytics. I think the five critical functional teams, when I started the team at Uber, I only had five people on my team on day one. So I said, all right, Mike, you're going to run product, you know, Curtis, you're going to run engineering and so on. We found someone to run design, to run marketing and to run analytics. And that was the initial team. And some of these people You know, the first woman who ran our growth marketing team, she had never done marketing before, but because it was at such an early stage, we just had these passionate people that were eager to learn and just dove in and did it.

AI assessment note: “when I say cross-functional, there were basically five Key functions on the growth team”

Q need to build out a growth team, and I've never done it before. I'm very young. I have no idea what great looks like in terms of growth or product minds. I just need your help here, and so when we think about the first steps, how should I literally structure the process of hiring ahead of growth, and for me to map out, what should those stages look like?

A Got it. I think the first step is to decide on where do you want growth to live within the organization? I can share examples with you of companies I've invested in, for example, that have decided growth should live within product. In that case, you know, the company I'm working with right now, whoop, that's where growth lives within whoop right now. And we actually had someone on the team is a product manager, but he was very analytical and was actually working on a lot of Growth related stuff. He's now driving a lot of the growth efforts within whoop underneath the product team. That's one way to do it. If you have someone on your team already, who is really more of like a very like quantitative and analytical, ideally all product managers. But if you have someone who's like, especially good at that kind of stuff, maybe that could be your growth leader. I'd say, alternatively, another way to do it is to say, you know what, we're going to go out and hire someone externally, someone who has a lot of growth expert You know, and that's what the CEO at Uber did with me when he brought me over from Facebook to Uber. He just said, all right, Ed, start our growth team. Go. So I think either way can work, but I think if you're going to hire someone externally to start up a new growth team within the company, it's really important. I think that that person has had experience on a growt…

AI assessment note: “the first step is to decide on where do you want growth to live”

Q do I need to have a very clearly defined package of what I'm trying to hire you at Or do I, am I able to say, I don't actually know what this North Star metric is. I don't actually know how we're going to structure growth within the organization, but that's what I'm hiring you for. Or does it need to be more packaged like a traditional role might be?

A I think the more senior the leader is that you're recruiting, the less defined the role needs to be. So if you're bringing someone in and saying, look, I need you to, to basically figure out growth, come in here, you figure out our North Star metrics. You figure out how to structure the team. You know, if you've hired someone who has the experience to do that, that's great, and a lot of the more experienced people want to be able to come up with that. They don't want to be told, here's how you need to structure your team, and here's the metric you need to grow. You know, maybe someone who doesn't have as much experience would like that guidance, but I think the more experienced leaders, they want to do that on their own. I think, as I mentioned to you, first week I was at Uber, it was all about, let's figure out what our North Star metric And I was glad I was able to figure that out with my team rather than being told this is what it is. So I think it's perfectly okay not to have all those answers before you hire that growth leader. You just need to make sure you hire. That's why we talked about path one and path two. If you go down path two, just make sure you hire someone who does have that experience so that you can trust them to know the right way to do this stuff.

AI assessment note: “the more senior the leader is that you're recruiting, the less defined the role needs to be.”

Q challenge with scale. I mean, that relationship's a challenge with scale to have that intensity and inclusion. The other one that you touched on earlier is the relationship between product and growth that becomes more frictionful with scale. How do you think about creating seamless lines of communication with products And trying to remove as much friction as possible. Is there anything that can be done to remove those barriers?

A I think the most important thing to do when you have a growth team and a product team over communication between the, the head of product and the head of growth at Uber, I sat right next to Jeff Holden, our chief product officer, and we would try to communicate as frequently as possible about things. And that the times we ran into bumps along the road were probably times that we just Hadn't communicated well. And it's not just, just the two leaders communicating, but you really want the teams communicating too. I think setting up just regular weekly meetings where you get all the product leaders and growth leaders in a room discuss, here's what we've been working on this past week. And here's what we're going to be working on going forward over the next week, figuring out, are there potential areas of overlap we need to be able to discuss? Then there's also kind of the more formal roadmap Planning that we would do every six months where we would spend more time trying to make sure that we had just said, okay, here's the stuff products going to work on. Here's the stuff growth will work on. So you kind of draw those two circles, and ideally, you don't have overlap there. But even if you draw those ahead of time, and it looks like there won't be overlap, inevitably, there will be some areas of overlap, and that's where just the frequent communication, I think, can make a big diff…

AI assessment note: “setting up just regular weekly meetings where you get all the product leaders”

Q as the kind of leader of the growth team, that is partly your role to instill, and I do want to touch on kind of the management aspect of being that growth leader, because, you know, as we said, starting Uber's growth team, and then both at Facebook and Uber, where it scaled quite incredibly, how do you think your management style changed, managing smaller versus much larger growth teams?

A So I think in the early days, when our growth team was only five people, I was Very much in the weeds myself. And I was running product experiments myself and really like deeply in the weeds. When our team got bigger, by the time I left Uber, the growth team was over 500 people. My role became much more one of managing people who are managing people who are managing people. I still like to get into the weeds, but I just wasn't able to do it nearly as much when I had that larger team. For me, that was one of the biggest differences between having A small team versus having a larger team was just my role became much more about helping other people become growth leaders themselves, as opposed to doing the work myself.

AI assessment note: “my role became much more about helping other people become growth leaders themselves”

Q everything's just one-sided, if it's like driver acquisition or demand, right? So it's great in terms of the weekly trips. We mentioned the word growth a lot. Obviously, this show is focused on growth, and we both hear the term thrown around so much. I'd love to start with actually kind of how you think about it, and like, how do you define growth and like head of growth today?

A I think at a high level, it comes back to what I was just talking about, which is moving that Northstar metric. So I think of growth as a cross-functional team effort to move the metric that ultimately drives the growth of the business. And usually that North star metric is correlated with revenue. So ultimately it's driving more revenue for the business. The reason I don't use revenue though, as a North star metric is I think it's helpful to have something that's a bit more tangible, like how many trips are happening every week or how many users are on Facebook every month. I think of growth is just like, whatever you have to do. To grow that number faster falls under growth. And that can include marketing that can include product. In fact, a lot of times it is product driven changes that tends to be what I like to focus on the most at Uber. We found that there's also an operations component to grow, you know, actually onboarding all of these drivers. There's that in-person component to it with all the teams on the ground who are inspecting vehicles and making sure drivers pass background checks and all that stuff. So there's also that operations component. Component to growth. So it's really a cross-functional thing. It's not just marketing or not just products, you know, it's, it's everything combined.

AI assessment note: “I think of growth as a cross-functional team effort to move the metric”

Q How much of a role does K-Factor play in your product market fit assessment, and how do you think about analyzing K-Factor today?

A I think very few products have K-Factors above one these days. It's just a lot harder to get things to go viral these days. I don't pay too much attention to K-Factors these days. I do think that if you have Even a K factor below one, it can make a significant difference in things like CAC and LTV and the unit economics of a business. Because even with a K factor of something like .5, you're basically able to acquire twice as many customers for the same marketing cost. I do think that kind of stuff matters. I feel like K factor is something that can be optimized over time and is not the first thing I look for in a company I'm considering investing in.

AI assessment note: “I don't pay too much attention to K-Factors these days.”

Q board with all the traditional elements, me and you have a, like, check-in at the end of the month, what should I, as a CEO, expect or be really happy about that you've stabilized the foundations on, you've gained knowledge on in the first month? When you think back to your times with, say, Uber, what did you want to achieve in that first month and really understand with clarity?

A Let's figure out what our North Star metric is, where are we today, and where do we want to be in the future? One of the first things that needs to happen, or any growth leader, is to just figure out, what is the goal? Once you figure out, okay, this is our goal, then the next step is, what are some of the things we're going to do to get there? So within that first month, you probably haven't yet found a needle move, or maybe you have, if you've been lucky, but usually things take a bit longer than that, but to at least have a plan in terms of, okay, this is our North Star metric, this is where we are today, this is where we want to be by the end of the year, or maybe you don't even have by the end of the year, this is where we want to be within the next Six months. And then say, and here are some of the bigger swings we want to take to try to find step changes to get there. And then I'd say the next step from there is say, and here's what I need from you, the CEO, to help me get there. I'd say it's almost a red flag if the person you've just hired is not asking you for help as founder or CEO. You want someone who's going to come in and say, all right, I figured out where I want to be and how I'm going to get there, but here are the things I need from you to help me get there.

AI assessment note: “So within that first month... to at least have a plan in terms of”

Q everything's just one-sided, if it's like driver acquisition or demand, right? So it's great in terms of the weekly trips. We mentioned the word growth a lot. Obviously, this show is focused on growth, and we both hear the term thrown around so much. I'd love to start with actually kind of how you think about it, and like, how do you define growth and like head of growth today?

A I think at a high level, it comes back to what I was just talking about, which is moving that Northstar metric. So I think of growth as a cross-functional team effort to move the metric that ultimately drives the growth of the business. And usually that North star metric is correlated with revenue. So ultimately it's driving more revenue for the business. The reason I don't use revenue though, as a North star metric is I think it's helpful to have something that's a bit more tangible, like how many trips are happening every week or how many users are on Facebook every month. I think of growth is just like, whatever you have to do. To grow that number faster falls under growth. And that can include marketing that can include product. In fact, a lot of times it is product driven changes that tends to be what I like to focus on the most at Uber. We found that there's also an operations component to grow, you know, actually onboarding all of these drivers. There's that in-person component to it with all the teams on the ground who are inspecting vehicles and making sure drivers pass background checks and all that stuff. So there's also that operations component. Component to growth. So it's really a cross-functional thing. It's not just marketing or not just products, you know, it's, it's everything combined.

AI assessment note: “I think of growth as a cross-functional team effort to move the metric”

Q Do you think that intensity that he brought made you, and that granular involvement that he brought that maybe other CEOs don't, did that make you better as a growth team, or the same, or worse?

A I think it made us better, you know, because he was so passionate about it, That rubbed off on everyone else, myself who did. And he cared so much. I think it made everyone else care even more. People saw the things they had worked on that past week. We'd present something to him on that Friday, and he'd dig in and be talking to the person who had worked on that, and just, he didn't care, like, is this someone who just joined the company last week that was their first job out of college? Like, he would just, like, engage with them and get into the weeds with them, and that was awesome. And I think it just made people see the work I'm doing It really matters. I think that's a great way for a CEO to be. Like I said, as the company gets bigger, I think it's not possible to do that once a company gets too big, unfortunately, but I think for smaller companies, that's the way it should be.

AI assessment note: “I think it made us better, you know, because he was so passionate about it”

Q I mean, he was at Uber and Facebook running gross teams. I can't ask him to do a challenge problem. I mean, he'll react so adversely. How would you respond to founders who worry about giving challenge problems to people who have run very significant organizations, and they feel almost that they have to impress them so much and sell so hard? How would you advise them in that situation?

A I mean, if this is someone who's going to be working with you, you only want to hire someone who's willing to do that work. You've got to, like, feel like both of you are in on this thing, and both of you are willing to put the time in on it. So I don't know if that's a good answer, but I'd say, like, don't be afraid to ask people to do some work. Sometimes you might need to get them excited about the position before you say, hey, come in and answer this challenge problem. So you might have to do a little bit of selling beforehand to get them excited about it. But if they're a true growth leader, they'll probably be excited to answer the challenge problem, you know, and I think if someone doesn't want to do that, that's potentially a red flag.

AI assessment note: “don't be afraid to ask people to do some work. Sometimes you might need to get them excited”

Q If we're looking at signs and signals that, like, highlight the best of the best, what would you say are the signs and signals and tests that you would do in those early stages to discover that talent?

A So I think the first thing I would look for in any growth leader, it has to be someone who has both the art and the science. So by that, I mean, they're very analytical, but they're also very creative. I think growth is something where you just, you have to Be able to combine those two things. And especially in the leader of the growth team, it has to be someone who can kind of use both sides of the brain to do that. Of course, as they build out their team, there may be people on the team that are more creative or more analytical, but I think the leader should really be strong in both of those areas. So at a high level, that's one of the first things I'd look for. In order to figure out, does this person have, have that art and science kind of combination? I think one of the questions I like to ask is to have them tell me about Some of the growth experiments they've done in the past that have either worked or that haven't worked. Sometimes I'll say, tell me about an AB test you did that surprised you, that was an even bigger needle mover than you thought it would be. Or on the flip side, tell me about an AB test you've run that you thought was going to be a huge needle mover, but it actually didn't move the needle. To just have them talk about some of the growth experiments they've done in the past can be one good way to just understand what Okay. What have they actually done? …

AI assessment note: “have them tell me about Some of the growth experiments they've done in the past”

Q do I need to have a very clearly defined package of what I'm trying to hire you at Or do I, am I able to say, I don't actually know what this North Star metric is. I don't actually know how we're going to structure growth within the organization, but that's what I'm hiring you for. Or does it need to be more packaged like a traditional role might be?

A I think the more senior the leader is that you're recruiting, the less defined the role needs to be. So if you're bringing someone in and saying, look, I need you to, to basically figure out growth, come in here, you figure out our North Star metrics. You figure out how to structure the team. You know, if you've hired someone who has the experience to do that, that's great, and a lot of the more experienced people want to be able to come up with that. They don't want to be told, here's how you need to structure your team, and here's the metric you need to grow. You know, maybe someone who doesn't have as much experience would like that guidance, but I think the more experienced leaders, they want to do that on their own. I think, as I mentioned to you, first week I was at Uber, it was all about, let's figure out what our North Star metric And I was glad I was able to figure that out with my team rather than being told this is what it is. So I think it's perfectly okay not to have all those answers before you hire that growth leader. You just need to make sure you hire. That's why we talked about path one and path two. If you go down path two, just make sure you hire someone who does have that experience so that you can trust them to know the right way to do this stuff.

AI assessment note: “I think the more senior the leader is that you're recruiting, the less defined the role needs to be.”

Q I mean, it's so interesting you say that in terms of that communication pathway, because that was going to be a big one for me, which What does the optimal relationship look like between the CEO and this head of growth? Maybe when you think back to yours with Travis or others, Paul, what is that optimal relationship?

A I think it's important for the CEO to have one-on-ones with all of his or her direct reports frequently, at least weekly. So I think growth is largely about removing barriers. That relationship with the CEO should largely be about the CEO removing barriers for his or her direct reports. So that's how I often thought about my relationship with Travis at Uber, for example, was I would come to him when there were problems I needed his help solving, but if it was a problem I could solve on my own, then I would solve it on my own. So I basically come to him when I needed his help. He also tended to get in the weeds more than other CEOs I've worked with, which in the early days was, was awesome. I'd say as, as we got bigger, there were so many things, the company got so big. I think it wasn't as scalable for him to be getting in the weeds on everything everyone was working on at the The company is like no human being can do that when you have a thousand person or 10,000 person company. But Travis did have the ability to really go deep into the weeds on any given thing. And so we would have growth team meetings with him every Friday morning. We'd usually pull all nighters every Thursday night, preparing for our meeting with him on Friday morning. And for the longest time, the entire growth team was invited to that meeting. I remember talking with Travis early on saying, I'm trying to …

AI assessment note: “That relationship with the CEO should largely be about the CEO removing barriers”

Q board with all the traditional elements. Me and you have a, like, check-in at the end of the month. What should I, as a CEO, expect or be really happy about that you've stabilized the foundations on, you've gained knowledge on in the first month? When you think back to your times with, say, Uber, what did you want to achieve in that first month and really understand with clarity?

A Let's figure out what our North Star metric is, where are we today, and where do we want to be in the future? One of the first things that needs to happen for any growth leader is to just figure out what is the goal? Once you figure out, okay, this is our goal, then the next step is what are some of the things we're going to do to get there? So within that first month, you probably haven't yet found a needle mover. Maybe you have, if you've been lucky, but usually things take a bit longer than that, but to at least have a plan in terms of, okay, this is our North star metric. This is where we are today. This is where we want to be by the end of the year, or maybe you don't even have by the end of the year. This is where we want to be within the next six months and then say, and here are some of the bigger swings we want to take to try to Find step changes to get there. And then I'd say the next step from there is saying, and here's what I need from you, the CEO, to help me get there. I'd say it's almost a red flag if the person you've just hired is not asking you for help as founder or CEO. You want someone who's going to come in and say, all right, I figured out where I want to be and how I'm going to get there, but here are the things I need from you to help me get there.

AI assessment note: “within that first month... to at least have a plan in terms of, okay, this”

Q subsidies, you can discount rides, and it will obviously increase demand. The trouble with hype subsidies is the supplier has no control over the subsidy. They can't remove it, they can't increase it. Hype, once started, is A rule under itself. Clubhouse is a great example of this. How do you think about that and the control on the economic subsidy versus the lack of control on the hype subsidy?

A I hadn't really thought much about this hype subsidy, but I think that's a great point, is it something you can't control? I don't think that means you shouldn't ride that wave if you can get it, but I think of it the same way I think of organic growth, which is just kind of, I mean, they're similar things, hype or just word of mouth organic growth. It's not something that you can measure, but I look at it as, as icing on the cake. It's still a great thing to have, but I like to focus on the things I can measure. You know, when I'm calculating the K factor, for example, I'm not calculating how many people are telling their friends about it in person, but again, that's icing on the cake that just makes things grow even faster. So I measure the things I can measure. I still try to get that, you know, up to that magic point of going above one to get that Exponential tipping point. But what I find is if you also have the hype and the word of mouth stuff, you might actually hit that tipping point before your calculated K factor even gets to one. You know, your calculated K factor might be at .8 or even .5, but the hype and word of mouth actually gets you over that tipping point sooner.

AI assessment note: “It's still a great thing to have, but I like to focus on the things I can measure.”

Q If we're looking at signs and signals that, like, highlight the best of the best, what would you say are the signs and signals and tests that you would do in those early stages to discover that talent?

A So I think the first thing I would look for in any growth leader, it has to be someone who has both the art and the science. So by that, I mean, they're very analytical, but they're also very creative. I think growth is something where you just, you have to Be able to combine those two things. And especially in the leader of the growth team, it has to be someone who can kind of use both sides of the brain to do that. Of course, as they build out their team, there may be people on the team that are more creative or more analytical, but I think the leader should really be strong in both of those areas. So at a high level, that's one of the first things I'd look for. In order to figure out, does this person have, have that art and science kind of combination? I think one of the questions I like to ask is to have them tell me about Some of the growth experiments they've done in the past that have either worked or that haven't worked. Sometimes I'll say, tell me about an AB test you did that surprised you, that was an even bigger needle mover than you thought it would be. Or on the flip side, tell me about an AB test you've run that you thought was going to be a huge needle mover, but it actually didn't move the needle. To just have them talk about some of the growth experiments they've done in the past can be one good way to just understand what Okay. What have they actually done? …

AI assessment note: “one of the questions I like to ask is to have them tell me about”

Q Do you think that intensity that he brought made you, and that granular involvement that he brought that maybe other CEOs don't, did that make you better as a growth team, or the same, or worse?

A I think it made us better, you know, because he was so passionate about it, That rubbed off on everyone else, myself who did. And he cared so much. I think it made everyone else care even more. People saw the things they had worked on that past week. We'd present something to him on that Friday, and he'd dig in and be talking to the person who had worked on that, and just, he didn't care, like, is this someone who just joined the company last week that was their first job out of college? Like, he would just, like, engage with them and get into the weeds with them, and that was awesome. And I think it just made people see the work I'm doing It really matters. I think that's a great way for a CEO to be. Like I said, as the company gets bigger, I think it's not possible to do that once a company gets too big, unfortunately, but I think for smaller companies, that's the way it should be.

AI assessment note: “I think it made us better, you know, because he was so passionate about it”

Q board with all the traditional elements, me and you have a, like, check-in at the end of the month, what should I, as a CEO, expect or be really happy about that you've stabilized the foundations on, you've gained knowledge on in the first month? When you think back to your times with, say, Uber, what did you want to achieve in that first month and really understand with clarity?

A Let's figure out what our North Star metric is, where are we today, and where do we want to be in the future? One of the first things that needs to happen, or any growth leader, is to just figure out, what is the goal? Once you figure out, okay, this is our goal, then the next step is, what are some of the things we're going to do to get there? So within that first month, you probably haven't yet found a needle move, or maybe you have, if you've been lucky, but usually things take a bit longer than that, but to at least have a plan in terms of, okay, this is our North Star metric, this is where we are today, this is where we want to be by the end of the year, or maybe you don't even have by the end of the year, this is where we want to be within the next Six months. And then say, and here are some of the bigger swings we want to take to try to find step changes to get there. And then I'd say the next step from there is say, and here's what I need from you, the CEO, to help me get there. I'd say it's almost a red flag if the person you've just hired is not asking you for help as founder or CEO. You want someone who's going to come in and say, all right, I figured out where I want to be and how I'm going to get there, but here are the things I need from you to help me get there.

AI assessment note: “within that first month, you probably haven't yet found a needle move”

Q subsidies, you can discount rides, and it will obviously increase demand. The trouble with hype subsidies is the supplier has no control over the subsidy. They can't remove it, they can't increase it. Hype, once started, is A rule under itself. Clubhouse is a great example of this. How do you think about that and the control on the economic subsidy versus the lack of control on the hype subsidy?

A I hadn't really thought much about this hype subsidy, but I think that's a great point, is it something you can't control? I don't think that means you shouldn't ride that wave if you can get it, but I think of it the same way I think of organic growth, which is just kind of, I mean, they're similar things, hype or just word of mouth organic growth. It's not something that you can measure, but I look at it as, as icing on the cake. It's still a great thing to have, but I like to focus on the things I can measure. You know, when I'm calculating the K factor, for example, I'm not calculating how many people are telling their friends about it in person, but again, that's icing on the cake that just makes things grow even faster. So I measure the things I can measure. I still try to get that, you know, up to that magic point of going above one to get that Exponential tipping point. But what I find is if you also have the hype and the word of mouth stuff, you might actually hit that tipping point before your calculated K factor even gets to one. You know, your calculated K factor might be at .8 or even .5, but the hype and word of mouth actually gets you over that tipping point sooner.

AI assessment note: “I think of it the same way I think of organic growth”

Q I do have to ask, because you mentioned about helping others become growth leaders. You know, obviously now you invest in companies, and I heard just the best things from, you know, Will at Whoop in particular. When you think about investing today, how's investing changed your mindset to growth and your attitude to growth?

A So when I look for companies to invest in, actually use a lot of the things I've learned from growth to pick companies I want to invest in. And by that, I mean, one of the first things I look for is, does this company have product market fit? We talked about that at the beginning of this podcast. I think that's one of the most important questions to ask. And if the answer is yes, that's much more important to me than is this company already growing really fast? And maybe part of that's that I feel like, well, I can maybe help them with the growth part. If they have product market fit, then, you know, the growth will come more easily, but I'd say that that's one thing I look at when I invest in companies.

AI assessment note: “actually use a lot of the things I've learned from growth to pick companies”