The Exchanges

Q Well, I so appreciate that, but I was obviously, you know, doing my work before the show on you, and the thing I wanted to start on is, how did you make your first foray into the world of startups? What was that entry point?

A I, I wrote my final paper at, um, university with, with, uh, uh, a professor who founded the, the first commercial CD-ROM company in Europe. So he, he had seen in the US a product called Disclosure, which was, um, Uh, a, a business database for, for US companies, and the CD-ROM at the time was revolutionary, because, you know, you couldn't store, uh, that much data on a floppy disk, right? It was, it was a huge revolution, and so he built that company, which, and he bootstrapped it, and it became incredibly successful. It's a company that was called Bure Van Dyck, uh, which was sold to Moody's for, uh, more than three billion euros a few years ago, and so he hired me, Uh, because he thought, you know, I, I sounded like a good sales guy. And then he sent me, you know, cold calling all over the, the world on banks to try to sell them the, the software and the data. And so I went to, I started with Northern Europe. I went to Russia and Eastern Europe in 91. I went to South America, you know, Columbia during the, the narco wars. I, I went all over the world for, for four years. With CD-ROMs as well. With CD-ROMs. And I had, And so I would leave the CD on trial, so I had to, um, I was carrying CD-ROM readers. I would open the computers. At the time, they were AT or XT computers. I would install a card inside the computer. I had a vacuum cleaner with me because these were all compute…

AI assessment note: “he hired me, Uh, because he thought, you know, I, I sounded like a good sales guy.”

Q it's so hard for me to ask questions like this next one, but I have to. It's just like eight years at King is such an incredible time at such an incredible company. If you think about one or two of the most non-obvious lessons from that time, what do you think one or two of the most non-obvious lessons from that time are that really impacted how you think?

A I mean, the first one is, um, Trust the data, not your intuition. Uh, you know, King was always pretty data driven, but it, it, it's, it was an incredibly data rich environment. I mean, the beauty of free to play on Facebook and later on mobile is that it provides you, you know, faster and, uh, and a higher quantity of data than almost any, any other business. And very often we had product intuition in terms of features or whatever, where, you know, the team would think, okay, this is what we need to change or, uh, And, and the data would give you a completely different answer. And I think it's very, I mean, it's been a great lesson in humility for, for product people. You have to be ready to be wrong. You have to, you know, you know, read carefully the data and, and act upon it. I think that's one thing that's really important. And, and the other, uh, insight is, you know, the, the Swedish model, uh, which of, of, uh, I would say labor relations Is, is fantastic. I mean, it's incre-, you build incredibly resilient companies. So it's, it's a bit of a shock when you get there because you have, um, you know, these very generous, you know, parental leave policies where both parents can leave for six months, and you have, anybody can take a sabbatical at any time for, you know, another three months, and then they all, um, take their holidays at the same time for five or six weeks. …

AI assessment note: “the first one is, um, Trust the data, not your intuition.”

Q Can I ask, when you think about the decisions you've made, what do you think is one of the biggest decisions you've made that changed the way that you think about decision making?

A One of the things, uh, we, we had at King was we had, um, Uh, we required unanimity for recruitment. We put in place, again, you know, a, a, a well-documented, uh, recruitment process where you need, we wanted six interviews, um, you, you needed a cross-functional interviewer, an executive sponsor, and unanimity. Um, and, um, and after, you know, a lot of lobbying, after, you know, five or six years, because we were not meeting our recruitment targets, Uh, you know, I agreed to soften the, the criterion, and that if one of the interviewers was neutral, we could still proceed with the hire. And then what happened is, um, actually when, when one of the interviewers was negative, you know, the other five would lobby him to change his rating and, and to go to neutral, and, and they could proceed with the hire, and, and we made a number of wrong hires. And, you know, there is nothing more important when you scale than recruitment, um, and because, and, and cultural fit, and if you, uh, there is no doubt, I think one of your guests said, I think that's Frank Slotman, I completely agree with him, there's much more downside making the wrong hire, uh, than not bringing in the right person, because, you know, that person, if you scale fast, will be recruiting himself within a few weeks, And, and then you will, you know, create pockets of people who are not culturally aligned with your or…

AI assessment note: “I agreed to soften the, the criterion, and that if one of the interviewers was neutral”

Q You mentioned you're in public there and you have done many times. I spoke to JC at Alain before the show and he said, Um, Steph, the question of how do you advise founders on when to sell?

A I would never advise a founder on, on when to sell. I think, you know, it's, it's a decision to be made by the founder. And if he asks my opinion, then I will tell him what I think. Uh, most of the large majority will come to the right decision themselves. There are some instances where it's not the case and, and, and then, you know, you want to give a little nudge. I mean, it's, it's obviously a very relevant question for King. You know, we, We sold at a very low multiple. Uh, we sold a company at, you know, 5.9, or it's all about six billion dollars with, uh, and there was 1.3 billion of cash on the balance sheet when we sold. So the effective multiple was, you know, five or six times EBITDA. Um, and today, you know, the, the, the, the effective multiple on King inside Exigen is probably, you know, 15 or 18 times EBITDA. So it was a huge value arbitrage. But at the same time, it was the right thing to sell at that time, because we had had institutional investors who had been in the company for more than 10 years, that, you know, we, we, we, it was important to generate liquidity for them, um, and, you know, we, we couldn't do it through the stock market.

AI assessment note: “I would never advise a founder on, on when to sell.”

Q it's so hard for me to ask questions like this next one, but I have to. It's just like eight years at King is such an incredible time at such an incredible company. If you think about one or two of the most non-obvious lessons from that time, what do you think one or two of the most non-obvious lessons from that time are that really impacted how you think?

A I mean, the first one is, um, Trust the data, not your intuition. Uh, you know, King was always pretty data driven, but it, it, it's, it was an incredibly data rich environment. I mean, the beauty of free to play on Facebook and later on mobile is that it provides you, you know, faster and, uh, and a higher quantity of data than almost any, any other business. And very often we had product intuition in terms of features or whatever, where, you know, the team would think, okay, this is what we need to change or, uh, And, and the data would give you a completely different answer. And I think it's very, I mean, it's been a great lesson in humility for, for product people. You have to be ready to be wrong. You have to, you know, you know, read carefully the data and, and act upon it. I think that's one thing that's really important. And, and the other, uh, insight is, you know, the, the Swedish model, uh, which of, of, uh, I would say labor relations Is, is fantastic. I mean, it's incre-, you build incredibly resilient companies. So it's, it's a bit of a shock when you get there because you have, um, you know, these very generous, you know, parental leave policies where both parents can leave for six months, and you have, anybody can take a sabbatical at any time for, you know, another three months, and then they all, um, take their holidays at the same time for five or six weeks. …

AI assessment note: “I mean, the first one is, um, Trust the data, not your intuition.”

Q You mentioned you're in public there and you have done many times. I spoke to JC at Alain before the show and he said, Um, Steph, the question of how do you advise founders on when to sell?

A I would never advise a founder on, on when to sell. I think, you know, it's, it's a decision to be made by the founder. And if he asks my opinion, then I will tell him what I think. Uh, most of the large majority will come to the right decision themselves. There are some instances where it's not the case and, and, and then, you know, you want to give a little nudge. I mean, it's, it's obviously a very relevant question for King. You know, we, We sold at a very low multiple. Uh, we sold a company at, you know, 5.9, or it's all about six billion dollars with, uh, and there was 1.3 billion of cash on the balance sheet when we sold. So the effective multiple was, you know, five or six times EBITDA. Um, and today, you know, the, the, the, the effective multiple on King inside Exigen is probably, you know, 15 or 18 times EBITDA. So it was a huge value arbitrage. But at the same time, it was the right thing to sell at that time, because we had had institutional investors who had been in the company for more than 10 years, that, you know, we, we, we, it was important to generate liquidity for them, um, and, you know, we, we couldn't do it through the stock market.

AI assessment note: “I would never advise a founder on, on when to sell.”

Q the making of Europe's greatest exec, because I spoke to Fred before, and he actually changed that statement to one of the most effective execs in the world. He said, Europe's not enough. Um, and so I said, great, okay. Um, and I wanted to start with high performance. Let me think about building machines and models. When I say the words high performance to you, what does that mean?

A Talking about Leaders. Um, you know, I, I use the way, um, I, you know, evaluate, you know, the performance of the leadership team is I look across four dimensions. You know, the first one is the, the, the, the operating or the financial performance of their function. So, you know, have they beaten their numbers essentially? The second one is organizational maturity. So have they, Build a great team. So, you know, are, you know, do they, do they have, uh, you know, strong people in, in all the key functions, and, and are they challenging them? Have they built, you know, great processes? Do they have great succession in place? The third dimension is, you know, to what extent do they contribute to the corporate agenda? You know, because if you're a leader, you have two hats, right? You have your functional or your operational hat, and you have a second hat, which, which is the collective hat of the collective leadership team. And then the last one is, is, you know, the, the, the, uh, where they stand on, on the leadership journey and the, and, and, and personal. And so are they a role model? Are they a thought leader? Uh, are they, are they being sought after by other people in the organization? Um, are they, how are they, you know, uh, developing themselves? And, and so I, I look across these four dimensions, um, to, to assess, Leadership performance.

AI assessment note: “I look across these four dimensions, um, to, to assess, Leadership performance.”

Q Speaking of people being proud to work with King, you mentioned also kind of the Swedish culture there. Do you think you can, You use that culture in other countries. Like, do you think it carries over? Or do you think it's only the magic source of Sweden, the Swedish people?

A I see no reason why you can, you cannot bring over. I mean, um, it's, it's not only the culture, it's just the model of labor relations. To a large extent, they take the drama out of it. And, uh, and I mean, they, they make beautiful products, you know, in that, there are so many, Exceptional Swedish companies. They're a bit like the Japanese. They, they have that incredible sense of design. They're highly cooperative and, uh, and they, they just design a, a, a working system which basically lets them live, you know, pretty normal lives and have families and take good care of their families and themselves, right? And I think that's, that's a model for, you know, the rest of us.

AI assessment note: “I see no reason why you can, you cannot bring over.”

Q We're going to discuss kind of building efficient systems, but my mother's favorite question in a show Is actually the question of, if we're all a function of our histories and our past, and we all are shaped by our parents in some ways, what do you think you're running from, Steph?

A That's a very good question. Well, for a long time I was running away from them, from probably from my father. I had a very difficult relationship with him. Uh, you know, I left home, uh, before I finished school. Um, and, um, yeah, and so, you know, I think I, I, uh, I, I never had somehow, you know, his approval, or I never had, you know, recognition from him, and, and, and, and so I basically, I left that behind, and, and went to build a career and a life somewhere else, which is, you know, the UK much later, right? You know, I, I have three kids, uh, who are fantastic, and then we, there was, um, Uh, there was basically a speech at school by, you know, a very famous, uh, child psychologist called, uh, uh, Stephen Biddles, and what he was saying is, if you don't have a good relationship with your dad, how can you expect to have a good relationship with your sons? And what you need to do is, basically, if you want to, uh, fix that, is to go and sit down with your dad and, and, and make peace with him. I hadn't been at war with him or whatever, but You know, I hadn't had that conversation, and so I went to sit down with my dad, probably 15 years ago, and that's the, the hardest thing I've done, I wouldn't say in my life, but close, right? And basically I took him to lunch, and we, we had a proper chat, and it's changed a lot of things.

AI assessment note: “for a long time I was running away from them, from probably from my father.”

Q How do you analyze your decision making framework today? People have different frameworks. You know, Jeff Bezos has a regret minimization and one way and two way door. How do you think about your own decision making framework today?

A Look at the data, consult widely. When you make a decision, If you have to syndicate it, syndicate it. Make it, and when you make a decision, stick with it. What is incredibly toxic in organizations, and I've seen that many times, is you, you, you make a decision, and then, um, you come back on it the next week, and then the following week, and, and, you know, basically drives paralysis in your organization. Go through due process, and if it takes time, take the time, but once you make it, stick with it. I think that's very important, and then I have a bias for execution. Once a decision is made, execute it immediately. The faster the better.

AI assessment note: “Look at the data, consult widely. When you make a decision, If you have to syndicate it”

Q And Steph, how do you give feedback? You know, data leads feedback and data leads that discussion. How do you give effective feedback as a leader today? And what have been some big lessons for you in how to do it right and how not to do it?

A There's, there's an ample body of literature on this, but always start with the good stuff, uh, you know, positive feedback to start with, uh, and then there are always a couple of items that can be developed, uh, further, and for those you have to be very specific, uh, and have an example ready. Uh, so, so if you say, well, you know, I think you could do this differently, or you can improve this, And let me give you an example of what you've done, and, and here's how you could have done it differently. If you don't have that second part, feedback is useless, because they cannot action it. And, and it's very, and it's actually very toxic, right? It creates a negative loop. If there's an issue, make sure, you know, you are prepared, and, and you, you have that example, and you have a way to improve it that you can share before you give that feedback.

AI assessment note: “always start with the good stuff, uh, you know, positive feedback to start with”

Q What do you think that you work with many founders obviously today, and when you see communication break down, what's the commonalities in the mistakes that they make around communication?

A I mean, they're not mistakes. Some, for some of them, it takes time to find the right balance. Either they over-communicate, so they will share, you know, probably too much data and, and operational data with, with investors and board members with good intentions, because that, they, because they might believe that that's what we expect, or they might believe we will help with, you know, some, some of that operational detail. Some other founders, you know, want to keep board and boards and investors, um, at, at a distance, and sometimes there's information, information retention that goes beyond, uh, what makes an investor, uh, and a board member effective, and then you need to sit down and have a pretty direct conversation that it's, that's not the deal, right? I mean, when you invest in a company, it's, it's a marriage, you know, it's gonna last, if it's early stage, it's gonna last for a very long time, And you need some level of transparency. If that transparency isn't there, you know, we're not going to be effective, and, and, um, we were probably not the right investor for, for that founder.

AI assessment note: “Either they over-communicate, so they will share, you know, probably too much data”

Q Yeah. I think kind of one way to scale culture is also by having diverse teams. And before we move into the myth of Sisyphus, which I'm terrified about how to do that well. Um, but tell me, what are the biggest lessons on building diverse teams and the myth of Sisyphus?

A Okay. I mean, it's the, the, it's the challenge of our generation. You know, it's obvious that Diverse teams, you know, over time, it's performed better. It's not only the right thing to do, it's, it's, it's a, it's a much better thing to do, you know, by the shareholders and by the employees and by all stakeholders. It's very hard, um, because especially in technology companies, you know, the, the recruitment, the recruiting pool, for example, for engineers and, and, you know, and all STEM subjects is not equal from a, from a gender standpoint. Uh, and here I'm talking about, you know, gender diversity as opposed to, you know, other types of diversity. What I was referring to is the, the myth of Sisyphus. So Sisyphus is this guy, it's, who keeps, uh, you know, pushing a rock up a hill, and then, and then the rock keeps falling, and he has to start again from the bottom of the hill and, and, and push it up again and again and again. So if you look at making your leadership team more diverse, from a gen, gender diversity standpoint, you can bring, um, external hires, and there are very few of them, So, you know, a good rule is one-third external, two-thirds internal, and then you develop, um, your female employees, and you, you, you really over-invest to develop them into managers and to leaders, and, and you have a, a, a set of, of programs around that just to make sure that we…

AI assessment note: “once you promote them to an executive level, be it VP or CXO, you lose them”

Q said that, you know, mission statements are largely bullshit. And he mentioned, you know, Facebook, which is obviously kind of tools for communities, and it's a very kind of long-winded and superfluous mission statement. And he basically said, you know, which Facebook employee is, is really kind of, uh, empowered by that. Statement. And actually they're largely corporate BS. Do you think mission statements have their place and are good?

A Again, if you, if you scale to a large company and it becomes a public company and you have multiple business units, it can get really difficult to put together a crisp mission statement. When you're early stage, it should be pretty straightforward to know what you stand for. And, and actually I think if you can't articulate a mission statement as a founder, Uh, when you're at seed or series A stage, I, I have a question mark about whether you know, you know, where you're going and, and, and what, what value you, you're gonna be delivering to, to your, your, your clients. I think the, the early mission statement at King was, you know, it was about bringing moments of magic, and I think that's exactly what we were doing. We were bringing moments of magic. It was pretty straightforward. Uh, that was our raison d'être. That was, you know, um, over time, It gets better.

AI assessment note: “When you're early stage, it should be pretty straightforward to know what you stand for.”

Q What do you think that you work with many founders obviously today, and when you see communication break down, what's the commonalities in the mistakes that they make around communication?

A I mean, they're not mistakes. Some, for some of them, it takes time to find the right balance. Either they over-communicate, so they will share, you know, probably too much data and, and operational data with, with investors and board members with good intentions, because that, they, because they might believe that that's what we expect, or they might believe we will help with, you know, some, some of that operational detail. Some other founders, you know, want to keep board and boards and investors, um, at, at a distance, and sometimes there's information, information retention that goes beyond, uh, what makes an investor, uh, and a board member effective, and then you need to sit down and have a pretty direct conversation that it's, that's not the deal, right? I mean, when you invest in a company, it's, it's a marriage, you know, it's gonna last, if it's early stage, it's gonna last for a very long time, And you need some level of transparency. If that transparency isn't there, you know, we're not going to be effective, and, and, um, we were probably not the right investor for, for that founder.

AI assessment note: “Either they over-communicate... Some other founders, you know, want to keep board and boards and investors”

Q the making of Europe's greatest exec, because I spoke to Fred before, and he actually changed that statement to one of the most effective execs in the world. He said, Europe's not enough. Um, and so I said, great, okay. Um, and I wanted to start with high performance. Let me think about building machines and models. When I say the words high performance to you, what does that mean?

A Talking about Leaders. Um, you know, I, I use the way, um, I, you know, evaluate, you know, the performance of the leadership team is I look across four dimensions. You know, the first one is the, the, the, the operating or the financial performance of their function. So, you know, have they beaten their numbers essentially? The second one is organizational maturity. So have they, Build a great team. So, you know, are, you know, do they, do they have, uh, you know, strong people in, in all the key functions, and, and are they challenging them? Have they built, you know, great processes? Do they have great succession in place? The third dimension is, you know, to what extent do they contribute to the corporate agenda? You know, because if you're a leader, you have two hats, right? You have your functional or your operational hat, and you have a second hat, which, which is the collective hat of the collective leadership team. And then the last one is, is, you know, the, the, the, uh, where they stand on, on the leadership journey and the, and, and, and personal. And so are they a role model? Are they a thought leader? Uh, are they, are they being sought after by other people in the organization? Um, are they, how are they, you know, uh, developing themselves? And, and so I, I look across these four dimensions, um, to, to assess, Leadership performance.

AI assessment note: “I look across four dimensions. You know, the first one is the, the, the, the operating”

Q impact on, you know, being a most effective exec and the kind of operator that you can be. When you think about kind of one or two lessons, and this is from Fred, but one or two lessons or secrets in being the most effective and efficient exec, what would you say those are if you were to summarize what has been, you know, now a 15 or so career?

A I think you need to do the work. Um, I think you are the service of your team. And that means that you, the, um, that you should not be a consumer of their time, but you, you should be a multiplier of their time and their effort. That means that, you know, before you meet with them, um, you know, if there is material, you read the material. Uh, if you have questions, you send them the questions and you come prepared to the meeting and, and you focus on the couple of issues that, that really matter. And if you apply that discipline to yourself, you will drive it down through the organization, and you will have a more, a much more effective and efficient organization. So it's, it's role modeling.

AI assessment note: “you should not be a consumer of their time, but you, you should be a multiplier”

Q some kind of tips and pointers as to where we should take discussion. There were many which were kind of, um, teasers where I didn't really know where to go with them. Luckily, the first one I did, because you said 90% of scaling organizations is communication and decision making. If we break this down, what did you mean by this and how does that realization change how you lead?

A When you, you, you run a survey inside a company and you ask the company, You know, is, is communication good? And do you, are you happy with the level of communication? The answer is always no. And, and it gets worse as you scale, right? So there is never enough communication, uh, in a company. And if you aspire to be a leader, uh, and it's even true in the public markets, you have to be ready to repeat yourself a lot. Um, and that's good. It's perfectly okay. Uh, but that means you really need to design The organization, um, in a way where you're gonna have very, uh, thorough communication, both vertically and horizontally. So vertically, you, I think you, you, you want to, you know, communicate with your direct team, and then tell them that they have to cascade it all the way down. So they will, they have to communicate with their teams, and then the teams below, and they, they should communicate everything. Unless you tell them this, you can't share. They should push down every little bit of information to the very bottom of the company because that's how you drive engagement and trust.

AI assessment note: “you have to be ready to repeat yourself a lot... design The organization”

Q What are the biggest ways that communication breaks down? What are the most striking?

A It's when trust breaks down. Because, you know, horizontal communication is also very important. So when you, you, you get your stuff together, It, it, it's all about sharing information or sharing challenges and also, you know, getting feedback from the rest of the team in, in, that might help you in, in solving your challenges. And you can only do that in a trusted environment. And so when, you know, at some point, um, as you scale, you know, politics, uh, starts to enter the organization where, you know, you might have leaders who do not have the right fit or who might have been imposed or, Whatever, suddenly you lose the congenial nature of the meeting and the discussion around the table, and you have a communication breakdown.

AI assessment note: “It's when trust breaks down.”

Q Can you help me with that? Cause I always think when someone does something and you're providing feedback and communicating that to them, it's Best done in real time. You know, Steph just did this. Let's discuss it now. And as he said, sometimes things need a little bit more thought.

A You can be very spontaneous with praise. Uh, you, you want to be, you know, very systematic with it. When you see something that's great, you absolutely have to call it. But at the same time, you want to be sparse because otherwise it loses quite a bit of its value. Uh, and, and employees will, you know, everybody will know that if you are sparse with your praise, When you get it, they will value it immensely. I think for, you know, more challenging feedback, you need to pick your time and, and you need, but, you know, it's also highly valued. If you have the right team members, you just need to, um, box it in a way where you say, hey, by the way, you know, maybe you could have done this differently. You could have, and, and give an example and say, but, you know, no problem and move on. And, you know, you'll, you will deliver that within, you know, two minutes or three minutes, not make a beef out of it, move on. And, and it's, Highly valued by, by the team.

AI assessment note: “for, you know, more challenging feedback, you need to pick your time”

Q And Steph, how do you give feedback? You know, data leads feedback and data leads that discussion. How do you give effective feedback as a leader today? And what have been some big lessons for you in how to do it right and how not to do it?

A There's, there's an ample body of literature on this, but always start with the good stuff, uh, you know, positive feedback to start with, uh, and then there are always a couple of items that can be developed, uh, further, and for those you have to be very specific, uh, and have an example ready. Uh, so, so if you say, well, you know, I think you could do this differently, or you can improve this, And let me give you an example of what you've done, and, and here's how you could have done it differently. If you don't have that second part, feedback is useless, because they cannot action it. And, and it's very, and it's actually very toxic, right? It creates a negative loop. If there's an issue, make sure, you know, you are prepared, and, and you, you have that example, and you have a way to improve it that you can share before you give that feedback.

AI assessment note: “always start with the good stuff, uh, you know, positive feedback to start with”

Q Ok, let's just do that, stick with it. What if it's potentially wrong?

A Of course you will have exceptions, right? But the, uh, if you've, if you followed, you know, due process, and, uh, and you looked at the data, and you consulted widely, probably 95% of your decisions will be, you know, the decisions you should have made, and if indeed there are new facts, uh, uh, you know, that, that come to light, And you change your mind, that's okay. Uh, you know, that's something you can do, but you need new facts, right? When, when facts change, I change my mind. If there are no new facts, and you change your mind on a whim, you know, then, and, you know, that kind of behavior will cascade down the organization, and you will paralyze it. You can do that.

AI assessment note: “if indeed there are new facts, and you change your mind, that's okay”

Q Can I ask, when you think about the decisions you've made, what do you think is one of the biggest decisions you've made that changed the way that you think about decision making?

A One of the things, uh, we, we had at King was we had, um, Uh, we required unanimity for recruitment. We put in place, again, you know, a, a, a well-documented, uh, recruitment process where you need, we wanted six interviews, um, you, you needed a cross-functional interviewer, an executive sponsor, and unanimity. Um, and, um, and after, you know, a lot of lobbying, after, you know, five or six years, because we were not meeting our recruitment targets, Uh, you know, I agreed to soften the, the criterion, and that if one of the interviewers was neutral, we could still proceed with the hire. And then what happened is, um, actually when, when one of the interviewers was negative, you know, the other five would lobby him to change his rating and, and to go to neutral, and, and they could proceed with the hire, and, and we made a number of wrong hires. And, you know, there is nothing more important when you scale than recruitment, um, and because, and, and cultural fit, and if you, uh, there is no doubt, I think one of your guests said, I think that's Frank Slotman, I completely agree with him, there's much more downside making the wrong hire, uh, than not bringing in the right person, because, you know, that person, if you scale fast, will be recruiting himself within a few weeks, And, and then you will, you know, create pockets of people who are not culturally aligned with your or…

AI assessment note: “I agreed to soften the, the criterion... and we made a number of wrong hires.”

Q said that, you know, mission statements are largely bullshit. And he mentioned, you know, Facebook, which is obviously kind of tools for communities, and it's a very kind of long-winded and superfluous mission statement. And he basically said, you know, which Facebook employee is, is really kind of, uh, empowered by that. Statement. And actually they're largely corporate BS. Do you think mission statements have their place and are good?

A Again, if you, if you scale to a large company and it becomes a public company and you have multiple business units, it can get really difficult to put together a crisp mission statement. When you're early stage, it should be pretty straightforward to know what you stand for. And, and actually I think if you can't articulate a mission statement as a founder, Uh, when you're at seed or series A stage, I, I have a question mark about whether you know, you know, where you're going and, and, and what, what value you, you're gonna be delivering to, to your, your, your clients. I think the, the early mission statement at King was, you know, it was about bringing moments of magic, and I think that's exactly what we were doing. We were bringing moments of magic. It was pretty straightforward. Uh, that was our raison d'être. That was, you know, um, over time, It gets better.

AI assessment note: “When you're early stage, it should be pretty straightforward to know what you stand for.”

Q some kind of tips and pointers as to where we should take discussion. There were many which were kind of, um, teasers where I didn't really know where to go with them. Luckily, the first one I did, because you said 90% of scaling organizations is communication and decision making. If we break this down, what did you mean by this and how does that realization change how you lead?

A When you, you, you run a survey inside a company and you ask the company, You know, is, is communication good? And do you, are you happy with the level of communication? The answer is always no. And, and it gets worse as you scale, right? So there is never enough communication, uh, in a company. And if you aspire to be a leader, uh, and it's even true in the public markets, you have to be ready to repeat yourself a lot. Um, and that's good. It's perfectly okay. Uh, but that means you really need to design The organization, um, in a way where you're gonna have very, uh, thorough communication, both vertically and horizontally. So vertically, you, I think you, you, you want to, you know, communicate with your direct team, and then tell them that they have to cascade it all the way down. So they will, they have to communicate with their teams, and then the teams below, and they, they should communicate everything. Unless you tell them this, you can't share. They should push down every little bit of information to the very bottom of the company because that's how you drive engagement and trust.

AI assessment note: “you really need to design The organization, um, in a way where you're gonna have very, uh, thorough communication”

Q In terms of transparency, like, I honestly find that you can't ever be a hundred percent transparent. When you look at the model that you've seen work most effectively, how, how does that look on the stage? Is it like 50%, zero, a hundred percent?

A Really, the more transparent, the better. I mean, that company is the, the extreme example, and, and I think they, the, uh, it's, um, um, and there's a bunch of other things they're doing, which make it, you know, incredibly, uh, powerful. At King, we try to be as, you know, again, with that data point, we try to be as transparent as we could. With the scaling, when you have thousands of employees, it's really, really hard. You spend a lot of time, you know, communicating and trying to retain the, the, the trust and the culture, and so, you know, the, the leadership team We're spending a lot of time on planes when we had, you know, seven studios and a bunch of locations, and we would go around and, and walk and, and spend time with the teams, and, you know, whenever we would go, there would be a, a, a brought back lunch, and people could do Q&A, and so we were not in, in a room locked in meetings for the whole day. We, we, we tried to be really accessible and to try to have, you know, off-the-cuff conversations left and right, because that's how you retain trust, And engagement in, in, in the company. And, and the same is true of, you know, the data, you know, the more transparent you are, you are about the data and about the strategy, about what you do, the higher the engagement in your company.

AI assessment note: “Really, the more transparent, the better.”

Q Speaking of people being proud to work with King, you mentioned also kind of the Swedish culture there. Do you think you can, You use that culture in other countries. Like, do you think it carries over? Or do you think it's only the magic source of Sweden, the Swedish people?

A I see no reason why you can, you cannot bring over. I mean, um, it's, it's not only the culture, it's just the model of labor relations. To a large extent, they take the drama out of it. And, uh, and I mean, they, they make beautiful products, you know, in that, there are so many, Exceptional Swedish companies. They're a bit like the Japanese. They, they have that incredible sense of design. They're highly cooperative and, uh, and they, they just design a, a, a working system which basically lets them live, you know, pretty normal lives and have families and take good care of their families and themselves, right? And I think that's, that's a model for, you know, the rest of us.

AI assessment note: “I see no reason why you can, you cannot bring over.”

Q Can I ask, what do you think is a good value? I know it seems stupid, but I'm just thinking about kind of the, if I were to say values of my companies, I haven't set values, Steph. Maybe I should have done.

A No, no, look, the, the, I mean, values is the behaviors you would expect You know, the, the, the leadership and the, the employees to abide by when they, they are in, in the company environment. And, um, and so what, you know, what we used and actually, uh, uh, what I would be using if I had another company is we, we try to balance them. So for example, one of the values was supportive, but demanding, right? Because, you know, we were a hugely caring company. I mean, we, and, and so the, the, the founding team was fantastic and they, we had these shared values, uh, And, and, uh, you know, and all of us were really, you know, deeply caring about, uh, people and about the employees, and so we were very supportive, but also, um, you know, we, we wanted people to, to stay focused and, and, and, and to deliver, and, you know, we were basically running, you know, the, the biggest game in the world, and we, we, and, and we had the biggest network of players, and we had a responsibility towards these players, And so we were gonna be demanding with ourselves and with our employees to keep delivering, you know, outstanding entertainment to, to our player base.

AI assessment note: “one of the values was supportive, but demanding”

Q In terms of transparency, like, I honestly find that you can't ever be a hundred percent transparent. When you look at the model that you've seen work most effectively, how, how does that look on the stage? Is it like 50%, zero, a hundred percent?

A Really, the more transparent, the better. I mean, that company is the, the extreme example, and, and I think they, the, uh, it's, um, um, and there's a bunch of other things they're doing, which make it, you know, incredibly, uh, powerful. At King, we try to be as, you know, again, with that data point, we try to be as transparent as we could. With the scaling, when you have thousands of employees, it's really, really hard. You spend a lot of time, you know, communicating and trying to retain the, the, the trust and the culture, and so, you know, the, the leadership team We're spending a lot of time on planes when we had, you know, seven studios and a bunch of locations, and we would go around and, and walk and, and spend time with the teams, and, you know, whenever we would go, there would be a, a, a brought back lunch, and people could do Q&A, and so we were not in, in a room locked in meetings for the whole day. We, we, we tried to be really accessible and to try to have, you know, off-the-cuff conversations left and right, because that's how you retain trust, And engagement in, in, in the company. And, and the same is true of, you know, the data, you know, the more transparent you are, you are about the data and about the strategy, about what you do, the higher the engagement in your company.

AI assessment note: “Really, the more transparent, the better.”

Q I, I love something you said to me before, which is the uncomfortable power of almost radical transparency. What does the uncomfortable power of almost radical transparency mean?

A So I, I work with a fantastic company and two fantastic entrepreneurs, and they, they, one of their principles has been, um, to apply radical transparency to the, the way they have, um, you know, founded and they've built their company and, and they mean it. So everything It's totally transparent from every conversation at every level in the organization with everybody to compensation. Initially, you know, all the employees and the board members and the investors and the stakeholders would receive that weekly newsletter where everything was. Um, and, and it's incredibly powerful. So what works really well is, I mean, in terms of, for example, compensation discussions, which, you know, and negotiations we can That can take a lot of time and create a lot of tension. There's no room for negotiation, because it's all, you know, they have these companies, that grid, which is public, uh, and, you know, the, it, the, the whole system is completely transparent, and there's no room for negotiation, so it cuts, uh, these discussions short, uh, the company, you know, the employees, back to the trust point, they know pretty much everything, so the trust is extremely high, the engagement is extremely high, you, you don't need to spend, you know, much time Communicating beyond that, because all the information is already there, and so that makes the company extremely efficient in terms of sh…

AI assessment note: “I was uncomfortable a couple of times, uh, when, uh, you know, I think”